I have to tell you folks that after being out so long, any type of interaction with an active JW is annoying and fatiguing. It does try one's patience to hear the same old rhetoric we used to listen and repeat ourselves in the past.
At the funeral, one locally annointed brother (Richard Hardy, Park View Congregation, Cranston, RI) who is a postal worker by day and an overseer, approached me at the services and pulled me aside to say "Mario, I want to talk with you for a moment, it's about the brothers who are concerned for you".
So, I did not say anything and just listened, and then came the ridiculous garbage; "before I say anything I just want you to know I am NOT trying to have spiritual fellowship with you,OK?". I still said nothing and then he mentioned some brothers (elders) that I studied with and helped get baptized, are concerned about me and were asking about my condition. Funny, those brothers never came by the hospital.
Anyway, as each witness passed thru the line offering a quiet handshake, most of them not saying anything at all, and those that spoke only said something about Jehovah, or new system or some other typical garbage, I could not help but get sick, nauseous and disgusted with the abject stupidity, robotic behavior and cult-like patterns all of these fools project in person.
I was so sorry I did not make a formal announcement in the newspaper about a closed service and no JW's. I just wanted to share this because some have mentioned attending one of the assemblies and wondering what it would be like to be there in person and listen to that garbage, and I think it would make any of us ill within minutes and we would just have to leave out of self-respect.