by TimeBandit 80 Replies latest jw friends
Dearest Time Bandit,
You know what is a tribute to Henriette (Hennie)?
You are my friend.
You are.
She would be so amazed at knowing how much you care after all this time.
Thank you for sharing her antics and her larger than life personality and letting us all get to know her.
TimeBandit, I'm so sorry to hear your story, and Flipper's and all of the others here. Jehovah's Witnesses manage to somehow strip the basic humanity out of people.
I remember sitting in a KH when a brother was clearly having a heart attack. I was a kid, and it was frightening. He was helped out of the auditorium and I believe an ambulance came. Of course, the meeting went on.
My mom had some mental issues at one point in time and would just sit and rock at the meetings and it was hard to watch, again I was a kid. I remember her disappearing into the library at times and elders would go back there with her. Eventually she was put into some institutions for periods of time. All the while us kids were totally in the dark without a clue as to why mommy wasn't mommy anymore. She was a shell. I've heard stories since as to a possible misdiagnosis and the wrong medication causing things, but I can't help but think that the cult had something to do with it all.
I'm so sorry TB. Thank you for sharing the story of your dear friends. Ted's an idiot.
Thanks so much for sharing your own thoughts and experiences. It feel better to know that I'm not alone in the way I feel. The reason I posted the original post at the beginning of the thread is that I had been looking through all the keepsakes and pictures and cards we've saved over the years and I found the memorial card they printed and handed out at Hennie's memorial service. It has the picture of young Henriette on front.
Seeing it after all these years brought up the memory of her death and what happened at the KH that day. I thought and thought about it until I was so upset , and I had to write about it.
I thank the universe there are places like this to express these things, and that we can come together in support of one another. Sometimes when I think I've felt everything there is to feel about my leaving the cult, and everything associated with it, something pops up and reminds me. Even though the memory hurts, it also sharpens my resolve to fight the cult any way I can.
Thanks again...
TB-
I was at a CA at an assembly hall in Central CA when an older brother was on stage with others to give his experience. If I remember it was just after lunch. His chest suddenly started heaving, he was in the throes of a heart attack. The talk stopped, and then the speaker asked that some music be started. Everyone sat there watching as he was being worked on, even as the EMT's came onto the stage. After he was taken away, the meeting resumed. An announcement was made at the end that he had passed away. I can still see his daughter stand up and hear her cry out "Daddy!".
I think in this situation it was handled the best way possible.
Thank you TimeBandit and all the others! Whenever I start to think that maybe I wasn't all that adversely affected by my time in the cult, something like this comes up that reminds me of all the head-nodding-in-agreement I did at things that went on, when my heart and soul was crying NO!NO!NO! something is very wrong with these people! And I'm so ashamed for being so untrue to myself. And being so cowardly not to speak up.
It's called brainwashing, but it doesn't render a person braindead, and that's why they're losing so many people because people still have the capacity to think for themselves when they finally give their head a shake. They say not to trust your heart, that it's treacherous. They'll do the feeling for you. They say not to trust your head, they'll do the thinking for you. Oh, it's like, "don't worry your pretty little head".
Where am I going with this? Rambling, sorry. LifesNotOver
startingover: Everyone sat there watching as he was being worked on, even as the EMT's came onto the stage
That would have been quite the spectacle
Unbelievable - the audience sits and watches a real life drama unfold in front of them. Sits and watches
I find that to be very disrespectful. Handled in the best way possible??? No. Not at all. Giving the poor fellow some privacy should have been right up there on the list of priorities. Letting him be the center of entertainment is really f***ing nuts
Dismiss the audience...postpone the meeting...make a human wall/curtain around the poor guy. Give him and his family privacy. But no, let it become a public spectacle instead. How incredibly unemphatic
And WTF? His daughter didn't go with him??? She stayed at the meeting? Why wasn't she at Daddy's deathbed saying goodbye?
There was a thread on this site a number of years back that talked of this subject. I remember reading about one instance where the paramedics were called to the KH to assist a dying JW and a sister in the audience started handing tracts to the paramedics and witnessing to them (all while the meeting continued on)
Another example of witnesses refusing to interrupt a meeting was back in the 70's in Chicago. The PO was Norman Zenke and he needed to give an additional announcement to the MS who was announcing the weekly announcements from the platform at that very moment. Instead of walking up and handing the MS his little piece of paper with the new announcement, he gets on his hands and knees and crawls up to the stage and stretches out his arm to give said announcement to speaker, and then crawls on hands and knees back to seat.
The guy who carried on his talk whilst his wife died was Noble Bowers. He later remarried a sister half his age.
I wonder if any UK stalwarts remember him. He was absolutely old school.
I was at work and a man in our unit had died over lunch at his desk. We called the ambulance and the admin took over.
We did not get to go home unless we used sick leave or vacation.....work went on
I would be appalled if family members stayed at the meeting and did not go to the hospital.
