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Jarod - losing my Mum to Blood

I’m officially out!

My name is Jarod. I’m 19 years old and I have finally left the religion. I have been PIMO for almost 3 years now, it has NOT been the smoothest ride, but I truly could not happier. To celebrate my freedom, I have decided to finally make myself known to all of you and introduce myself.

I have been mentally conditioned since childhood to be afraid of those who are not supporters of this religion, to tread cautiously around nonbelievers. How ironic, that the most abusive, selfish, apathetic, and presumptpus individuals that I have consistently dealt with were actually in this “spiritual paradise” that was meant to protect me.

I have been an a part of this religion since I was 6, my mother feeling obligated to return to the congregation after a failed marriage and not being able to communicate with her own parents and brothers due to the shunning. When I was about 8 years old, my mother found what seemed to be a mature, spiritual ministerial servant named William, whom she then married after a few months of dating.

My “stepfather” would appear to be a mild-tempered, considerate, and spiritually mature man in the congregation. However, behind close doors he was an impulsive toddler who had grown man tantrums. At the slightest mishap I committed that he could find, he would scream, shout, break, and throw things around the house while giving me a poorly delivered lecture on whatever seeming flaw I had that he wanted me to fix.

What was worse was when he later got promoted and became an Elder. Which confused my innocent child brain when at Titus 1:7, a scripture apparently used to evaluate whether a brother should be an elder, states that the candidate should be “Slow to anger,” which CLEARLY was not a quality of his.

But what confused me more was when I read in the articles that elders are approved by God himself. Which meant in my mind that despite this man being a piece of crap to me, he still is seen as qualified to have this job. This led to my child-self concluding that my stepfather’s abuse must be condoned by God, that I DESERVED to be treated like this. Such a conclusion led to me becoming the ultimate martyr, I killed my desires, dreams, and self-esteem in order to please both god and man.

I would like to mention that my mother was aware of her husband’s abusive nature towards me. I was told that at the beginning of the marriage, she did almost plan to divorce him, but was encouraged by the elder’s not to and to try and work things out. Despite the abuse from her husband to me never disappearing, my mother tried to balance protecting me with protecting her image as a wife and mother… the latter being the only thing she really achieved. Nonetheless I love and cherish my mother, and I forgive her for her failings knowing how hard it was for her to be shunned once and not wanting to do it again.

Back to my story, i noticed that despite my dedication to pleasing everyone else, I was not experiencing the “more happiness in giving than receiving” feeling. I felt hollow, like a corpse that was carried by strings to appear alive. It didn’t help that discrepancies in the JW doctrine started becoming apparent to me, and even though I was encouraged to ignore them and just keep “trusting in Jehovah,” living in such a low state of mind with no compensation was infuriating. This would begin to erode heavily at my confidence in the religion, however the final blows that would destroy it all would come later…

This beautiful woman is my mother, Farah Kennedy. She died on Christmas Eve of December 2021 due to rapid blood loss because of a C-section.

She was 24 when she had me, and at the time was disfellowshipped. As any hardworking mother wants, she wanted to give me a good life and stable environment. Due to her first marriage in the world failing, having to work several jobs to keep a roof over our heads, and occasionally receiving visits and run-ins with witnesses urging her to return. She caved in.

A few years after being reinstated, she met a ministerial servant named William. Initially, William seemed to be a mature, well-mannered, responsible Christian man that according to Watchtower standards, would make for a good “family head.” However, after getting married, the less appealing aspects of his personality began to surface.

He was impulsive, easily irritatable. He was a like a raging bull that was controlled only by his impulsive emotions when they took over. However his abuse wasn’t geared towards her, but it was targeted at me, her son.

Maybe it was out of self-hatred, trauma, or a lack of love in his own family, but this man dedicated his waking life to judging and criticizing every action I did. Sometimes it would be as small as making an error on a school test, and that’s all he needed to motivate himself to scream, shout, and behave like the biggest man child I had ever seen. I recall him even breaking knobs on the kitchen stove, throwing my notebook across the room, and slamming chairs into the ground as if he was a wrestler.

I am not aware of the full story, but I know that when she found out how he was treating me, my mother once intended to divorce or seperate from him. She contacted the elders where they had a meeting as a couple, and I suppose she was convinced to stay with him. Not surprising either, given the amount of backlash and shame that would be put upon her had she did divorced the guy. From an outsiders point of view, we seemed to be a spiritual, responsible, perfect family (that couldn’t be further from the truth).

She was married for about 12 years to this man, and while I don’t know what went through my mother’s head during this time, I know she carried regret and frustration at how things turned out. She wanted a better life for herself and for me, so she tried to work with the best of her circumstances, and be a God-fearing woman.

In 2021, when she was 40 years old, Farah unexpectedly got pregnant. At this point in time, I am 16, almost a legal adult. She was hoping to put the parenting life behind herself and with her husband travel more and relax, so this was a bit of a wrench in her plans. A woman at her age being pregnant is considered high-risk, but obviously she couldn’t abort it. So my family and the friends of the congregations that knew her eagerly planned for the child’s arrival. Things were moving smoothly through the months until December came around.

On the final 10 weeks of the pregnancy, Farah thought she was going into early labor when she started experiencing stomach pains and vomitting. Her and her husband William rushed to the Emergency Room. I stayed home and kept my phone close in case of any news.

I receive a call from her. At 3:45am.

“I lost the baby. She died from a placenta abruption. The doctors need to get it out via C-section.”

How do you comfort a mother who lost their own kid? I didn’t know what to say. I don’t even remember what I did say to her. But the call was short and it was only when my family picked me up in the morning to go visit her did I find out how the procedure went.

I battled depression and I was overall a pessimist growing up, but the idea that my mother, who was so kind, thoughtful, and active in the congregation could possibly be abandoned by her god to die? Such an outcome was unfathomable to me.

However, when I arrived at the hospital, and found out she was in the ICU. I found out that she lost so much blood during the surgery, the doctors had to pause it in order to help her body recover. When I walked into the room, I was greeted by the sight of my once healthy, stable mother who was watching tv with me the night before, now covered in tubes, skin swollen and pale, injected with painkillers and anesthesia to numb the excruciating pain of having her own body cut open.

When I approached the hospital bed, my hands shaking and tears threatening to drown my eyes, she gripped my hands repeating the words “I love you,” over and over again. I hated seeing her in this awful state, I still held onto the hope that she was going to make it out of this alive, so I only gave some words of encouragement and excused myself.

I didn’t know those would be her last words to me.

The following days I’d visit her almost daily, however she was put in an induced coma in order to help her body recover. But it was already too late. Because of the rapid blood loss, her kidneys had already damaged, and without that, she couldn’t naturally replace the blood in her body.

I didn’t care though, my mother was nothing short of an upstanding Christian woman. There is no one in my life that I knew at the time that I believed deserved to be blessed by god more than her. She was the best part of my life, I was willing to do anything to save her life. I already suffered a decade of abuse from her husband, lost my grandmother from Covid in 2020, and lost the future of having a little sister, there is no way jehovah would be as heartless to let me lose her too… Turns out I was wrong about that as well.

On December 24th 11pm, I got on my knees in the waiting room of the hospital. My faith in god was already on its rocks, but I tried to beg “Him” one more time to at least let me say goodbye to her, let me talk to her one last time if you really aren’t going to help her recover. There was this piercing alarm that went throughout the ICU floor, the hallway to my mother’s room blocked off. I’m not sure if these events were connected, but deep in the core of my heart I knew that some bad news was coming.

I tried to drown out the noises and just sit back down and maybe try to sleep, maybe wake up in another world where this was all just some silly dream. On the contrary, I woke up to find William, my mother’s husband, utter those damn words I never wished to hear.

“Mommy died.”

I didn’t cry, I had no reason to at this point. There are no oceans that could represent the amount of tears I could have shed if the human body was capable of it. Those words entered into my ear and like a devestating bomb, laid waste to my entire body so that even walking felt like the most difficult task.

It is going to be almost 3 years since my mother died. I know some defenders of the organization might say that a blood transfusion may not have saved her. Perhaps so, but that option was not even considered for us to try. Had my mother been allowed to have an abortion due to the dangers of being pregnant at that age, she could have been still here. Had she were allowed to have a blood transfusion or used any sort of blood related medical aid, she may have had a fighting chance. But she wasn’t.

She was willing to lose her life, risk leaving her family, her 16-year old son… just to remain in favor of this religion.

Every. Single. Time. I speak of this story, it’s as if I am reliving it despite it having occurred almost 3 years ago now. I blame men like the leaders of the Jehovah’s Witnesses organization for coercing people like my mother to uphold the “sanctity of life” by losing their own…

This is the story of my mother Farah Kennedy, and how it ended, tragically.

Originally published November 2024

   Paul Grundy  2005 - 2024