Midgley: Non-LDS Grief is "Bizarre"

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_Craig Paxton
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Re: Midgley: Non-LDS Grief is "Bizarre"

Post by _Craig Paxton »

I've had some jousts with Midley back in the day over on the FAIR board. I'm sorry for his loss. He sees the world through his Mormon filter. I don't doubt him one bit that he believes that Mormon's are the best grievers the world has ever witnessed. That their comforting myths provide the best salve for softening the realities of death and helping a believer survive the grieving process. Humans will always prefer a comforting lie over the unvarnished hash truth.
"...The official doctrine of the LDS Church is a Global Flood" - BCSpace

"...What many people call sin is not sin." - Joseph Smith

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_candygal
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Re: Midgley: Non-LDS Grief is "Bizarre"

Post by _candygal »

Really..I think this particular nurse would think differently if she had seen my LDS mother on a hospital floor pounding the ground and screaming when her 11 year old grand daughter died.
_Lemmie
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Re: Midgley: Non-LDS Grief is "Bizarre"

Post by _Lemmie »

candygal wrote:Really..I think this particular nurse would think differently if she had seen my LDS mother on a hospital floor pounding the ground and screaming when her 11 year old grand daughter died.

Oh dear. I think you have mentioned your niece before, right? That is heartbreaking. I am so sorry for your loss.
_Runtu
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Re: Midgley: Non-LDS Grief is "Bizarre"

Post by _Runtu »

candygal wrote:Really..I think this particular nurse would think differently if she had seen my LDS mother on a hospital floor pounding the ground and screaming when her 11 year old grand daughter died.


I'm reminded of my LDS uncle losing three of his seven children to cardiomyopathy. They were 2 months, 18th months, and 3 years, respectively. When the youngest died, my aunt was so distraught that she couldn't get out of bed, let alone go to the hospital, so my uncle went alone. He held his boy and rocked him, singing to him until he died. He placed him in the crib and then pounded on the walls, screaming, "Why, God, why?" over and over.

The idea that LDS members have a corner on peaceful grieving is a terrible thing to say.
Runtu's Rincón

If you just talk, I find that your mouth comes out with stuff. -- Karl Pilkington
_Lemmie
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Re: Midgley: Non-LDS Grief is "Bizarre"

Post by _Lemmie »

Runtu wrote:
candygal wrote:Really..I think this particular nurse would think differently if she had seen my LDS mother on a hospital floor pounding the ground and screaming when her 11 year old grand daughter died.


I'm reminded of my LDS uncle losing three of his seven children to cardiomyopathy. They were 2 months, 18th months, and 3 years, respectively. When the youngest died, my aunt was so distraught that she couldn't get out of bed, let alone go to the hospital, so my uncle went alone. He held his boy and rocked him, singing to him until he died. He placed him in the crib and then pounded on the walls, screaming, "Why, God, why?" over and over.

The idea that LDS members have a corner on peaceful grieving is a terrible thing to say.

3 young children? How do you recover from something like that. That's heartbreaking Runtu. "a corner on peaceful grieving" is indeed terrible. I don't think Midgley thinks when he sets up these stories.
_Markk
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Re: Midgley: Non-LDS Grief is "Bizarre"

Post by _Markk »

Doctor Scratch wrote:A very strange posting from Dr. Midgley recently appeared at "Sic et Non." The comment starts sweetly enough: it's Midgley's reminiscence of the moments immediately prior to and after the passing of his late wife:

Midgley wrote:I must tell the following story of my becoming instantly reminded of the tender mercies of the Lord as they were mediated to me by two people, one just prior to my wife's death at the Huntsman Cancer Hospital in Salt Lake and then by a dear friend who was then serving in the Area Presidency in Manila. My wife had been treated for cancer not all that long after we returned from our mission to New Zealand. And for many years she had no signs of that terrible disease, then she suddenly had a problem. A very gifted surgeon at the University of Utah came to Provo and examined my wife and had tests done, and he then announced that he could cure her. He explained that he is the world's expert on the cancer she had. So we went to the Huntsman Cancer Hospital in Salt Lake, and she underwent the surgery. This surgeon introduced me to his colleagues in both that amazing hospital and research center, and boasted that he had cured my wife. However, he warned me that in her recovery from that surgery there was one problem that she might face, but he assured me that the staff would be fully prepared to deal with that problem, which almost never happens. It happened, they were prepared, and they failed. Ten hours later, in the ICU with three physicians working the best they could, my wife passed away, with my family all present.


This is a moving story. Right? But of course Midgley has to use it as an opportunity to engage in Mopologetics:

Midgley wrote:Those three physicians and the women in charge of the ICU eventually were in tears when it became clear that my wife would soon pass away. Then in came a young nurse, who introduced herself as the "dying nurse." She said that we looked like we are LDS. I said that we were. And then she asked if my wife had been given a priesthood blessing. I replied that she had. Then she announced that she was certain that dealing with us would be really easy. I asked why. She said that those who are not LDS almost always express their grief in bizarre ways, with anger, and hostility to other family members and so forth. Her remarks were amazingly calming.


I don't know about you, but this struck me as amazingly callous. I get that people grieve in all kinds of different ways, and I am glad that Midgley was able to find comfort in this difficult moment, but "those who are not LDS almost always express their grief in bizarre ways"? I guess the LDS manner of confronting death is superior to everyone else's? I fail to see how anger, or lashing out is really all that out of the ordinary following the death of a loved one. What *is* difficult to understand is why anyone would want to point to such a thing as a means of feeling superior to other people.

Others have noted that they feel uneasy / "creeped out" by Midgley's characterization of apostates as having "gone missing." I daresay this this latest comment is just yet another instance of the basic prejudice he feels towards non-Mormons. Very, very disappointing.



It comes out of the same mouth that told me when I was struggling with my LDS faith..."was it the beer."

Death hurts, and effects people in different was no matter the faith. I have had LDS families members freak out, and others be calm. The same in my new faith. One thing for sure...Christian funerals are far more often a celebration of life, with a lot more smiles...at least most the time.

A friend of mine I grew up with died a few weeks ago, he was a atheist I think, no religion ever in his life one way or another that I can remember.

He was a Grand Exalted leader at the local Elks club...point being his funeral service was a unorganized mess... but man the open bar down stairs was a celebration of life.
Don't take life so seriously in that " sooner or later we are just old men in funny clothes" "Tom 'T-Bone' Wolk"
_candygal
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Re: Midgley: Non-LDS Grief is "Bizarre"

Post by _candygal »

Runtu wrote:
candygal wrote:Really..I think this particular nurse would think differently if she had seen my LDS mother on a hospital floor pounding the ground and screaming when her 11 year old grand daughter died.


I'm reminded of my LDS uncle losing three of his seven children to cardiomyopathy. They were 2 months, 18th months, and 3 years, respectively. When the youngest died, my aunt was so distraught that she couldn't get out of bed, let alone go to the hospital, so my uncle went alone. He held his boy and rocked him, singing to him until he died. He placed him in the crib and then pounded on the walls, screaming, "Why, God, why?" over and over.

The idea that LDS members have a corner on peaceful grieving is a terrible thing to say.

I can't even wrap my mind around a loss like this.
_Runtu
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Re: Midgley: Non-LDS Grief is "Bizarre"

Post by _Runtu »

Lemmie wrote:3 young children? How do you recover from something like that. That's heartbreaking Runtu. "a corner on peaceful grieving" is indeed terrible. I don't think Midgley thinks when he sets up these stories.


I can't imagine how hard that was for my aunt and uncle. I wrote about it after my uncle died 4 years ago:

https://runtu.wordpress.com/2014/12/01/uncle-clayton/

He was one of the few true great men I have known. To think of all he accomplished despite all the disadvantages and heartbreaks he had in life is amazing.
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If you just talk, I find that your mouth comes out with stuff. -- Karl Pilkington
_Doctor Steuss
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Re: Midgley: Non-LDS Grief is "Bizarre"

Post by _Doctor Steuss »

Midgley wrote: ...those who are not LDS almost always express their grief in bizarre ways...

I haven’t thought about this for over a decade, but today in reading this OP, it came rushing back.

When I was 20-21(ish), I lived in a house with three friends. There was a small one-bedromm casita of sorts attached to the house where two additional renters lived. As “small world” would have it, one of them was a gal I had gone to high school with, and the other (“Kim”) was a relative of a family in my ward growing up. Since we all shared a driveway, and washer/dryer, we inevitably had little choice but become pretty good friends.

Kim had battled some addiction problems, and her and her boyfriend had decided to move to Utah to be close to her parents, so she would have an additional support system to help get clean. She was going to move up there first, and her boyfriend would eventually follow once he was able to figure out employment. Tragically, on her last trip from Vegas to move to her new home, her car went under a semi’s trailer, and she didn’t survive.

A few months after the funeral (I was unable to attend), I ran into her aunt and one of her cousins (part of the LDS family from my previous ward). I asked how the family was, and conveyed my remorse about not being able to make it to the funeral. In response, they started to tell me about Kim’s boyfriend at the funeral.

He had showed up with two friends; all three of them had bloodshot eyes, and were dressed in all black. He had a love letter from Kim pinned to his shirt. He sobbed throughout the service, flanked by his two friends who tried to console him. After the casket was closed, and people were walking by, he “hugged” the casket, and stayed there for a solid minute while sobbing uncontrollably. Eventually, his two friends gently pulled him off, and walked him out.

The whole time they were recounting this to me, they were laughing and peppering in comments about “how weird” it was. I was left gobsmacked. I heard a tale of a man who lost the woman he loved, and showed his grief and loss in the way that made sense to him at the time.

To me, it was a heartbreaking display of romantic devotion. To them, it was a humorously bizarre display of grief.

I don’t know that I associated their reaction to our religion at the time. Now, I am left wondering if there was indeed a correlation.
"Some people never go crazy. What truly horrible lives they must lead." ~Charles Bukowski
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