A Letter to my Parents - Prologue

My mother is in the hospital.  She slipped and fell.  She will be alright but it's brought up a lot of conflicting feelings for me.

I have, over the last 20 years, hidden from her and my father my varying levels of disaffection with the Mormon church.  Anytime I have tried to be honest with them about how I felt, it has been met with judgement and harsh words.  During the last few years my disaffection has turned to disbelief and I am now... gasp! ... an atheist.  I have not told my parents this and I'm so afraid of their reaction that I have not travelled to visit them during this time.  While I'm afraid of them saying cruel things to me, I am more afraid of how they will make my son feel.  He is still young and doesn't really know his grandparents.  He just like the idea of grandparents and wants to go see his.  What if we do go see my parents, they very quickly realize that he is being raised atheist and they freak out?  How is that going to affect him?  What if they go to extremes to try and "save" him from his parents?

With all of this concern weighing on me, I had a moment when I first learned of my mother's fall when a small part of me wished the fall were more serious.  If she passed, I would not have to face her judgement.  I would not have to explain to my son why his grandparents don't want to have anything to do with his parents or possibly even him.  Maybe it sounds heartless of me to think such a thing.  I am human and this pending conflict with my parents is something I wish I could avoid.  Unfortunately, the only way to avoid it is to not visit them until they have passed.  That isn't much better than telling them the truth and getting their response no matter how harsh.

With this in mind, I'm thinking of sending my parents a letter prior to visiting.  In the letter, I want to tell them that I no longer believe and ask them to respect my choices for how I live my life.  I also want to make it clear that if they do not respect my choices, I will be the one breaking off contact for I will not subject my son to their hatefulness.  The next posts will be portions or full drafts of that letter as I work through what I want to say and how I want to say it.  Regardless of how this ends, it will be good to be honest and take a step towards living without fear.