After a lenthy illness, 10 years in total, my mother, Margaret Stecko, passed away peacefully today surrounded by family. She was 84, and leaves behind 3 children, 5 grandchildren, and 8 great grandchildren. She was a JW but never shunned me. She was the only JW in my family after I left the cult and my spouse.
She had a tough life. She grew up on a poor farm, spent a few years in a concentration camp in the U.S.S.R., where she was forced to work in a coal mine as well as a farm. She lost a daughter to illness, had her other 5 year old daughter taken away and put in a separate camp with her mother (my grandmother). They reunited in Canada after the war. She lost her husband and brother in the war. While in the camp she contracted malaria. Since she could no longer work she was sent to East Germany in 1947. She escaped East Germany and made her way to Canada where she remarried and had 2 more kids, myself included. I don't know how she escaped East Germany - it's something she never spoke about. There's a lot she never talked about regarding those wartime years, but I can only imagine it was horrific. I remember as a kid in the 1960's, many times I woke up to hear her screaming because of the nightmares. Being married to a man who liked his booze didn't make life easy either, especially because he liked to pick fights with family members when drunk. Some of his binges were terrible, and I still find it very difficult to talk about what went on. She endured ill health for at least as long as I knew her. It was one thing after another, and hospitals were a big part of her life. Mine too, as a visitor. I know them all like the back of my hand.
She got involved with the JWs in the mid 1970's. It's not surprising that their promise of a "paradise" appealed to her. My leaving the JWs was another one of her great disappointments, and she always hoped I'd go back. I can't. I won't live a lie.
I take comfort in the fact that she went peacefully. I take comfort in the fact that I brought the last faint smile to her face just before she closed her eyes for the last time. That was when I made a wiseass comment about this old guy who kept coming into her room with his bathrobe open and his depends half off.
Here's a picture of her, taken October 9th of this year, holding her eighth and newest great-granddaughter.
I love you mom, and miss you already. Always will.
Walter