I was raised Fundamentalist Christian. I know you all know stories, but here's mine:

[Backseat Driver]

95. I too was raised in that fundamentalist Lutheranism

My "mother" asked to never speak to me again some years before 9/11. I asked for sure that was what she wanted and she said yes and that dad and her were on the same page - that, at our marriage in the church we grew up in, both baptised and confirmed, they had quite literally given me away, so I was HIS problem now, whatever I "needed" from them. What had I done? Certainly I was angry and depressed that day...We had moved OOT and abandoned them I guess. How about some loving hope for the future of that marriage under the extreme stress of putting food on the table? Of five educated people, I was once the only one not between jobs. Did I live in the wrong zip code?

She called me once later saying my dad was calling out for his kids on his dementia death bed and I should come, but explained that he likely wouldn't recognize me. I told her my DH was also in the hospital, so I could not come; DH recovered nicely. I did not attend dad's funeral; I read his obit.

My siblings took their side all those years, so I heard from no one for years. Hey, no news was good news to them, I had long been told, and I sure had none to share except our struggles with continuing serial unemployment, kids at college, and DH's parental illnesses. Both seldom visited their grown granddaughters after their graduations from HS, and never even saw their great-grandson.

Finally, I got a call from my sister. My brother and my mom found themselves both dying across the aisle in a hospice facility, ages 92 and 64. Mom could not bear that her son who had never had his own family/SO/or partner nor even ever had his very own phone number, a guy who had never left home (in-closet guilty gay?...I didn't care...what kind of BS did she tell him?), having promised dad to take care of her, might die first--so she did die first--with her medicational "dignity' intact by self-suicide, refusing all food and water. He died several months later, NASH and pancreatic cancer. I went to his funeral service in church, but My Dear Sister never called to say he had been buried ("It was quick" she said. Covid made it that difficult?). She got the whole estate(s), furnishings, home, all the assets, and all the admin trouble she deserved (for that, there's lawyers, lol." So, we're both seniors; she's agnostic, and I continue to disregard an organized church life. I got questions but no guilt!