In March 2005, I met my future wife Zuly. A month later, I met her sister Anahi.
Zuly is younger than Anahi, and is the only one in her family to have never conformed to being a Witness. In fact, she just today told a guy in a Santa Clause costume that she had no clue about the outside world until she met me, and that she realized her family had been demonizing everything for nothing. She could have just told him what she wanted for Christmas, but she's new to the holiday.
Zuly and I were dating behind her family's back because we needed to. She was living with them and they would never let a "Worldly" person date a potential recruit. Not kidding, this is what one of her brothers said to me. After about a year, they found out and Anahi told Zuly "you have to earn my trust back." It made Zuly feel like crap, but a few months later, Anahi was caught in a bold-faced lie.
She told her family she was spending the week with her best friend Berenice. Three days later, her mother called Berenice because Anahi wasnt answering her phone. It turned out Anahi was spending the week with a boyfriend no one knew she had. And it was the second time she'd pulled this gag on her family.
When I heard this, my heart jumped for joy because this girl was going to be turned in. It's what jw's do, or so I heard. But no, her family brushed it off.
April 19th, 2008: Zuly's mother was in the hospital and the whole family was there. Despite the mutual disdain her mother and I share (even to this day) I was there. Anahi told everyone she had to go because she'd had a service appointment scheduled, and she left. Two months later, we learn that she actually got laid and knocked up.
Small anecdote: Anahi had HG, so she was hospitalized. This is how we found out. With Zuly in the room, her mother tells Anahi "I expected this from Zuly, not from you." Zuly was still a virgin and remained one until a year later.
So at this point, I've got a few questions to those who've had experiences with the SOP of the WTS and JWs.
No one seemed to mind her leaving, so is it normal for a Jehovah's Witness to commit to a prospect when their family member(s) is hospitalized for a serious illness?
I've always been told, from their oldest sibling Jesus that it's common place to notify an elder if their family members are blatantly sinning. When she spent a week at a mystery man's home, was that considered sinning? And if so, why would loyal Witnesses who ratted out cousins and aunts and uncles ignore her repeated offense?
Anahi turned herself in because she couldn't hide the bag of medicine intrevenously attached to her arm. So she was censored. Honestly, I don't know the term because the family belongs to a spanish congregation. The term they use is "censurado" which means censored, but I'd never heard it applied to english congregations.
The other brother Jorge, who I mention in my past posts, told me they almost threw the book at her, so to speak but she was lucky she wasn't disfellowshipped. I suggested that their uncle (who they spent a few years living with) being the senior elder of their congregation may have had a part in her luck. He told me that "especially because he was the elder" she was lucky.
I learned this year that she was "censurado" privately (no announcement) and for only four months. She still hadn't had her child yet and was already free of punishment.
Is this a normal punishment for people in her circumstance? I've met Witnesses disfellowshipped because they were naive enough to tell their friends they had doubts. This girl lied to friends and family, had sex before marriage, and only turned herself in when she knew they'd find out for themselves when they ask what the medicine was for or when her stomach got bigger. If this is normal, then they truly are unholy beasts. But could someone help make "the light brighter?" JW Pun!!!
Now for the point:
I felt bad for Anahi when she was pregnant. She was sick and it was really a coin toss of fate whether she lived or died. All of our disagreements and arguments were pointless here. She lost her faith, she lost her health, and this was a new world to her. Anahi was scared every day for the first three months since she found out she was pregnant because she didnt know if her or her baby would make it through to the next day. The doctors made multiple suggestions that she abort her child because at this point, it was a 70% chance Anahi wouldn't make it through if she kept her baby in utero.
Anecdote: Jorge told me when she was sick that he hoped she'd abort the child because he was scared and didn't want to lose his sister. Today, when I brought up Pastor Chuck Smith of Calvary Chapel suggesting this past February that the scripture gave provisions for a caller of his radio show to abort a conjoined twin (without hearing first if the mother or children were at risk), he told me, and I quote "When Anahi was pregnant, the doctors wanted her to abort her baby, but it's like, you have to have faith. You NEVER abort a child." Kinda weird that he'll change his mind and rewrite history when it comes to jabbing at evangelicals.
There was a little prideful enjoyment of her situation because karma had finally gotten sick of her treating people like crap. But the majority of me was very concerned for her. She didn't get the shun treatment like everyone else. Her family was still very talkative to her and her best friend Berenice stuck by her through it all. Eventually, word got out like it was destined to at the Kingdom Hall, and alot of people wanted nothing to do with her. It brought out alot of humility in her.
She started getting healthier and Zuly and I would help her with small things she couldn't do anymore (all the bedrest made her weak). Over time, she and I became friendly to each other. Putting our differences aside, I noticed all the ways she was very much like me. We're the same age. Have the same stubborn pride. We graduated early. We've got the same taste in music and movies (differing that she likes saturated chick flicks that I can't stand, and I watch horror movies that she cant stand). The JW taken out of her, it was a little sad to realize she and I could have been best friends from the getgo but the iron fist of the WTS kept it from happening.
I wasn't aware at the time that she'd already been removed from punishment, and it wouldn't have occured to me because she was still talking to me regularly. I was there for her baby shower, and the cesarean, and I even got to hold her new daughter like everyone else who came. There was a time when she wouldn't be in a room alone with me and now I was holding her firstborn child.
Over the next few months, I would babysit and play with her daughter. I'd do everything but change her. There's something creepy about someone changing diapers of a girl who isn't their daughter. Even so, Anahi saw that I was doing a good job with her kid. She saw that I wanted to be around and help her take care of this little girl.
Anecdote: The daughter's father told Anahi shortly after the revelation she was pregnant to "take care of it." He was an elder at her congregation.
Zuly and I heard the news that she was given back her privelages (albeit not knowing how long ago it happened) and it was a little worrisome to us. Would she go back to her old ways and forget us? Or would she realize that the Society was wrong and that she had real friends and family away from the congregation? It was good gravy for a while because she would still talk to us and invite us out. What we didn't know was that she was being harrassed by her "friends" at the congregation for getting pregnant. We didn't know that grownups reverted to highschool tactics of calling her a slut behind her back but lod enough for her to hear.
If we'd known, would Zuly and I be able to comprehend that even though Anahi had her privelages restored, she was still on shakey ground in the Society's eyes? That these "friends" knew that any complaints from her would more than likely end with her being outed in a meeting and/or disfellowshipped?
Honestly, it wouldn't matter because Jorge and Anahi, who by this time, were the only active Witnesses in the family, changed congregations to where only the Governing Body could know their names. But this move was costly to Zuly in the form of a sister, and costly to me in the form of a great friend. A new congregation meant being the publishers they were before the dirt on her name.
Since moving to the new congregation, Anahi barely talks to Zuly, and outright ignores me. Her friend Berenice requested disassociation because she found herself with heavy doubts. Berenice, who'd been by Anahi's side from the moment we learned of her pregnancy, through the censor, and all the way through the childish gossip; there was no Anahi to return the love and loyalty.
Faced with humanity, Anahi turned into an amazing person who could recognize her imperfections as something manageable, not as a reason for shame. She opened up and expressed herself to "apostates" in ways the Society condemns, though they stand to be the basics of human decency. I respected her. I loved her as a sister. And now she is lost to the darkside.
MY MAIN QUESTION: Is this true? Is the great sister and amazing friend my wife and I had for only a short amount of time lost in the murky cloud of shameful domineering and cognitive dissonance? Can we ever find her or is she running through a forest not wanting to be found?
I miss her. Zuly misses her. And now she is with a group who only knows her name when she wears nametags at the assemblies. Who only knows the wrongs she's ever done and none of the good, enriching aspects that they could never appreciate the way her real friends and family could.
What can we do?