Wont Leave, THank you for putting those scriptures up. I am going to send them to my sister, Ryan's mom. DH and Rebekah, it was so great to see you at both memorials. Snakes - I am sorry you and Toni could not make it. I hope we can all get together sometime soon.
My brother who did the service had told my sisters privately earlier in the week that he believes suicide is not an unforgiveable sin, but that Ryan will be resurrected. Unfortunately, fear of JW's kept him from sharing that when he did his "talk". About Rich - Ryan's dad, reading the obituary at the start, my husband was going to do that and when Rich found out that is what was going to be done, he said he wanted to do it and just went ahead and did, which I was glad about. My sister did not know he was going to do that until it was done. I think she was all right with it, though. And truly, he had every right to do so for his son. They can take that disfellowshipping and put it where the sun doesn't shine.
DH, the disfellowshipped people did mingle among JW family and I think there were JW's who spoke to them. I was glad no one tried to make them unwelcome. Of course, elders and their families were not present at the meal afterwards. MOst of the witnesses there were the more downtrodden in the congregation, though not entirely. All in all, I think the whole thing went better than we expected it would, thank goodness.
The memorial held by Rich, Ryan's dad, and Ryan's brother Sean was very good. As DH said, lots of laughs, lots of tears. It is so good to know that Ryan had so many friends and a good life away from the KH. There have been a lot of pictures of him put up on facebook with his non-JW friends and you see him smile a lot more in those pictures than in the ones with KH folk. Looking at pictures of him with his brother Richard (the only one of the three boys who is a JW) and his cousins at the summer conventions in recent years, he does not really smile at all, and knowing what I do now I think he felt trapped in the JW organization. He did not want to hurt my sister by leaving and lose JW family. I feel so sad for him in that, but happy that he was able to do some things he wanted to and enjoyed and be with friends who were not JW's and truly cared about him. I know he is in God's hands and looking down upon us.