by Dune 12 Replies latest jw friends
JW funerals have no meaning. My mother died 5 years ago as a JW. I begged the brother not to give the talk from the outline, to say something about my mother, he agreed. He gave the typical talk and said, "One thing that I remember about ......., she loved field service". What a loser.
I appreciated the support from the witnesses. It really meant a lot to see 200 people share my grief. Unfortunately, if u are DF, no one will talk to u anyway, for fear of repurcussions. You will be invisible.
Clearly it depends on who the person was , this month I attended two in one week .
A couple of weeks ago I had to make the final arrangements for my JW mother . I was apprehensive as to what we would face at the visitation and Funeral . I have two siblings that are still witnesses ,an unbelieving Father ,a DA'd brother , two sons that are witnesses and one son that faded w/ my husband and I a year ago. Most of mom's friends knew me growing up and assumed I was still active. People from my old hall all knew my mom and also know my status as a fader .( some place blame on my younger son that we some how couldn't take the pressure of him turning to the world, WHATEVER) . Per my father's request I asked the Brother giving the talk not to follow the outline given , and to make it a memorial to our mother with only a small part being about her religious beliefs , he actually did a pretty good job . I even stood and said a few words (he had no idea I no longer am a witness ) I know we were very fortunate in all of this , it is not the norm . The hardest part was seeing all our old friends they all hugged and offered condolances . Only a few negative things happened : Someone from our old hall greeted all the grandchildren , then skipped right over our youngest of which our son replied , " Go to hell I never liked you anyways "! And we had a couple of nut case witnoids that tried to make the funeral home their feild service location , my witness brother actually escorted one to the door . Then a few days later we attended the memorial service of a very dear witness from our old hall .I worried that all this contact with the past might cause my husband to want to return since he never has made the real truth his own .( So far so good though .) Some ignored us ,but the ones we cared about were nice and made an effort to be cordial . The worst is the emotional black mail they all use like : " When your mom awakes in the resurrection she will be looking for you " and ect.... I never thought I would ever step into a KH again , but you just never know .
I also have lost a grandmother, grandfather, uncle all JW's. I did attend my grandparents funeral which was awful, did not attend my Uncle's. I will NEVER EVER attend another one. As everyone has said it is not about the person, but about the religion. I now choose to remember people the way I remember them, not how they tell me I should remember them.
Leslie
