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Why My Mother Chose Religion Over Me

Loss, Love, and Redemption

My grandmother was dying.

My 21-year-old mother was directed by her father NOT to tell her mother she had cancer, or that she was dying.

My mother never told.

She was obedient to her father.

She nursed her mother while she lived with her, during the time she was pregnant with me, and my father was overseas training in the British Army.

Her mother deteriorated to the point that when I was a few weeks old, she was going in and out of the hospital.

But my mother did.

Living in silence and maintaining silence regardless of whatever ‘pink elephant’ is in the room has been a theme throughout my life.

My maternal grandfather was a Regimental Sergeant Major in the British Army. My mother feared him and respected him. She said that he ruled his children and wife the same way he treated his soldiers and her mother would stand up to him. My mother never could.

After I was born, I had severe colic. I cried for long periods. My father never saw me until I was three months old as he was still overseas in Borneo at the time of my birth.

Because my grandmother needed her sleep and was dying, my mother would pace with me in the night, through her parent’s house trying to keep me quiet so her mother would not wake.

Her mother went into the hospital the night she died, and my mother was meant to go up and see her. She could not make it as I needed her. She was not with her mother when she died.

I do not think she ever got over this.

It impacted on our relationship. I do not think my mother ever genuinely bonded with me, not as she did with my brother who was born nearly three years later in Sydney, Australia.

She had emigrated at that stage and was studying with Jehovah’s Witnesses (JWs) who had called on her one day when she lived outside of the army base waiting for a married quarter to become available at the army barracks in Fremantle in Perth, Western Australia.

She said that when JW came to her door, she had never heard of them before. She had no idea who they were. This was not unusual as she had lived her whole life on an army base and JWs were not allowed on the bases due to their position of neutrality.

They asked her whether she was worried about the future? As my father was training to go to Vietnam with the Special Air Services in Australia, she was concerned. She invited them in.

They asked her if she had any bible questions.

She had sought out the chaplain on the army base in Perth and asked him whether he felt her mother could see her now she had died? The chaplain was apparently not able to give her a definite answer (not one she remembered or wanted in any case).

She said JWs gave her a concise and clear answer using the bible.

This is what she had been after. She missed her mother terribly. She was living with two small children, on her own, with no support networks halfway around the world from the country of her birth with her husband about to go on active duty in a war zone.

She got baptized as a JW six months later.

She also felt an acceptance by God if she only did everything that the organization told her God required of her.

They promised she would see her mother again who would be resurrected back to life on the earth during the 1000 year reign of Christ soon to come (in our lifetime) if she only obeyed the instructions contained in the Bible (as interpreted by JWs).

So this is what she has done.

She told me she would only ever speak to me again and accept me as her daughter if I returned to JWs once again.

She believes that I will die at Armaggedon as I have turned my back on the one true religion and, I am like a “dog returning to its vomit.” She believes that I have a bad heart and am an agitator “like Eve.”

She is hugely conflicted as I know she truly loves me even though she did not bond with me the same as she bonded with my brother.

She loves me but has to demonize me and constantly affirm to herself why I am bad hearted and why she cannot see me, speak to me or associate with me (as per JW teaching on how to treat a disfellowshipped family member).

I am the sacrificial lamb.

I am what she has sacrificed to remain obedient to her God just as in the past she sacrificed a chance to be closer to her mother, by obeying her father (whom she feared more than she loved her mother).

She remains obedient as she believes 100% that Jehovahs Witnesses are the one true religion and that she will die and also lose her life if she turns her back on them.

She feels the only way to survive the coming war of Armaggedon is to remain obedient to JW teaching and then she will survive Armageddon and get to be reunited with her mother once again when her mother is resurrected.

It is so sad.

I cry for my mother. I weep for me.

I am angry, but my anger is at Jehovah’s Witnesses a man-made religion who exercise such mind control over people through brainwashing that they can because of fear and power get people to cut off their children and family members.

I have lost my mother to God.

She lost her mother to cancer.

The irony is that we are both living but lost to each other because:

One day I will lose my mother to death.

But I already lost her 20 years ago in spirit and her actual physical presence in my life. Her body still walks this earth, but she treats me as if I am dead to her.

But I will live on, and I will keep on speaking, supporting and having contact with my biological children and grandchildren.

I will always try to keep open the lines of communication and attempt to help and be there for them emotionally as this is something that my mother has been unable to do for me and I have felt the rejection and loss of that support in the last 20 years acutely. The gift of that rejection has been that it has forced me to turn inward to find my own truth and discover my own gifts and strengths.

I am the one that needs to break the cycle of unresolved grief and loss and fear that permeates my family so it is not handed down to the next generation. To do that requires I believe brutal honesty, even at the expense of myself at times, and openness as to the true role of both fear and love in dictating life choices, and the importance of critical analysis of anything anyone claims is “truth”.

Fighting against the perception that I am TOO much, standing on my own two feet and not doubting myself are constant battles within my psyche.

But I do understand how it has occurred.

I can see the history, the circumstances, the losses experienced and the role that JW have played.

My mother cannot live without answers and a concrete system of belief that surrounds and dictates her every move.

I have had to learn to live and move in a world and look for answers within me. I have had to learn to trust in my own heart, a heart that I was constantly told was bad and not to be trusted.

I am still searching to find a god of my own understanding to trust and find my own place in this world with a mother, still living but rejecting and isolating.

A rejection through choice not death but no less significant and no less final.

Life is not always easy but it is a journey. I choose to look at it NOW through eyes always searching to see the good, the meaning, and know in experiences. I search for and truly try to see the beauty and wonder that is found in the mundane and every day, not just the BIG moments but the little everyday miracles that lighten my heart and give meaning and connection to all and with others.

And finally, I endeavor to try and err on the side of kindness if I find myself in a situation where I am unsure what to say or do.

I have learned that everyone has a story, everyone has a reason for their actions, even if they are unaware of their motivations and someday their heart may open due to kindness and love overcoming the fear that drives them.

YOU may be the one that helps open their heart to let in the light.

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