A new kind of grief

This is my sister and brother-in-law. My nephew is on the tractor and my nieces are the two girls 'inside' my own children. (My son is in yellow hugging his cousin and my daughter is on the other end, hugging her cousin.)

This is what my sister sent me in an email tonight:

"Well...I am starting to limit what I do and who I associate with outside of the witnesses....unfortunately that means, it also limits what I do with you and Mom. It is tearing me up inside...But Jehovah is important to me. I know that we have talked about this in the past..but I have been thinking about it a lot, for a long time. I originally thought that the purpose of not talking to disfellowshiped ones ( or ones that don't want anything to do with the witnesses-basically disfellowshiping themselves) was to help them come back; but now I understand differently. I want you to know that I LOVE you very much, and I am very sorry that I haven't actually talked about this to your face, in person. I will still talk to you about family type stuff..I just can't chat about nothing. I will be canceling my MSN messenger too.

I am forwarding this to Mom also, If you guys want to call me and talk about this...or say "good-bye" that is fine. But please don't try to talk me out of it. It hurts a lot as it is..."

I'm extremely pissed, hurt, angry and I ache for my children.  This is something that has actually been going back and forth for long years with my sister and me, and I can file it away under 'shitty things that have happened to me', but I am very sad for my kids who will not be allowed to visit, contact or get to know their cousins.  

It's wrong.  And she is wrong for doing this to us.  And it stinks.

And I miss her already.