T Plus 1 Week. Watching the Sun.

It's been a week and a day since I found out the news.You would think that with a week past I would feel less anger and frustration towards the leaders who have refused to let me move forward with the cancellation. I mostly sweep it under my heart during the days and at night I simply try to forget. I have heard stories of people so offended at church leaders they spend a lifetime in hate mode. I get that now, I could easily become that.

The church headquarters called this week.... looking for the girls. Really, President C couldn't have had his exec secretary call? It's funny when someone from the church who used to call my girls all those lovely names calls to try and wish a Happy Bday or ask where they are all under a pasted and forced voice of concern. Is that how the members of Parkland ward will become. Will all those members who were so warm and welcoming (cough, cough) eventually show up at my door and pretend concern? Kind of like the YW who treated K2 with such disdain and showed up two weeks after she quit trying to be nice. Is it so hard to find somewhere in your heart to be kind before we ever leave in the first place?

I read a book this week, one I am sure LDS leaders would call blashemphy. In it the author talks about the treatment, the forced silence, the dark side of the LDS culture. The way Mormons say that those that leave the faith can never let it go. Being Mormon isn't just about a faith. It's a lifestyle. Leaving it leaves you without friends and even family and it takes a while to re-establish yourself and build a new life. Why is it that leaving is such a crime? I would have thought that at least some of those I called friends would have remained but very few did....very few. I am in the rebuilding stage.Talking about it is healthy - you simply need to make sure you don't find yourself bitter. I fight that a lot.

So, with less emotion let me address what happened last week openly and honestly.

My request for a cancellation was not a test or a "let's see how far I can push it' reality. It was about emotional closure. For nearly 30 years M has proven over and over again the double standard of his life. The appearance of spirituality and dedication to the motions of Mormonism but when it comes to the God given requests of human decency - the basics of living the gospel that involve Christ's admonitions, there just isn't any.

I need closure to move on. Since the church will NEVER hold him accountable in spite of all the GA's who admonish leaders to do so through every conference during the last 10 years. I love it when the expectations are different for leaders verses lay members.  I need the emotional release so that I never have to know I am in any way attached to a man who abused his family severely, without remorse even to this day. For all the years I was told that single sisters fall under the blessings of their parents eternal sealing I felt compelled to fall under my parents, not M. I am not asking to go to be sealed to W. I don't go to church and that would be hypocritical. My mother raised me to know integrity. So why? Why can't I receive the a cancellation? The answer is absolute, no discussion, why would he? Why bother dealing with the emotions? Well, that's where they're wrong. My emotions are fine, quite worked through by the way. Closure is a very different emotional state than is instability and if you had of bothered meeting with me you might have seen that. The good ol boys club though works well and making women even smaller that an already repressed culture allows.

So Calgary South Stake, did you fail the Smith family? Oh yeah, in my opinion you did. I guess the loss of five members doesn't seem to phase you but in the end, we are just 5. But the next time a woman and her children come forward and the outcome doesn't change that will be how many more? The statistics are that currently only 20% of the church members are active. Maybe it's time to start asking why instead of defaulting to an oblivious concern for "offense" and not coming back. Everybody gets offended at some point in their life's. Why not, instead of putting all the onus on the one offended you as church deal with those that seem so skilled at doing the offending.

I used to mourn the lost generations of my children who weren't going to have the church. Now I think about the moments my grandchildren won't have to be taunted or treated poorly, especially my grand-daughters. I think about the Savior's gospel and how I as a Grandmother I can teach my precious babies about integrity and honor and unconditional love. It;'s funny, I feel closer to the Savior and His gospel  now more than I ever have. Wow, I never expected that.

So it is hear that I publicly state my dedication to being everything to my grandchildren that my mother was to my kids. Maybe not in the way some members of my family would expect me to be but in the way that whenever you looked at Grandma Lloyd you didn't think of her as a heathen but as the kind of woman a whole family honored because in the end she really understood God's purpose for us here on the earth. Thanks Mom, I feel you every day.