 So I have one more story to tell about converting people to The Truth, and then I'll move on to another topic. My Aunt Donnis contracted breast cancer in 1996. She was a worldly person and unfortunately, she died a year later. She was my strongest supporter after I left The Truth and went to college - defying everything I had been taught as a Witness. We were very close and she's the first person I came out to as being gay.
Just before she died, my father made one last attempt to convert her to The Truth. He called to chat a few months before she died and Aunt Donnis was shocked when he offered to visit. He suggested bringing my stepmother Fluffy to visit for a week or two, just before the inevitable arrived. Apparently, according to Aunt Donnis, he also preached about the New Order and what he thought about my being gay, but Aunt Donnis essentially told him to go to hell. As I said, she was my strongest supporter. Aunt Donnis didn't understand why he called, and when she told me about their conversation she said, "I don't hardly know those people!" It was true. She didn't know them very well. In spite of the fact that my father is her brother, contact from him is rare and contact from Fluffy is non-existent. He's alienated himself from the rest of his family since he married Fluffy and became a Witness, so no one knew why he called Aunt Donnis. I know why. It was because she was about to die. She was a prime convert. People on the edge of death's door are easy targets for The Truth. So my father witnessed to Aunt Donnis and preached about Armaggedon, but it didn't work in my Aunt's case. She wasn't afraid to die, and she wasn't about to embrace a crazy religion either. Death did not make The Truth more palatable in her eyes. After she died, we held her memorial service in a little church in Chico, California. It wasn't a service that preached about religion. My aunt was very non-religious, so the church was only used as a beautiful place for people of various faiths to mourn, but it didn't matter. My father did not attend. Jehovah wouldn't approve of his entering a church other than a Kingdom Hall, so my father wouldn't enter. There's no room in The Truth to gather with non-believers to mourn for your sister when she dies. Not when she's a worldly girl. Not when she refused his last attempt to convert her to The Truth.
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