Growing Up Amish (28 page)

It was one of the most idyllic periods of my life as an Amish person, outside of childhood. Settled and calm, I absorbed and lived each day. I enjoyed life and laughed again. Not the hard, desperate laughter of the past, but the true thing, laughter from the heart, deep and real. I still saw Sam regularly, and we hung out as much as possible. He beamed at the new me and checked now and then to make sure I was still doing okay in my newfound faith. I was.

Holed up in my bachelor home, with little social life, I buried myself in books. By then I had accumulated quite an impressive library of my own. Each evening, after a meager supper of soup and sandwich, I lit the kerosene lantern and read into the late hours of the night, working my way through Will Durant's
The Story of Civilization
and random chunks and chapters from dozens of other books. My mind was hungry, and I fed it. And each night, long after the dim lights died in the houses of my Amish neighbors, I sat there, absorbing and devouring knowledge from those pages.

But it was not good to be alone so much. A man needs people around him, some sort of structural support. My friends tried to provide what support they could, but they all had friends and families of their own.

A single guy with no connections will quickly fall through the cracks, as I did. But to be honest, I didn't really want to hang around that much with most of the people anyway. Sam and the widow Barbara, those two relationships I cherished. The others I could take or leave. Mostly, I left them, preferring my own company to theirs.

The long and lonely evening hours got to me eventually. And something stirred in me that winter, the winter of my discontent. Not the old frantic discontent of the past, but a yearning deep inside to be free. Free of the cultural chains that bound me. Free of this confining Amish life. And this time, as the deep longings stirred within, I realized for the first time in my life that I
could
leave.

Leave and not be lost.

It took awhile, to get my mind around a thing like that. To examine it, test it, and really grasp it without fear. To face it, accept it. The box of Amish life and culture might provide some protection, but it could never bring salvation.

And once I really truly grasped that fact, it was only a matter of time until the course of my future changed forever.

* * *

I didn't just pack up and leave the next day, or disappear, with no word to those around me. I didn't even consider such a course. I pondered the issue for days, weeks. Did I really, really want to give it all up? I had invested a tremendous amount of time and effort to reach this place, both my physical surroundings and the place of peace in my mind and heart. I had experienced a miraculous spiritual rebirth here in this area, as an Amish person.

And always, Sam's words echoed in my head:
Why not stay? Why not take on your father's work? The Amish need people like you. Why not you?

In those long evening hours alone in that house that winter, I pondered. Thought it through. Maybe Sam was right. Maybe, just maybe, I should stay. Be the man I could be among the Amish. The man Sam thought I should be.

I thought, too, of my parents back in Bloomfield. How disappointed they would be, especially Mom. For years, she had ridden the emotional seesaw, shifting back and forth between sadness and joy, sadness and joy, and if I left, sadness. Again. Even so, I realized the choice would have to be mine. Not their choice, and not Sam's.

But my choice, for my life.

Then came spring, and new life sprouted on the land. And in the end, I could not find it in my heart to stay. I would not take up my father's mantle.

Sam had sensed the change in me that winter. I had shared with him honestly the path I was considering, and he could feel it coming. He knew that I would not stay. I saw the hurt in his eyes and the deep sense of disappointment and loss. And I saw, too, that he could not quite deal with it.

In those final weeks and days, an awkward tension sprouted between us. I wanted so much for him to see and understand my newfound freedom. To recognize that what I had was real. I wanted him to bless my life and to bless me. He deeply longed for me to stay and be the person he knew I could be in the Amish church, to fulfill his vision and his dream for me. To be the person he knew I could be.

And he may have been right. I might have been that person.

But there was one problem. That was not the person I wanted to be. Sam's vision and his dreams were not mine. I wanted to speak to him, to tell him the truth, but I could not break through the final wall of pain and silence that separated us.

Quietly then, I made my plans. I called my friends in Daviess. My brother Nathan had recently moved to Pennsylvania. So I called the Wagler family, Dean and his brothers, and asked if someone could come up and get me. Of course they would. They didn't ask a lot of questions. One of the brothers would be dispatched. We settled on a date.

In calmness, then, I wrapped up my affairs in Goshen. I quit my job at the factory, sold my horse and buggy, and packed up my stuff. To my curious neighbors, I said only that I was moving south. Not back to Ligonier and the mad bishop, but way south, to Daviess, the land of my fathers. They smiled kindly, as if they understood. It probably made more sense to them than the fact that I, a stranger with no family in the area, had tried to settle among them.

Only to the widow Barbara was I honest. I told her my plans, and where I was going, that I was leaving the Amish and joining a Mennonite church in Daviess. She was sad, but only because I was leaving and because I wouldn't come around anymore to read
The Budget
and drink her coffee. Of all my friends in northern Indiana, she would miss me the most. I stopped by as often as I could during those last few days.

And then the day arrived. I got up early and walked down the road to say good-bye to Barbara, my surrogate mother. In the final moments, she wept quietly, grasped my arm, then hugged me tight. For a minute or so, she could not speak. But then she smiled through her tears.

“Go,” she said. “Go in peace, and go with God. Stop in and see me when you are in the area.”

“I will,” I promised. And we stood there in heavy silence. There was nothing more to say. We knew, both of us, that this might be the last time we saw each other. She was elderly, in her seventies, and might not survive many more years. We both knew full well that I would most likely never come around again.

Dean's younger brother, Nate, arrived a short time later, and we quickly loaded my few belongings in his van. I walked through the house one last time, checking for any misplaced items, locked the door, placed the key under the mat outside, got into the van, and we were off.

We pulled onto the road and passed the widow Barbara's house. I saw her wrinkled face clearly, watching through the glass. She waved. I waved back.

I never said good-bye to Sam. Things between us were tense, really tense, by then. Our hearts were hardened toward each other. And so even this departure, so different from all the others in my past, was tinged with sadness and regret.

But my face was set to the south, to a new beginning. My heart was calm. My soul content. Behind us, the Amish settlement of northern Indiana receded in the distance as, in time, it would recede into the mists of the memories of my past.

I was leaving the Amish. Again. There was no plan, long term, except perhaps in some vague, undefined sense. But I was quietly confident it would all work out. Tomorrow. Next week. Next year. In five years. And beyond.

For the first time, I was not running in frantic despair into some wild and dangerous horizon. For the first time, I was leaving with a clear mind, quietly focused on faith, not fear. For the first time, I was leaving behind all the baggage, all the tortured, broken dreams, all the pain of so much loss and heartbreak.

For the first time, I was focused on an unknown future. Whatever it held, it would be okay. I would be okay. This I knew in my heart. I felt it deeply. Calmly.

And this time I knew there would be no return.

Epilogue

More than two decades have passed since the morning of my final departure from Goshen, Indiana, and the last vestiges of my Amish past. I could not have known that day of the many and tremendously varied experiences that awaited me. It's been a great, grand journey, unique in so many ways. Exhilarating at times, and frightening at others. Here and there the road has been rough, but always vastly exciting and mostly fulfilling.

I have never looked back. Except to reminisce, remember, and reflect. On how it was. And how it went.

The good things. And the bad.

Despite harboring some resentment at the Amish in general for a number of years, I have come to terms with the aftermath of that hard and desperate journey and the bitter turmoil of nearly a decade of wasted years. Would I wish such a journey, at such steep cost, on anyone, ever? Of course not. But had I not traveled that long and troubled road, I would not be the man I am today.

Sadly, after I made the choice to leave, my good friend Sam chose to turn his face from me in sorrow. Soon after my departure, I attempted to reach out to him once or twice, but my olive branch was ignored, rejected by his silence. After that, I gave up and let it go. We have not seen each other, or spoken face-to-face, in more than twenty years. But he was and is still one of the most important people I have ever encountered. When the chips were down, he did not hesitate but waded into the darkness to lead a lost soul to the Light.

He will always be my friend. Perhaps one day we'll meet again as brothers.

In the years that have passed since I last saw him, I have tried to do to others as he did to me. Meet people where they are. As they are. To reflect Christ's love, without judgment, in the messy details of everyday life.

And it's not as if my own life hasn't been messy at times during those years. It has been, now and then, sometimes brutally so. Mostly as a result of my own choices.

But God is who he is. Forever. Unchanging. And always there, even when he doesn't seem to be. This I have learned. And this I know. Ultimately, I rest in that knowledge.

And if my readers glean only one thing from my story, I hope that's it. That God is there, even when he seems far away.

Today, I reside in a quiet place. A place of calmness and rest and of acceptance of who I am. A place of gratitude for the miracle of life in each new day.

And even though they no longer claim me as one of their own, I deeply respect the people connected to me by blood or background—the Amish. Their culture and their faith. With all their flaws. And all their strengths. They are still a part of me and will always be. Even so, I would never dream of returning.

Ever.

I have no regrets for the road I chose. And I rarely wonder how life would have been on the road not taken.

About the Author

Ira Wagler was born in the small Old Order Amish community of Aylmer, Ontario, Canada. At seventeen, frustrated by the rules and restrictions of Amish life, Ira got up at 2:00 a.m., packed his duffel bag, left a note under his pillow, and walked away. Over the course of the next five years, Ira would return home and leave again numerous times, torn between the ingrained message that abandoning one's Amish heritage results in eternal damnation, and the freedom and possibilities offered by the English world.

At age twenty-six, Ira left the Amish for good. He is currently general manager of Graber Supply, LLC, and Pole Building Company in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.