A couple weeks back my husband got a phone call from his brother, whom he hasn’t spoken to in nearly 17 years. Well I take that back, he did speak to him at the family reunion, asking him to leave. My husband basically told him to F off, he would leave when he’s darn good and ready, but he didn’t use the word darn. Yes I do still try to keep my language clean, well except for when I get pissed off. Anyways back to what had happened. A couple weeks ago, out of the blue, his brother called us to inform my husband that their grandmother is not doing so well, and wanted to inform him of this family information. At the moment she is back at her daughter’s home, and is under hospice care. When she does die, it won’t be any loss on our part, because this is one very hateful woman, and yes she is a JW.
A few years back, my husband had lost an aunt, whom he did really care about, and this woman too was a JW, and yes she did shun us, but he did go to her funeral. Not so much for her, but for her daughter, who has also left the JWs. They were pretty close growing up as kids, and still have some contact to this day. It’s not much, because of the distance. Since some of his aunts from our area was going, I decided not to go. My husband had the support of his aunts; these women have really filled in the gap that was left wide open from the shunning that he was experiencing from his parents. One of them is more of an adopted grandmother to our children.
My husband and I have two boys, and one of them wanted to go, while the other one wanted to stay as far away from them as possible. The one that wanted to go barely remembers going to the kingdom hall as a little boy, but there are still some things he does remember. When he did come home from that experience, he was a little shaken up. So I sat down with him and asked him what was bothering him, and he said it was that funeral talk that he heard. To him, he said that they sounded just like the freaks that believe in a zombie apocalypse, with the dead rising up and stuff. I had to apologize to him because when he was explaining it to me; I started laughing a little bit. I told him, yea, some of their beliefs do sound really strange to those who are not familiar with what they think. Anyways, I did explain to him, what they were trying to convey. After our conversation, he told me that he was glad that I left it when he was little, so he would not have to endure that crap growing up (his words).
What made me finally wake up to them, was when my son, the very one that had went to that funeral, was in the hospital when he was only five years old. When we took him to the ER, he was a very sick little boy, and at first the doctors thought he might have an appendicitis, and they were talking about surgery. When I heard that I got really scared, because I had all these thoughts running through my mind. But the doctors wanted to first make sure that they were making the correct decision, and admitted him into the hospital. So I decided to call some people. I first tried to call my mother, but her phone line was busy, and then I called an elder’s wife. At the time I thought that we were friends, and I informed her that my son was in the hospital, and that he might be going in for surgery. Her response to me, and I will never forget what she said to me, till the day I die, was this, “What do you expect me to do about it?” and then she hung up on me.
Eventually, I managed to call my mother; I had learned that my teenage sister was using the phone. You know how teenagers can be with those phones. Anyways, I told my mom that her grandson might be going in for surgery. I don’t remember what she told me, but I do know it was not encouraging.
My husband’s parents did show up a couple days later. Oh and before I forget, it was not a problem with his appendix, but he did have Gastritis. At his age, it was something the doctors did say could kill a small child or the elderly, so my son had to stay in the hospital for a week. During that whole time, no one, other than my in-laws even bothered to show up. What even made me angrier was I had learned that my mother, father, and sister had gone through our town while my son was in the hospital, and didn’t bother to stop. You might be asking why they had come through my town, and the answer was to visit my sister, who lived fairly close. My sister or her husband (my husband’s brother) never even bothered to visit us while our son was in the hospital, and didn’t even bother to call, even though they knew of our situation.
After spending the week in the hospital, the doctors told me to keep my son at home, and to allow him to recover from his ordeal. So I did this for the next month. During that whole time, no one bothered to call or stop by to check up on us. This ordeal was what finally opened up my eyes to the JW cult, and as a result I dove in head first, and started researching like a mad man. What I came across made me see red. When I see red, I get really pissed off, and there isn’t any stopping me. I’m only saying this, because this was why I DO NOT want to EVER be around those people or their cult ever again.
Now back to my husband’s grandmother. He says he wants to go to her funeral, and it will be a JW funeral. Not because she was his grandmother, but because of his aunt, who not a JW, and never has been. She almost became one, but stopped because she saw how we were being treated when we left. I told him that I would go with him, to give him support, of not dealing with those jerks by himself. But I do want to do something that would put the fear of God (or the devil) in those people’s hearts and mind, and doing so without saying a single word. Any ideas on how or what I can do, and still be the sweet little self that I am? It’s not really the JWs as a whole, but a certain someone, my JW sister, that I would LOVE to get at. That woman was a real thorn in my side when I was a JW, and yes she is still talking trash about me. I hear stuff though the grape vine so to speak.
