....is getting ready to retire from her job at a hospital here in SLC. She's been there for 43 years.

Her knees have been bad for a while and planned on having both of them "done" this year so her insurance would cover her before retirement. She had one done in July I think and had recovered, told the kids how much better it felt.

She was scheduled to have the 2nd one done the week before Halloween. On that Saturday, she was doing yardwork, which she would much rather do than anything indoors, and was raking and stepped backwards, fell into the window well, shattering the kneecap on the one that wasn't done. She managed to yell at the neighbor who she had talked to just before she started raking and he was able to help her out and called an ambulance.

To-date she’s has 3 surgeries on the shattered knee and they don't seem to be able to fix it. They finally put on a full leg cast, thigh to ankle and for the last couple of weeks, she's been in a rehab center, since she can't get in a car and needs lots of help. I have asked if I can help her but haven’t had any requests yet. (Being a nurse, she’s probably a bad patient but that’s nothing new).

She lives in the home that we bought in 1980 and of course has been through boundary changes on a regular basis. Our daughter told me that the bishop of her ward now is about 40 years old and has only lived in the area about a year and got to be bishop earlier this year. Lots of people there know her but to date she’s not heard from anyone in the ward, from the bishop on down and some of the people have been there 10-15 years where they should all know her and be aware of her situation.

She is friends with a woman whose husband was the bishop when I left, and they worked together, but they don’t live in the ward now. Her friend called the current RS president to tell her about her troubles, the day she fell in the window well and as far as I know, she’s had no contact from anyone.

She’s a hard working ward member, has lots of issues but doesn’t want to give up this late in life. I guess I’m surprised that no one has contacted her from the ward to be of help, which I always thought was part of the plan.

I wonder if there's some form of 'ranking' of priorities?

Maybe if logic tells them that "this member" won't be giving back enough to the ward, then it's a bad investment, especially when there are might be others in need who do look like a good investment.

In the same house for 37 years...

I can hear it at ward council: "Can't expect much back from her, especially given her injury. Good heavens, she might even end up being a time sink!! We'll do all this service to her and not get a thing back!! WWJD? He'd want us to harbor our resources and us them where we'll get the best return on the investment!"

Having been in a similar situation, I can tell you that a lot of people are just plain clueless. There were times when I was struggling taking out the garbage or bringing in grocery bags while I was on crutches, and I would say that about a quarter of the people who saw me struggle offered to help me. Once an entire family breezed by on their daily walk across the street from me without so much as glancing over.

And yes, your ex-wife will very much notice who offers to help her and who doesn't. I wish her a good recovery. I know it's hard.

As a non-mormon, this is what I have seen. I will let those more knowledgeable, confirm or deny my observations:


Mormons make a big deal about other members having babies, helping them out, providing meals, baby-sitting, etc because....


New babies mean new tithe-paying members in the future.

Older members, especially those who are retired and paying little tithing, are useless and expendable...and not worth wasting church-time and church-resources on..





discuss....

I am so sorry she had such a mishap. It sounds horrible. That's wonderful that you've offered help. If she doesn't take you up on it, there's not much you can do in that case, except maybe keep offering. You never know, she could change her mind.

As for members of her ward not helping at all, that doesn't surprise me from reading others' experiences on this board. If I were her, I'd feel heartbroken and invisible. Do you think this treatment will turn her away from the church? When it really counts, they have failed her and denied her the support she's more than likely given others in their times of need. It's a slap in the face.

Mike, it’s awesome that you offered to help her! I feel sorry for her in that she doesn’t seem to have any genuine friends who just care about her as a person. Cheers to you!

I agree, it's very kind of you to offer your ex wife. Shame on the local church folks for ignoring her in her time of need. How nice it must be to be on good terms with your ex. I applaud you for that!

Mormons don't offer to help, they wait to be assigned.

This is probably the what is happening.

Not surprised she is not getting support from the cult. I hope she recovers soon.

Your wife has been a "woman who works outside the home", for most of her life. I find that this separates a woman from the Mormon mainstream.

Being divorced and single also makes one "different."

Elderolddog is accurate in his description of how Mormons think. Being single and divorced, she is thought of as someone with a lesser income. If she owns her own house, the cult might have an eye on her house. She might get pressured into leaving money to the cult in her Will. Older people need to beware of the cult!

If your ex-wife is close to retiring, maybe the cult has approached her to go on a mission. Now that she is laid-up, she's not missionary-material, anymore.

Your ex-wife is obviously a woman of achievement, and has lived an exemplary life of REAL service to others. She deserves respect for that! Some RS women could even be jealous of her. I was a single divorced working mother for years, and some women were actually jealous that I was single and free and happy. A lot of them are in bad marriages. I made more money than some of the men. Maybe your ex-wife does, too.

I was one who would take dinners to people in our ward. (Yes, we were assigned, but it was mainly to organize the delivery of the meals.) When I became seriously ill, and had to take a leave of absence from work, no one offered to help me. At the time, my children and I were active, and my illness caused me to quit my callings. All I got was a hard time and nasty threats! At work, they didn't pay me, but they were nice, and kept my office and position open for me, and I went back part-time, after a few months, then full-time, ever since. I couldn't pay tithing, without an income, and the Mormons really hated that. When they demanded that I find substitutes for my callings, and even teach organ lessons, I had to remind them that I was seriously ill, and it was not my job to find people for callings. None of the neighborhood Mormons brought me meals, or even called to see how I was doing. I was no longer of any use to them.

Maybe your ex-wife will see the Mormon church for what it really is--a self-serving cult of lies, created for the purpose of making money.

Mormonism never was about "love", or Christ, at all.

Sometimes, everyone pitches in. Other times nothing happens.

Has she asked anyone?

Why is it that anyone would wait for a local ward to send a card or visit or care for a friend in the same city in which they live? What special form of paralysis makes it that ward boundaries are a boundary on loving?

If someone is in a rehabilitation center for physical therapy access or nursing care, people might think she is safe & don't need help (yet) for meals brought in since they serve food to patients. Does your daughter live with your mom? Can your daughter drive yet? Is your daughter alone as a teenager needing meals delivered?

Or is your daughter out of the home living independently yet? So your daughter may be concerned about her mother's household bills being paid or pets fed during her convalescence in an extended recovery facility? Being recovering from surgeries and being in pain may make things foggy does your daughter have access to those bills that need paying ? has your ex wife and your daughter worked out how your daughter will access financial resources to keep those necessary bills paid or pets cared for ? Does your ex wife have any extended leave or disability through a work plan after this accident, and can your daughter or a paralegal and your daughter fill out the paper work to acquire documentation necessary and her mother's signatures on needed forms and arrange submission to arrange any financial support?

What resources in your daughter's network or her local town or professional resources everyone shares may help make needed financial arrangements, for paying of bills during this unexpected and very early rehabitation durin physical therapy and recovering such that the residence maintained for your exwife to return to with the lights on. How can daughter and mother facilitate needed communication and needed paper work and needed access to necessary funds which clearly, are now not supported by salary during her extended recovery, and are not supported by retirement funding as she is not yet retired.

It is understandable that your daughter expressed frustration in this very miserable and concerning situation.

After your wife returns to her domicile someone could phone the relief society president for a meal brought in, but mostly for your daughters sake (if your daughter still lives with her mom.) I found meals delivered after returns home from the hospital (however random the contents) had my children dancing with excitement- even when I didn't feel well enough to eat & had a pile of plates to sort out safely without chipping while still unable to lift anything.

And someone (that would probably be your daughter or your daughter and her best friend, or your daughter and her mothers best friend) check the kitchen, clean out the refrigerator, & go by Costco or winco or smart n final & purchase : one flat of yogurt, one box of breakfast bars or oatmeal packs, a case of applesauce packs, a flat of assorted progresso soups, her favorite chili & a bag of romaine lettuce, and a bag of what fits of her flavor from frozen ravioli to frozen burritos so she can hurry up and eat from her walker.

and lower her microwave onto the dining room table, move her frozen foods and yogurts and milk to the lower shelves of her refrigerator if she comes home In a wheelchair.

make a bed where a wheelchair will roll.

These are difficult things a daughter or family member needs to do, or check off which provisions your ex wife made with a hired worker or friend to handle.

And these are rarely things planned in ones forties or fifties. We haven't changed our furniture yet or considered wheel chair ramps except when visiting our own parents! So, make a supportive kind list, or hire a consultant for your daughter who can facilitate the sort of support your daughter needs to feel comfortable with, the life and care needs this accident (breaking of knee) is causing...so it doesn't becomes an immense tragedy with quiet loan payments or a hushed up home refi new mortgage payment which helped put daughter into schoolor pay travel expenses which she may be unaware of from developing into a tragedy while her middle aged mother is on pain medication or in traction somewhere healing.

that's what matters more than anything actually.
regarding ward visits between physical rehab sessions or after surgeries by strangers basically in a huge ward:
Intrusiveness into private business & lack of privacy: one couple's obligatory hospital visits (from anyone off the ward list) were when in tremendous pain. which one might prefer: formally delivered flower arrangements with tiny business employee printed card/tag, and directpersonal contact from somewhat shallow acquaintances when physically incapacitated. Which tremendously differs from deeply personal close friends or from intimate confidants within close family.

I recall one Mormon ward member help admit my mother to an emergency room during her heart attack when adult kids were an hour away one way without traffic- this farm owner was Mormon and who had known them personally for fifty five years and owned a farm several country blocks away. They were a neighbor and my mother's 50 year assigned same home teacher's daughter in law (he needed help from his new senior citizen wife to drive by then and had several heart attacks himself) so this was old friends long in the home obviously knew the dogs on the ranch personally since they were puppies. I don't think urban wards can provide congregation like that.

its that connection which makes Mormons drive or do. not just a ward assignment.

the ward division breaking community - and the old friend who is paralyzed apparently waiting for assigned ward members to reach out is what is - actually- tragedy.

Sorry to hear about your ex-wife. I hope you can help her all she needs right now.

Last August, 2016, I fell coming in the back door and dislocated my shoulder. No surgery yet, a year later. AND not one person has offered to even help me mow my grass. I used a crutch and push mowed what I could. My knees pop and throw me to the ground, thus the crutch. The bishop was my HT and NEVER once asked if I need anything! He would come to visit, show his movie or whatever and leave. My front yard has a hill I cannot mow by myself. Never once offered to help me.

Sad to say, but get used to it- no help from TSCC.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/2017 04:08PM by cutekitty.

The church cares about you when you're a target for conversion. After you're a cult member, not so much. Especially a divorced, not stay at home mom. Sad-but true.

as a single mother with a broken foot. My ex told me that if I did that, I was making him look bad. Well . . .

I got 1 dinner for the birth of my twins, and nothing for my husband's 2 hernia surgeries, 2 back surgeries, and as a single mother with my broken foot that broke 3 times.

The couple HT would offer to help, but never did.

My parents never got much help when they were very ill and couldn't attend church. Everyone just asked why they didn't attend any longer.

From what I've seen, mormons aren't very service oriented unless you BEG. Most people don't want to beg.

I would rather walk on my lips than ask for help.

Finally after winning 1000 at bingo, I paid a kid 25 bucks to mow the yard. He had to go over the front 3 times because it was so tall and thick. 3 months of summer growth.

I currently have next to no income. Waiting on SSD for 3 years...

One of my sons-in-law had to wait three years. They put a down payment on a house with the first check.

If you need to move, feel free to call the elder missionaries. They serve in the community for four hours per week. I did when I served in CA, LA. We visited nursing homes and met some interesting people. Call RS pres and ask for help.

I had my husband just home from the hospital and my teenage son laid up from knee surgery when the RS called and asked me to make Thanksgiving dinner for a family.

You can guess my response.

And they never even asked if I needed help.

"Now I've been out a long time... Last time I was at an RS function, they wanted to play "Pig in a Poke" at the end of the evening. This were down in old Lakeview ward, which I heared got reorganized out of existence...

"Anyway, when my wife heard how the game is played, she grabbed me and we skedaddled. See, the brethren all put in their key rings to a hat, and then the sistern one at a time reach in and grab a set. According to the bishop, it's an old mormon game that helped make the winters a bit more tolerable back in the day. He said my wife wasn't the first new wife in the ward to get upset and he could see the day coming when there would someone complained up about it..."
-_- excerpted from Judic West's upcoming novel, "Upcoming Novel"

Just a followup on what I wrote earlier:

I wanted to update what I wrote about my ex previously. I was trying to say that she hasn’t had any help or contact from the local ward. Which as far as I now she still hasn’t. As I said, her friend and co-worker who knows that bishop called him and unless I’ve not been told, which could be, he hasn’t called or visited.

Our son and his wife have been several times to the rehab center and he spent most of last Saturday getting the yard set for winter, which is what she was doing when she fell. His wife’s mother, the TBMiest of all TBM’s is a friend as well and she’s been over to see her and has been to the house to see what she needed done there.

Our daughter, age 35, is in her 12th year of teaching junior high English, 2 kids of her own and sometimes 5 of her husbands to be in charge of. But she goes after work to the rehab center, just a few blocks from her school. She and her mom and her mom’s mom have been in a long running book club, I think at least 12 women and they went to the rehab center last Saturday evening for a book club meeting. And they don’t read all church books.

Her mom, age 88, still driving short distances in daylight only, comes by regularly to visit. She lives a few blocks from the rehab center.

And our oldest son, who lives in Rock Springs WY is coming down tomorrow for Thanksgiving. So far, he and I haven’t received a Thanksgiving day invitation to anywhere, so we may go to dinner together and then bring something back to her. She’s said the food is pretty good where she is.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2017 09:24AM by memikeyounot.