My Aunt Debbie

Another Aunt that passed away has been on my mind for a while now. My Aunt Debbie. She converted to the church after dating one of my my mother's 6 brothers when he returned from his mission. They got married and had 4 kids. About 10 years ago, she decided that she wanted to divorce my uncle and leave the church. It was devistating to her kids. The two younger children went to live with her and the older two with my uncle. My aunt began drinking and smoking and she lost a bunch of weight, when she was already sufficiently thin. She didn't even allow her younger daughter to hang her church Young Women posters in her room. Besides that, she was demanding all this child support and alimony from my uncle to pay for her luxury apartment and other expences.

I bring up all the other stuff because it's a prime example of how her character was decimated to make her actions invalid. No one ever discussed what reasons she had for leaving the church. I learned later from my cousin that my aunt would lock herself in her room and read anti-mormon literature all day.

I don't know the details of the events before, durring and after their breakup. I think it's a shame that she eventually abandoned her family. I don't know if that was her choice or not. If I know my uncle the way I think I do, I would imagine that he would be willing to try to work things out. I just don't know for sure.

She eventually went off on her own and explored Buddhism and perhaps a few other religions. I saw her one time when my cousin went on his mission and then a few years ago when their younger daughter was married in the temple, she was at the reception. A few months after that,I learned that she had committed suicide. She attempted it one other time and her husband rescued her before it was too late. So the second time she drove her car out to the wilderness where she overdosed on some medication. She was found a few days later by a hunter. I didn't get to go to her funeral, as I was in Utah and it took place in California. I did get word that she had many regrets about leaving her family. I don't recal if leaving the church was also part of her regret, but it kind of put a scare in me, and I think in the rest of the family too, that if one leaves the church, they will have so much regret that it could cause one to commit suicide.

Then there's the idea that is believed in the church that if a person committs suicide then they will automatically be sentenced to live in the lowest kingdom, besides outer darkness, the Telestial Kingdom.

Talk about scare tactics.