Gloria M.: Remembering Gloria: A Life of Faith, A Death in Isolation

This is the story of my friend, Gloria, whom I greatly admired. I am sharing her story to the best of my memory, because I wish to highlight the great harm suffered by the elderly due to mandated shunning tactics in some coercive religions. This age group is often overlooked, but I believe they suffer more than we generally recognize. – Monica Velin Rodríguez

Gloria M.

November 1932 – March, 2018

Gloria was an icon in the local Jehovah’s Witness congregation. As far as I know, she was a faithful member her entire life. Her husband, Ed, was a prominent congregation elder for decades. They raised their daughter in the faith. They were outstandingly hospitable to all. They entertained missionaries and many others in their home. My husband and I were invited once, even though we were in a different congregation and they didn’t know us well. They wanted to encourage us in “spiritual” pursuits.

Despite her age and frailties, Gloria continued to be active in the public ministry in her later years. I recall her joining us “in service” (door-to-door preaching) one day — even though we were preaching in foreign language and an unfamiliar area. I can’t recall if she did this to support us because no one from our congregation was available, or if she wanted to continue preaching and no one in her group was continuing. Either way, her motives were kind and selfless. During our time together that day, Gloria told me a personal story from many years ago. In the most respectful and delicate of terms, she explained there had been a terrible rift between a fellow JW elder and her husband. They were at odds and not really on speaking terms for many years. But after a long time, they worked things out, and now that elder was one of her and her husband’s best friends. I was truly impressed with the depth of her ability to forgive. She practiced what she preached.

Gloria was in her late 70’s in 2010 when Ed, her husband of 50+ years, died of cancer. And what about that elder who had been forgiven and welcomed back into their lives? Well, he gave the funeral talk at a local Kingdom Hall. Attendance for Ed’s memorial service was impressive!

Likely due to depression after her husband’s death, Gloria was apparently drinking a bit much at times. “Drunkenness” is one of the many reasons for excommunication among JW’s. The local elders became aware of her habit and excommunicated Gloria (then in her early 80’s). A few years later (at age 85) Gloria died — isolated, alone, and completely abandoned by her life-long (and only) friends, & rejected by the religion she had given her life to. She was not allowed a memorial service at the Kingdom Hall. No one even wrote an obituary.

When I told an elderly JW — a life-long friend of Gloria’s — that I was saddened over the tragic way she was treated, he brushed it off by saying that if the congregation elders (pastors) had been too hard on her, Jehovah [God] would make it right “in the new system” [future Paradise].

Rest in peace, dear Gloria.