This is a letter I'm sending to my gran, I've still used some JW terminology in order to reach out to her.
Dear Gran,
I want to let you know from the outset that I still love you, perhaps more so now than ever before. I love everything about you and accept you, your beliefs, everything that makes up Phyllis.
As you know I've wanted to see you again, pretty much to tell you the above and to let you now that I'm doing very well. It's nearly 3 years since we've chatted, I miss our weekly dinners. I've grown in so many different ways, and so has my brother Mark, I doubt you would recognise him now. He's only 14 but getting close to 6ft and totally obsessed with soccer. With mom completing our family unit we've grown a lot closer and are more involved in each others' life. As a granny it's sad that you are not part of that.
Gran I don't know what you've been told about me, what lies have come across as truth perhaps because "they" wanted to protect you, but I want you to know that I never turned my back on Jehovah. It was just that the organisation running the religion has more power than the God they worship. I couldn't keep living like that, being told what to believe by men thousands of miles away that had no clue what I needed spiritually.
That being said I understand why you won't see me, I respect that even though I don't agree with it. Jesus, the man we should all be following, never treated anyone like that and even when I was a Jehovahs' Witness I must admit I never practised shunning.
Granny I love you, Debbie your daughter loves you, Mark, the grandson whom you hardly know loves you. I hope that when your time comes to depart this world that you have no regrets Gran and that you have lived a life true to your God and true to yourself.
May you constantly look to Jehovah to lead you and not just follow an organisation blindly just because they tell you too.
All my love
Louise