My best JW friend attended school with me and later college too. After he got married and moved out of the area we hardly saw each other. Nearly 20 years later I heard he had gotten divorced, lost his house, had been badly beaten up (hospitalized) and was living with his parents again. I wrote a letter and offered him a vacation and a free return airline ticket to the US. He never wrote back (maybe because I'm apostate...who knows?). I asked my mother recently, who is in the same cong' as his parents, what the recent situation was. He is in his own place, not working (other health issues) and is living with a foul-mouthed (my mother's words) 18 year old girl.
I doubt my parents would ever have told me about my friend. I heard from someone else some details that my parents weren't aware of and once I asked they were obliged to tell me the whole sorry tale. I guess in my parent's eyes, despite my "falling away", my divorce and marrying a much younger woman, (Mrs Thirdson is 16 years younger than me) I haven't turned out too bad and the daughter in-law they hardly know, the Satan worshipping, Christendom member, college educated, director of a community services non-profit org and step-mom isn't quite as bad as they once thought. At least in comparison!!!
Thirdson