My dearest Sabine..... my heart hurts for you right now, and that boys family. My mom commited suidice, when I was 18, she was awitness for over 15 yrs. She and dad had troubles in the marriage and she chose to turn to pain pills to numb her emotional pain. The elders knew all about her many stays in rehab to get off the pills many times thru out many years. It was keep quiet , so dad could stay an elder. He ran the show in the congregation and had alot of money. So of course they pushed her problems under the rug, so to speak, and my dad was a big part of her problem. The last year of their marriage , she got worse, always stoned out of her mind, at meetings,. she would stumble around like she was drunk, she feel asleep in her food.I was very embarrassed of it all. This went on for years before it got this bad. Anyway, my dad was a big time business man and was always perfect in everything he ever did, my mom was nothing but a shell of a person by now. Dad started cheating on her with a much younger sister, the sister was only 8 yrs older than me. He did all of this while she was in rehab for the last time. Well she started smoking, as alot of ex addicts do, and got a letter in the mail that she had been d/f. It took them a little longer to get my dad and his g/f,, he knew how to keep them off for awhile but he got d/f too . Mom married a man she just met right out of the drug rehab himself. She was finally starting to come back to life, she was beginning to be the bright funny loving mother that I remember so long ago and I loved being with her. Four months later after she was d/f , she jumped from a bridge into the dark water to end her life. She knew she could not swim, so I am sure it was a way to her to do it and do it right. She could have gave everyone a scare by doing more pills , she did that many times, I think half hearted attempted suicide attempts and then she did it by just accidently taking too much.. No one came to her funeral, no flowers, no cards, no one would do her funeral , because she was d/f. My husband and I were still at that time faithful active witnesses. No one came for either us.... It wasnt until I left the borg , that I started to realize that the religion , the cult, had alot to do with her choice to end her life. We had a conversation a few days before she died , and she said she might go back , i was encouraging her to go back to JW. She said but she couldnt , she had committed the unforgiveable sin. I said no you didnt , you just got into some problems and made some mistakes. She said, well I sinned and I know I sinned and I thought if you do that there is no hope for you. I told her , we all know what we are doing when we sin, sometimes we just get caught up into something with out thinking it out. She was standing , in the kitchen cutting carrots, and stopped and looked at me and said ... hummm really? and just smilied. She was so ate up with quilt over what she did with her life, all the years wasted and how she treated my sister and me, and how she lost the man she loved since she was a child. She had lost her home, I just was married, so i guess she lost me in away too, she lost her religion, she stilled beleived it, she lost hope . I was shocked when I called her one day and she was not there. I knew something bad must have happened to her. I was there when they pulled her out of the river , but far away as to not see clearly(thank God). I know now that she was so ate up with guilt that she ended her life, and I blame the JW cult for making people choose death over life. I blame them for the years and years they ignored her pleads for help. They would have rather kept my dad an elder , than to address her problems. I am sure they are bloodguilty for her death. I just cant stand to hear all the horror stories of all the lives lost because of the JW cult. I will never get over losing my mother, and I wanted to telll you Sabine, losing a child must be so much worse. I am the mother of 3 and I cant think of any harder thing to go thru. My thoughts will be with you and your family . I would pray for you , but right now , I dont feel I am even being heard.. I am trying to work on that.. Please feel free to email, it is open in my profile, anytime you need to talk, I also have a cell phone and can talk unlimited on it after 8 pm and weekends!!!! Let me know if you want me to call you, it wont cost me a dime.. I love it..... I always enjoy meeting new friends. I agree about sending a card to the sister whose son died.. I am sure she will probably have her own congregation try to ignore the whole thing. Sorry this was so long, but I thought it might help to know that there are many of us who have lost our family by suicide , due to that cult... LyinEyes(Dede)