Posted by:
VardaElentari
(
)
Date: May 10, 2015 06:53PM
Hi, I'm VardaElentari and I haven't been here for a long while. I left the church in 2002 and I've happily moved on with my life. However, this one thing happened that completely pissed me off and I feel a bit like I've regressed to the anger stage of ExMormonism.
My grandfather was fighting in Vietnam when my grandmother met the sister missionaries and commenced begging him by post mail for permission to get baptized. Eventually he gave in and she was baptized.
She raised their kids in the Mormon Church and he allowed it because it made her happy. He attended sacrament meeting with them because he believed families should go to church together. For 50 years he resisted baptism. He told me that belief in God was sufficient without all the extra stuff of the Mormon church.
For 50 years, Mormons who knew he wasn't baptized would encourage him to get baptized. Most Mormons had no idea he wasn't. He was a good man, he socialized with the members, and he was involved in his son's youth projects.
He loved his family more than anything. He'd never miss a family event. Even though he couldn't go in the temple, he came to every wedding reception of every grandchild. His son (my uncle) has 6 children, all temple-married and popping out kids, all under 25.
Last spring, a few months after starting chemo for lung cancer, my Papa traveled to SLC from his home in Colorado to be with his granddaughter for her wedding. He got sick with pneumonia and passed away in a hospital room. His last moments were stolen by my condescending uncle and his arrogant son who pushed me and my siblings away so they could give Papa a priesthood blessing. At his funeral back in Colorado, a Mormon funeral or course, it was announced by their ward bishop that a temple baptism was scheduled for a year later.
This spring, my Mormon mom, dad, grandmother, uncles, aunt, six cousins and their spouses and children, pretty much the whole family except for me and my fellow apostate siblings,all met at the temple and did that stuff they do for dead nonmembers.
He had 50 years to say yes but he didn't. Why can't the Mormons just love him for who he was? All along he just wasn't good enough for them. They probably saw him as a stubborn old man who didn't know what was good for him. They smugly fixed that for him as soon as they could.
I understand it makes my grandmother happy that they're sealed together now. After all, she is having to learn to live without her best friend and partner of 60 years, and now she can be the first wife of her forever husband and she is now eligible for resurrection and what not.
I'm just resentful because the Mormons stole my grandmother from me. Unless she was just destined to join a cult, I could have had a grandmother who didn't have to place her church before everything and everyone else. I could have had a grandmother who didn't have to look at me with pity and disappointment because I chose to leave the church. It's worse now that Papa's gone. His being a nonmember made our family gatherings bearable. Now that he's gone I can't stand the overwhelming smugness and self righteousness of my family (my exmo siblings excluded). I never have any desire to see those people again. Even being around my grandmother anymore creeps me out. She's obsessed with painting temples and listening to motab and watching conference reruns and all she talks about are my holy cousins and their spawn. I can't connect with her anymore and I wonder if I ever did. We used to talk for hours. And now all she wants to do is bear her testimony at me.
Okay, I think I've ranted plenty. Thanks for listening. This board is the best at listening to this stuff.
I hate the Mormons and their filthy putrid salty lake. I hate Utah and I'm never going back.
My Papa made everyone feel special and welcomed and loved. He accepted me no matter what my religion. I'm just really sad that he's gone.