NO! I Have To Touch It! (My memorial rant)

I think I posted on here that I went to the memorial last week. My wife's dad has been a jw for over 50 years and has never missed a memorial before. He has been getting sicker and sicker and his wife the star pioneer still does nothing for him. So, he asks me to take him to the memorial. I love him like my own dad and will do anything within reason for him, so I agreed. Well, my wife was too sick to go again this year and I told my son he didn't have to go.

My father in law needs a cane to walk and is in such pain that he can hardly even move. All of his cervical bones are fused together with only the atlas left as a free moving structure. He also has terrible bone spurs in his neck and cluster headaches to boot. So we go inside the rented hall and sit in the back. My FIL is so sick he can barely lift his hand to shake hands with folks. As the talk progresses he is doubled over in pain and trying to keep quiet instead of moaning as he typically does at home. It breaks my heart to see this once strong and good man reduced to this.

So they pass the bread and he takes it from his wife and passes it to me. His arm was shaking but he managed ok. Then he got a bad wave of pain and he almost fell out of the chair. I asked him if he needed anything or if he wanted to go and he said that he had to stay because Jehovah wants him to be there. I thought to myself that a God of mercy wouldn't mind him being more comfortable in his bed and just being there in spirit...He was gonna stay...period.

So, here comes the wine. He is still doubled over and his wife tries to pass it to him and he can't move. So she asks him if he wants to try and pass it. He can't answer her so she tries to pass it to me. He said in a pained and rather loud voice, "NO! Tengo que tocarlo!" In English that is, "NO! I have to touch it!" So he struggled until he got hold of it and passed the wine-glass to me. After he went through all that the glass just went on and on and on. No one really making an effort or even seeming to want to drink any of the wine. And it hit me. These people are truly controlled by the Watchtower. They fear missing a memorial of a covenant they are not even part of. They fear not getting to touch a plate or a glass. If this isn't idolatry I don't know what else is.

When I got home I almost cried because of how much pain my FIL is in and how much he exerted himself to touch a glass of wine. It was as if his very life emanated from touching that damned glass. And I remembered a scene in an old classic horror film where The Mummy was trying to get this elixir to keep on living. Well one of the protagonists of the film either dropped the vile or threw it on the ground shattering the container and letting the elixir drip into the cracks of the floor. There goes the Mummy, on his belly sucking the floor trying to get any drop of it. He didn't get any and he died. That is what my FIL reminded me of, a person desperate for a life giving elixir, or perhaps a man gasping for air. I have been wanting to talk to him about this because he is very proud of himself for having made it to yet another one of these ridiculous events. I happened to be recording the event for my wife's benefit as well as for my blog, and I captured his face and voice as he said how he had to touch it. When I played the video for my wife she cried. She saw her dad suffering and then felt like she is going to be punished by Jehovah for missing it when her dad went as sick as he was.

I am really at my wits end with this cult. I am sick of seeing how it chews up people, destroys their lives and then just craps them out. I am sorry. I just had to vent and share what's going on inside me.....