My mother was a Buddhist. She didn't practice her religion strictly and often times swayed between Christianity and Buddhism during her struggle with cancer. She eagerly seeked help from any religion that could offer her answers to why she was sick, why now while she was so young, why her, etc. Her Christian friends bombarded her with Bibles, asked her to Bible study, and took her to church. Her Buddhist friends asked her to join their Taiwanese Buddhist community service organization and invited her to pot lucks. In the end, she decided she wanted to die as a Buddhist and have a Buddhist ceremony at her funeral.
When her Christian friends heard about this, there were horrified. During her last month, her Christian friends came over several times a week, bringing food for the family of course but they also literally huddled around her to convince her to convert. As she lay deathly ill in her chair, they whispered to her and I quote, "Just say you're a Christian. That's all you have to do. Just say you're a Christian and you'll be saved." They prayed for her soul and encouraged her to announce herself as one of them. They would sit around her for at least an hour, people on each side, whispering into her ears. At first, my family and I had no idea what they were saying to her. We thought they were just whispering comforting thoughts. But then we realized what they were doing. We realized this when they finally got up one day from their pleading and approached my father. "She said she's a Christian! I will call a priest to arrange a Christian ceremony for her funeral!" My dad, in shock and in anger, said, "No. No. You must have misunderstood. She is a Buddhist. She told me so." (My father is not bias by the way. He is agnostic with a Christian lean.) He told her friends to leave and went to my mother and asked her what happened. She painfully croked that she is a Buddhist. She probably just told them she was a Christian to make them go away.
I feel very conflicted about this event. My initial emotion is extreme anger. How selfish that her friends come and put further stress on my mother's mind. She didn't know what she believed in and she finally decided. Now people are telling her that her soul will go to Hell if she does not convert.
When I think about what my mom must have been thinking, it breaks my heart. What must it feel like to not be able to eat for three years? What must it feel like to wait to die, which is better than living? What must it feel like to die at 53 and leave 3 children and a husband behind? What must it feel like to not be able to go back to your home in Taiwan and see your mother for the last time?
My mother did not see my grandmother for about ten years. She never went back to her home in about ten years. Her siblings visited her 2 weeks before she passed away and it tore me apart to see my mother see her sister and brothers for only five days for the first time in ten years for the last time.
Why didn't her friends think about this before they pleaded for her to convert? Why didn't they think about all the other things my mother might have been thinking about?
Wynee, my older sister, tried to explain to me that from their point of view, they were helping my mother. They were trying to save her soul, because to them, if they don't, she will go to Hell.
Fine. Maybe that's what they were thinking. But...I just don't understand. If you're somebody's friend, wouldn't you respect your friend's wishes and try to make passing away as peaceful as possible?
I think that due to this experience, I will never be a Christian. If that means my soul will go to Hell, so be it. I'll be there with my mom.
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