Most of you know about my mother, she passed away from this world 17 yrs ago tomorrow, Sept. 15, 1985. Her passing was very hard on my sister and me , because it was a suicide. She had been a witness for 16 years and even almost died standing up for the blood issue in 1983, due to a stomach ulcer, and too many asprins. Her blood count went down to 2 and she had to be put in a lear jet to get to Houston, Tx. to save her life, it took her 2 months in ICU to get the strength to come home. She made up her mind to be faithful to Jehovah and she passed that test.
Before this happened she had alot of emotional problems dealing with being married so young, 15, a baby a year later(me) and her own mother treating her like an outcast for marring my dad. Most of you know the stories of how my dad treated me for so long, this kind of abusive treatment was given to my mother for her whole marriage to him. She suffered from a host of physical problems from a total hysterectomy at 21 yrs old to severe migraine headaches. To ease the pain she was introduced to pain pills and muscle relaxers, and her doctor knew she had plenty of money to afford the many visits he encouraged her to do. This lead to years of prescription drug abuse and in and out of rehab, in and out of hospitals for drug overdoses.
After her last rehab visit, Dad took up with a much younger sister and moved her into our house while mom was still in rehab. Mom took up smoking , after detoxing off of drugs, alot of people who get off drugs go back to smoking or already smoke. It wasnt long before she was disfellowshipped , with no phone contact, not one elders visist , not anything, but a letter in the mail stating she was d/f. This hit her very hard and she was still very emotional from trying to live on her own for the first time in her whole life , she was only 35. I talked to her and told her that she could go back and if she was repentant she could get inreinstated( I was active JW) and she said she couldnt be cause she sinned willfully,, I told her we all sin knowing what we are doing, but she seemed to misunderstand what this meant. She looked at me and smiled and nodded yeah to me. That was one of the last things I will remember about her.
I call her a different kind of Silentlamb because she killed herself after being disfellowshipped for only a few months after leaving rehab, infact she was still under doctors care and not really released yet. She was ate up with guilt over her course in life, and she was sorry for the many years she neglected my sister and me. We were working on building up our relationship and making up for lost time , things she never remembered because of drugs.
The elders in our congregation knew about her drug use for years. But my dad being a prominent elder, they just swept her problems under the carpet ,so to speak. There were no shepharding visits, no counsel, and no visist while she was "away" all those times in rehab. My dad contributed alot of money to our hall and what he said went. All the other elders did what he said and many of them had their own skeletons in their closets, including heavy drinking . Funny how they could just act like it was not happening.
My main point here, is that the elders are not trained to handle such problems , even if they try and seem to care. In my mom's case, they didnt even try to help her, or worry about the kids. It was a dirty little secret not to be delt with. If she would have gotten help, would she had lived. Would she had faced her own demons and move on? I will never know. But the elders couldnt wait to d/f her when they found out she smoked a cig. Where were their letters when she was in the hospital? Whey didnt they go to her new apartment to see if she needed help? How do they know if she was repentant or not? Was she still sick? They didnt care. Plain and simple they didnt care.
I am living the rest of my life and trying to remember the good times we had together and I miss the times we should have had. Today we celebrated my son's 8th birthday party and we had a great time with family and friends here. I tried to imagine her standing there as he blew his candles out and smiling. I can see it so real.
Anyway, I felt a cool breeze while watching my oldest son play football last night and thought of how much I miss her, the Fall was her favorite time of year. I remember how Mulan posted a pic of her dear cousin Sharon and I thought I would do the same for my Mother.
I thank my mother for the life she gave me and I wish she could have seen her grandchildren, she wanted them so bad. I want to thank her for teaching me to "live and let live" and to have an open mind, because of her telling me these things I am free now. I guess it is like a gift she gave me , and when the time was right, I found it ... a year ago... this gift helped me to walk away from JW and to be truly happy.
Lura Anne Feb. 2, 1950 - Sept . 15, 1985
Edited by - LyinEyes on 14 September 2002 18:29:10