Here's an excerpt from "My Story" that references my Dad...
I don’t recall Dad ever really talking about his being of the anointed. To this day, I see that as a sign of his humility. He’s never been the sort who looks for undue attention. Other people in our congregation used to ask me about it though.
“So what’s it like living with one of the anointed?” they’d ask, full of wonder.
“Is it true your father is of the Heavenly Class?”
I decided that, given there are so few anointed on earth today, they just don’t understand. Don’t understand that my Dad is just like everyone else’s. Maybe a little different; he’s intensely focused on preaching the good news. Other than liking to watch sports a bit and enjoying a round of golf or a bicycle trip, his life is focused on field service and sharing the experiences he has therein. On Saturdays—and many weekday evenings—he was almost always gone until late in the evening, on Bible studies. But other than that, he’s a normal human being. The way some of the friends spoke, you’d think angels were regularly floating down to our home for consultations with him.
At some point, perhaps around eight years old, I came to understand that this meant he wouldn’t be with us in the new system. I recall crying to Mom, asking why he would leave us. Mom was understanding, but tried to help me understand.
“He’s been given a great privilege. He’s going to be a King in Heaven.”
While this certainly sounded intriguing, I still didn’t know why, as a King, he wouldn’t be able to at least visit us once in awhile. Couldn’t he do that?
“Well, we don’t really know. Maybe he’ll be able to. But don’t worry about it, honey. By the time this happens you’ll be an old man, and you’ll understand better. You’ll be proud of him.”
This assuaged my feelings just a bit, but only temporarily. I remember, perhaps only a year or so later, being on a two day canoe trip with Dad, my uncle and cousin. A guide had pulled our old Chrysler station wagon up to the halfway point along the banks of the river, so instead of pitching a tent like my uncle and cousin did, we just put the back seat down and slept in the car. As we were falling asleep, I nestled up to Dad and implored tearfully, “Please don’t go to heaven!” I don’t think he responded to me in any other way than holding me and comforting me until I finally fell asleep.
I guess Dad didn’t really know what to say. How do you explain something like this to a nine year old? Like Mom, I imagine he just had faith that eventually I’d understand. And even though for a few years after this I still had to run to the Kingdom Hall bathroom and cry at every Memorial celebration, eventually I guess I did understand.
If you'd like to read the rest of it (with the advance warning that it's pretty long,) here it is...
http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/7/96377/1645996/post.ashx#1645996
Also, if you'd like to read the fascinating and hilarious story of one who used to profess to be of the anointed, I definitely recommend this link...
http://www.exjws.net/pioneers/partintro.htm
As I wrote earlier, I've never heard my dad say a single thing about being anointed. In 1974 he left his well-paying job and moved us all north to a little congregation in a tiny town "where the need was great." I was only about eight years old then and don't recall having heard anything about 1975, but now I realize that must've been a factor.
I wish I could agree that the anointed were all ambitious attention-seekers, but Dad just didn't fit that bill. He accepted a job just above minimum wage and submitted to a boss who, for more than 25 years, treated him very harshly and routinely made fun of him around the other workers. I would only hear of such things from my Mom. There was another interesting pattern over the years. Since he was "of the anointed," usually elder bodies and COs over time thought it best that he serve as PO. He did not think this necessary, but would accept. Then the occasional ambitious elder would come along and challenge Dad for the job. He'd always acquiesce.
I always thought my dad was a bit weird as a kid, and as a result we didn't have a good relationship. But I now see it was only because he was quite singularly focused on the organization. Field Service was pretty much what he wanted to do. He didn't spend a lot of time hob-nobbing, and despite the protests of my mother through the years, has chosen to remain in a humble modular home in the tiny town to which he (I'm sure) thinks Jehovah called him. He is not what you'd call a particularly gifted public speaker, although he does a pretty nice job. And while he loves to talk, I don't think anyone feels intimidated around him. They just get a kick out of his corny sense of humor. (The same humor that alwasy made me hunch down in my seat at the Kingdom Hall as a child when he'd use it onstage.) He's certainly humble, but it's not the contrived, false humility some people display.
When Mom & Dad became JWs in the very early 1950s, they would laugh at the idea that their newborn baby would ever need to actually start school. But three children later, I guess they stopped laughing. I have a vague recollection of my mother mentioning how they were so certain the end was here in 1966, the year I was born. I'll be forty in six months, my older brother will soon be fifty-three.
Recently, while talking with my 18-year-old daughter about some of the hard-headed and deceptive tactics employed by the Watchtower Society, she made the comment, "Well, give 'em fifty years." I guess my parents certainly have.
