I once posted here a copy of my empassioned plea to the Watchtower Society--I Want My Mother Back. Well, I just wanted to let all of you know that I got her back for a whole 17 days, and we had one final adventure together before she died, and there wasn't a damned thing They could do about it.
My mother is, was, a long-term loyal JW and I was her disfellowshipped daughter. I believe she was in an almost constant state of conflict over me because her very strong maternal instincts demanded she behave openly and lovingly toward me, while her WTS-trained conscience demanded the opposite. I think that may even have been a core component of her illness, but who knows?
In a few short words, I think of my mother as having been infinitely generous, gregarious, good-humoured, active, adventurous, artistic (although she adamantly denied this), independent, inspiring, intelligent, loving, and, paradoxically, something of a melancholy loner at times. She loved going new places and trying new things, and everywhere she went she made at least one new life-long friend. It took her a good long while to realize that picking up hitch-hikers might actually contain an element of danger. She was a fearless explorer and made the absolute most out of every situation, good or bad, right up until the end. We had many adventures together before I had to stop trying to be the Witness I could never truly be and was eventually disfellowshipped.
I was an odd child. My grandmother thought of me as a "changeling," and my mother confessed to me that she never really understand me. But she still sheltered and nurtured my uniqueness as if I were some bizarre plant that had unexpectedly sprouted up in her carefully tended garden. She protected me as best she could from those who would have broken me down and forced me into a more acceptable form.
I am listening to a song by Jude on myspace that makes me think of her because she truly is the Blood In My Veins. I feel her love, her warmth and strength and passion, flowing through me with every beat of my heart--her first and her last gift to me. She tried. She tried to let me be me and she tried to raise me to be a good JW, but those two things turned out to be mutually exclusive, and that was a great torment to her. And to me as well, I guess, now that I think of it.
It seemed that since she could never stop being one of Jehovah's Witness, buying every bit of what they sold--lock, stock, and barrel--and since I could never go back to being one, especially knowing all I do about them now, it seemed our adventures together had come to an end. But this woman who was stronger and busier than 10 of me grew increasingly unwell within the last 2 years, and finally, with an elder's blessing, invited me to come see her and hinted that if I could help out at all with her care it would be much appreciated.
"Of course I can, " I responded. "You're my mother!" So I took my daughter 6 hours south of where we live to pick her up, pack her up, and take her 2 hours further south to a small motel in a small town where we lived together for 17 days. The MDs who diagnosed her with cancer (lung, liver, colon, and bone) and drained 7 pounds of fluid from around one lung, could not offer her any hope of recovery, so she said to just release her so she could start her own program of healing.
Hospice provided her with a hospital bed (which she had to leave behind when we went to the motel) and oxygen and morphine (which we took with us). I bought a card table and set up a little kitchen for us with a hotplate, a coffee pot, and an electric skillet. We had a tiny refridgerator. I cooked breakfast and supper every day, trying hard to make it appealing to her. She was so thin it hurt to look at her, and I had to be extra careful when I was massaging her pain away. I packed picnic lunches to eat in the park, as we had to drive 25 miles through the desert to her 1st appointment, set up a foam/sleeping bag bed for her to rest on in the park till lunch, then go for a second treatment, and sometimes a later third, before driving back to the motel for the night.
My 5-year old grrl was very good-natured, loving, and helpful. Grandmother's laugh therapy was her responsibility and every so often she would present herself before my mother's generously pillowed bed with a flourish, announcing, "It's laughing time," and proceeded to make funny faces, perform clown-like antics, and tell goofy stories. But the funniest moments were the unintentional ones, such as when I was too distracted and Grandmother was feeling too weak and tired to laugh. Miss Z finally demanded very sternly, "Will somebody PLEASE laugh!?!" That brought a nice one from both of us.
I'll spare you the rest of the details. Suffice it to say, all I felt the whole time was a prevailing sense of love. Pure love. We got to be mother and daughter again. I got to treat her like a queen and appreciate her true nature apart from the JW stuff to which she was so attached. Too bad it took a fatal illness to bring out the best in everyone. My JW relatives were nothing but loving and helpful. Something we should all aspire to be towards each other all the time, not just in a crisis, me thinks.
I'm glad we had one last adventure together. I'm glad we got to love each other without hindrance for a little while.
I wish healing for all those whose families have been broken and damaged by bad religion.
~Merry