I'm sorry for the morbidity, but this has been bothering me.

Last month, we had a man in our ward pass away. He was only 42 years old and everyone was curious about how he died since it was unexpected and he hadn't been sick as far as we knew. It came out that he had struggled with drugs for a long time and took his life.

But, as soon as people got their answers, the sympathy kind of died down. Some people even went as far as saying passive-aggressive things that were basically along the lines of, "well, that's what happens when you choose that lifestyle."

It's really sad, like his death was less tragic than the other dude in our Ward a block over who died from heart failure last year.

How old are you Jordan?

It's perfectly normal for human beings to react to the same thing

in completely different ways. No two people will react the same

about a death. We are not robots, we are individual people, with

different ideas,tastes, likes and dislikes. Its ok for people

to think differently than each other, and feel differently from

each other. It must seem as if in the Mormon church everyone

acts the same, but in other places people are in fact, seperate

individuals and react accordingly . It's normal.

Someone: Bob died. He was so young.
Other person: Oh, that's terrible.
Someone: He OD'd
Other person: Serves 'im right.

No.

Not normal.

Mormon-y maybe, but not normal.

They miss the point of a funeral. The point is to help the deceased's family to grieve, and to offer them condolences, friendship, and support. This has nothing to do with how or when the loved one died.

A funeral is for the living, the same as religion should be. Mormon religion focuses on the dead--dead prophets, dead ancestors, future dead loved ones, and your-soon-to-be-dead-self.
When I was TBM, every Sunday was a funeral.

A friend's mother passed away a few years ago. They were in pretty dire financial straits because of the medical expenses incurred in the last years of her mother's life and asked the bishop if the ward could help with any of the funeral expenses. They were turned down flat.

A few months later a woman who was ward royalty died and the ward paid all the funeral expenses even though the family could have easily footed the bill themselves.

Mormons certainly have a pecking order. People are treated according to their status.

My daughter died by suicide. I’ve read a lot and listened to a lot of people talk about fighting the stigma of suicide. It’s fine to fight it, but this survivor thinks it will always be there.

Mormons, being judjier than most, will certainly respond to a suicide death with less sympathy/service than a regular death. Throw drugs in there and I wouldn’t be surprised if Mormons didn’t boycott the whole thing.

"Mormons have a pecking order"

^^^^^

which is Fine if you're at the top of the POrder, not so much if you're Not.

the MoCULTure is very much about idolizing the people at the top, whether that's an organization of the ward, the stake, or the whole enchilada; the CULTure of conformance to leaders is pretty much the same, IMHO.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/23/2018 06:36PM by GNPE.

IHMO, the specter of guilt can be an unproductive facet in an early death due to drugs, suicide, bad driving or a wreck less lifestyle, probably an aspect of Mormonism (Ultra-judgmental) can & often does magnify it.

Without a doubt, kindness, compassion & empathy- "I don't know if we teach that" seems to fit.

When my former husband passed in 2014, we held the funeral in Utah County where we had lived for 30 years. He had been a respected BYU professor. He had not been there for quite a few years and so I did not expect a lot of people from his department to attend the funeral. I certainly was surprised, though, that only one of his prior co-workers came to the viewing the night before. Also, there were only about 3-4 couples from our old ward who came. He had come out as a gay man and we had been divorced for several years. It still surprised me a bit.

One of my cousins lost his kid brother to an opioid overdose last winter in the heart of the Morridor.

Both born and raised LDS. One chose a healthier lifestyle than the other did. The one who died had many chances to clean his act up, but seemingly wasn't able to - likely addicted to the narcotics and the lifestyle.

He left behind young children.

Sure people mourned for him, especially his family and those who knew him best.

Others, including his siblings acknowledged he would still be here if not for his addiction.

It is a tragedy made moreso because it was preventable if not for the addiction he couldn't kick.

Of course. Mormonism is an UNEQUAL non-opportunity exploiter.

Many years ago in a large metropolitan area in the middle of the USA, a child of the SP contracted meningitis, IIRC. A special stake-wide fast was called, and the child survived.

A few months after that, the child of a newly-converted ward clerk contracted meningitis. The family requested a similar stake-wide fast. The request was denied. The child went to the arms of Jesus.

A female relative of the SP is currently highly placed in the LDS hierarchy. Just so you know.