Part I is here http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/7/138521/1.ashx
Part II
My grandmother still had two children, my aunts living at home during the 60’s. My grandmother was 40 when she had Sandy which meant that she was 18 months older than me and my mother’s youngest sister. Growing up, we played and spent a lot of time together. Wanda, my other aunt about 5 years older than me often babysat us. This was a mistake because we were all pretty wild little kids.
We decided to start a fire in the fireplace one time while the adults were out. Of course, in Florida, you don’t often have the need of a fire and that day we sure didn’t. All went well, except for the fact that we forgot to open the damper. A lot of smoke and spankings later, we were safe and well behaved until the ketchup incident. I was sure that my older aunt had stabbed the younger one who was covered in “blood” while Wanda went screaming through the house with a bloody knife in her hand! Spankings and lectures later, we once again settled down. And then of course, there were the outdoor dinners. I was so naïve. I can’t tell you how many times I sat and ate leaves, sticks and bark off trees as Sandy arranged my and Hilde’s plate. Don’t ask why. She told me to do it and good little dubbie, I was already brainwashed and easily led. So I did.
Sandy had an imaginary friend, Hilde. For several years I thought I was just missing something because Hilde went everywhere with us. Places were set at the dinner table, Sandy constantly talked to her and of course, I accepted the fact that Hilde was a real person whether or not I could see her. Hilde remained a big part of Sandy's and my life until Sandy decided Hilde should go away and threw her out the window of the family car while tooling down the highway. Imaginary friends led a hard life in our family. Sandy was a bit of a rough house and constantly beat the living crap out of me. Although it hurt like the dickens and I cried, I took it. I can’t tell you why to this day. I just took whatever was dished out. I suppose that was my pre-conditioning for the religion to come.
During this time, my grandmother was still going to all the meetings and dragging my two aunts along with her. I remember one afternoon I was visiting at my grandmother's house. I must have been about 11 years of age. Sandy and I had gotten Vidal Sassoon haircuts (all the rage and looked absolutely ridiculous on me) and we were trying very hard to become teenagers. We both had even gotten the Yardley pastel lipstick and were busy lathering it on while we posed with long sideburns and pouty lips.
This one particular day, we were sneaking through Wanda’s room going through all her secret papers and diaries in an attempt to find out how teenagers lived and just to be brats. Her room was separated from the living room by two French doors and it wasn’t hard to eavesdrop a little on the group visiting on the other side of the doors.
A discussion became louder than usual and suddenly a door slammed. Wanda’s two teenage friends and their parents left. Shortly thereafter, the discussion became heated between Wanda and my grandparents. My grandfather began to raise his voice. Sandy and I dropped what we were doing and ran for the living room. Wanda told us to leave, but grandpa told us to stay. He turned to Wanda and growled, “They should hear everything that is going on”! Well, as it turned out, Wanda had done the nasty with a boy at school and confessed to her girl friend Bev who unfortunately for her, was a Jehovah’s Witness. The cat was out of the bag and Wanda, under direct interrogation had confessed even though my grandparents had defended her reputation to the accusatory "friends". Shortly thereafter, Wanda and Greg got married at my Aunt Lucy’s small home. She wore a pastel blue short dress with matching heels and a beehive short page. Seven months later, had a baby girl she named after her JW girlfriend, Bev.
Now, believe it or not, I’ve skipped over a lot, but I will tell you that I did not realize until I was a teenager that I was an abused child. No, I was not sexually molested, but my father was physically abusive. I thought everyone lived like this. I was slapped, punched, kicked and beaten for the slightest infraction. My mother was too and in fact, years later had to have a bridge put in the front of her mouth thanks to the dental damage inflicted by my father. My brother was pretty much left alone except for the occasional belt beating. I never thought that life could or should be different. After all this was all I’d ever known.
It took my mother almost 13 years to break away from her unholy and unhealthy alliance with my father to divorce him. Of course, she was the first in the family to divorce and my grandmother and grandfather were aghast. Former Catholics and now devout Jehovah’s Witnesses, they made it very difficult for my mom (who by the way didn’t remain single for long). She married my stepfather three days after Christmas of 1967. I told you things seem to happen around the holidays in our family. A week later, apparently a disappointing honeymoon, she returned to my father, changed her mind within a day or two and went back to my stepfather towing my brother and me along in her wake. By now I was one very confused, emotionally fragile 12 year-old who didn’t understand me, my family or the world in general and who also was patently terrified of Armageddon which I knew should be here any time.
My real father visited on and off until it became clear that we weren’t the ones he was coming to visit. During the few times he actually took me for rides or to the store, he would get right to the point and tell me how my brother and I had a “new daddy” and we didn’t need him any longer. No kid wants to ever believe anyone else can replace their mother and father under any circumstances, so I vehemently denied my father’s words telling him that he was my only daddy and would always be my only daddy.
Years later I was told that I retreated into myself over time and had to be coaxed out of my self induced shell, primarily by my stepfather. Eventually I learned to trust and love this man who never raised his voice or his hand to me. I remember the joy on his face when not long after my brother; I finally let go and began to give him a hug and a kiss before going to bed at night. And I remember the extreme guilt I felt when my father came to visit late one evening to talk with my mother and stepfather. As we were sent to bed, I kissed and hugged “daddy” but not my stepfather. I could not bring myself to show my real father that his hateful forecast about a “new daddy” might even remotely be true. And of course, in the process I knew I was hurting my stepfather who did not get a hug or kiss even though he would never admit that to me. Shortly after that night, my real father stopped visiting altogether and my life began to change. I began to call my stepfather, “Dad”.
Well, for a short time, or about a year, we actually celebrated holidays and birthdays in our little family and were perfectly happy and almost well adjusted. On the other end of the spectrum, my grandmother worked hard to convert her husband and her other children to the Jehovah’s Witnesses faith. It wasn’t until my grandfather gave in and became a Witness that one by one my mother’s brothers and sisters and their families began to cave. They were all such well behaved kids who wanted nothing more than to please their parents even though they were in the late twenties and early thirties. The exception was one uncle who absolutely took every opportunity to make fun of the religion and his sibling’s devotion to it. He still despises it and all it represents and for that I greatly admire him.
My mother eventually gave in and once again began a bible study which led to meetings on Sundays, Thursdays and Tuesdays and her eventual baptism. My father went along to assuage my mother’s hormones which were all over the range thanks to a total hysterectomy. You’ve heard the term, “if momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody else happy’? Combine that with the raging hormones of one screwed up emotional teenager and you’ve got the household from hell. Oh yeah and let's not forget my little brother who I alternately called “fink” and “creep”. And trust me, he fit the bill.
Suffice to say, I admire the fact that my stepfather stuck with it as long as he did. My mother would be swearing, glaring (we called it the evil eye), threatening me and my brother all the way to the Hall in the car and right up to the stoop of the building. When the door opened, it was like the scene in which Dorothy opens the door to Munchkin Land in “The Wizard of Oz”.
Total and complete personality change. A gorgeously bright smile, while chewing and popping gum, soft words and bulls**t the likes of which I never saw outside of the Kingdom Hall. Two glorious hours of academy award winning acting as the perfect little Dub-family until we all piled back into the car and picked up where we left off. To this day the hypocrisy continues to stand out in my mind. We were not what we pretended to be. And after reading posts from many of you here and reading Ray Franz “Crisis of Conscience”, it appears that the same hypocrisy infiltrates the entire organization.
To our complete joy, my stepfather legally adopted my brother and me when he was 10 and I was 15. My biological father by this time had become a complete stranger to us and made one feeble attempt to counter the adoption at the last minute. When he couldn’t remember our birthdays or our ages and couldn’t tell the judge the last time he had visited or sent child support, the gig was up. I was fearful that I would be called upon by the judge to testify since I was now of age to decide for myself, but that was not required. Only my brother needed to be called.
I never saw my real father again until my paternal grandfather’s funeral when I was in my early 20’s. The next time I saw him was in 1987 as he lay in a casket, emaciated from cancer and booze three months after my mother’s own death from lung cancer. I did not shed one tear at his funeral. I know that sounds cold, but I honestly did not know this man and what I rememberd of him was unpleasant to say the least. There was no natural affection between us. Then again, perhaps the mind dulls those emotions from situations that are too painful to endure.
More to come. I'm a slow writer.