Miserable Grandparents

When I was a kid I loved going to my grandparents houses.  They lived a long way from us and so it wasn't a regular thing, maybe a couple of times a year visiting my mums parents who lived close to London and maybe once every eighteen months for my dads parents who lived on the South coast.

My sister and I loved those visits and we would look forward to them for weeks beforehand.  Each set of Grandparents were very different, in fact they were chalk and cheese, but both loved us and looked forward to seeing us in their own way.  Looking back now I recognise the tension in my mums parents house but as a kid the adults shield you from all that crap and attempt to propagate the fantasy that everything is wonderful all the time.

The common denominator between the two sets of Grandparents was that three of them were Jehovahs Witnesses.  My mums mother, the exception, was a chain smoking, potty mouthed Catholic who didn't suffer fools and challenged the world with a caustic wit and a rapier sharp intelligence. 

She had little time for my dad, whom she seemed to merely tolerate and though she loved my mum she found it difficult to express any genuine emotion.

My Grandfather was an exceptionally intelligent man and if his war stories are true a very brave man as well.  However he was also extremely eccentric, a trait that gathered pace as he aged.

My dads parents were poor, working class and wonderful.  Grandad Ken was a professional dancer when he met my Grandma Joan in a dance hall in Lowerstoft.  By all accounts my Grandma was from a very wealthy family that owned a fleet of fishing boats in the town.  Her parents were outraged when they discovered she was courting (I love that word) a poor dancer and gave her the ultimatum; leave him or we will disown you.  So she left her life of luxury and married the man of her dreams.

Somewhere along the way both couples were contacted by the JW's and all but my Grandma Edith succumbed to the promises of this modern American religion.

Fast forward to today and my children hardly know their Grandparents on either side of the family. My mum and dad haven't even tried to contact any of them for years and the same is true for my wife's parents.  Why?  Because our children don't attend the Kingdom Hall, they don't believe the lies and misinformation that the Governing Body spout and as a result they are treated as little more than strangers by their own family.  They are not children anymore, they have left home and are busy making their way in the world yet they have missed out on something very special.

If one of my parents died tomorrow none of my children would attend the funeral because they don't know their Grandparents, they've been denied an important relationship because they don't share the same religious beliefs.

My son is planning to get married soon and he asked me if he should invite my parents.  I told him they didn't even attend their own daughters wedding because she left the Witnesses.  They will only decline and probably send him a brief note that says they cannot condone his lifestyle and they are only staying away from his big day as an act of love to demonstrate how important it is to serve Jehovah.

There is a scripture that Witnesses use and they apply it to the world yet the world loves its own.

2 Tim3 - But know this, that in the last days grievous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of self...without natural affection.. 

I know that when I am a grandfather I will love my grandkids with real natural affection.  I will spoil them and help them whenever and wherever I can.  There is no religion in the world that will break that bond of love that any normal, thinking, intelligent person would feel for the children of their own kids.  And let me tell you, Christmas for my grandkids will be magical!!