Waiting…
The end is near…
This note was posted some time ago on a long-forgotten forum. It is a story about a grandmother’s death. It is a tale that is played out a thousand times over, as many of us watch our elder family run the spiritual hamster wheel into oblivion. Perhaps it might help someone to understand the frustration that goes with watching someone live a useless life as a slave for a mindless purpose....
Waiting....
Last week I visited back home, and it gave me a lot to think about, in particular my JW grandmother, and here is why. She was born in 1914 and was of the generation that would "never pass away", waiting for the new system to usher in paradise....she waited and waited
She would have been around when all the Bible students were waiting for 1925 to usher in the new system. She lived through both world wars, but often told us about the 2nd world War and how she waited for Armageddon....she waited still
When my grandfather died in the 1970s, she was heartbroken and told us she wouldn’t have to wait too long to see him again as the new system was just around the corner....she waited with her heart in her hands.
She waited through 1975...waited and waited.. nothing
During her old age, she attended all meetings and waited for JW friends to visit her when she became lonely... She waited and waited, but seldom did anyone call.
To fill the void, she made a couple of new friends from her old person's neighborhood. They were not JWs, but all being lonely had taken up playing bingo in a little club for lonely old timers, my gran was tempted to go along once....She then waited with guilt for the elders to call. And for once, they did. Her new friends quickly disappeared because she had been forbidden to play their ungodly little number-calling games...she waited and waited for her true friends to take their place.
She waited again for more visits, but this time the elders had no reason to call, so they didn’t.
She fell in the Kingdom Hall, and the brothers escorted her home. 2 weeks later, they realized she had broken her hip; she had waited too long to see a doctor, and it eventually led to her death.
Last week, while visiting back home (150 miles away from where I live now), I walked through the cemetery where she is buried and decided to go and find her grave. If she ever waits for her JW family to put flowers on the grave, then she is even playing the waiting game now.
Life was a “waiting for nothing to happen” game for her because of that heartless religion, and consequently, her waiting eventually became fatal. Anyhow, I eventually found the little flat square headstone hidden under a pile of overgrown grass. As I scraped the grass away, I noticed the chipped golden words that her JW family had put on the stone, hence this reflective time I’m having...it said ..awaiting the resurrection...
Nothing she waited for ever became a reality because the Watchtower is all talk and, like any con man, it can not deliver its promises to little old ladies... Will a happy resurrection for someone who followed a false prophet ever become a reality? I'll wait and see.