One Light Still Shines: My Life Beyond the Shadow of the Amish Schoolhouse Shooting (11 page)

The man who’d committed the shooting was not the man we knew, loved, and trusted. At the funeral on Saturday, we would celebrate the man we all remembered.

“I was thinking today about some of my favorite memories of Daddy,” I told the kids later that day. “Do you know what I remembered?”

I was sitting Indian-style on the living room floor, helping Carson build a tower with blocks. Abigail and Bryce were stretched out on the floor next to me, coloring in the brand-new coloring books that had arrived in a basket of goodies from a friend that day.

“What?” Abigail said.

“Well, when Daddy and I were dating, and I was still living with Grandma and Grandpa Welk, we had a big German shepherd named Jake. Jake loved our family and was the world’s best watchdog. Anytime someone came to our door, Jake’s deep growl would start, and he’d run to the door and bark and bark like he was going to eat them alive. People would step back, afraid, and Jake would bark even louder.”

“Like Dale!” Bryce said, referring to our yellow lab who’d been staying at my sister’s home all week.

“Oh, he sounded much meaner than Dale does,” I said. “Dale’s barks are almost friendly, and he wags his tail because he likes meeting new people. Not Jake. Jake was ferocious to strangers who came to the door.”

“Grrr,” Carson growled.

“So the very first time your daddy came to visit me at my house, Jake ran to the door, barking and howling. Do you know what your daddy did?”

“What?” they asked in unison.

“He stepped toward Jake instead of away, and he said, ‘Hey
there, boy. You’re a big fella,’ and within minutes he was scratching Jake behind the ears and tossing him his favorite chew toy.”

“He wasn’t afraid?” asked Abigail.

“Not even a little bit,” I said. “Your dad loved dogs and dogs loved him.”

“From that day on, when Jake heard your dad at the door, Jake was so excited to see him that he’d leap over the couch and bound to the door, his tail wagging, his tongue hanging out. He couldn’t wait to play with your dad.”

“Yeah,” Bryce said, “dogs love our daddy.”

“And we loved Daddy too, and he loved us. Bryce, what’s one of your favorite memories with Daddy?”

Bryce didn’t hesitate. “Wrestling together! And it always turned into tickling time. Daddy had a funny laugh.”

Abigail and Carson nodded. Then Abigail spoke up. “My favorite memory is shopping with Daddy at the Amish store. He always let me pick out a candy. And he’d take me to the book rack near the register and let me look at books.”

“Daddy always loved to take you shopping. He loved all of us very much. I’m really sad that Daddy’s gone, but it helps to remember special times, doesn’t it?”

I stood, thinking I’d spent enough time on the topic for now. The counselors had recommended brief, natural conversations, then moving on to something fun. “Who wants to play ball with me out back?” I said.

“Me, me, me!” my kids called as they followed me to the back door.

But pleasant memories of Daddy weren’t the only topic of conversation with the kids that painful week. I also had, in quiet moments with each of the children, conversations that I did not
want to have — about the way their father died, the girls who were shot, and the wrong decisions he’d made because of a deep hurt in his heart. I assured each of them that their daddy’s act in no way had any connection with anything they’d ever said or done. I bathed each exchange in prayer, explored their understanding, answered their questions, and reassured them of their safety. I needed to help them understand that God’s love did not mean he would keep us from walking through painful times. It meant that he would walk
with
us through painful times. I explained that it was okay to be sad and that slowly, over time, God would exchange our sadness for joy.

And while I reassured them, God reassured me.

After the kids were sound asleep, I went downstairs. Linda and Jim were with my parents in the kitchen, getting a bit of dessert and chatting. After years of quiet evenings while Charlie ran his night route, I wasn’t used to company in the evening, so I loved this time.

“Dad and I had to drive through three police checkpoints today on our way to the funerals,” Mom said. They had been back to Nickel Mines and Georgetown and had seen firsthand what I could only imagine: our obscure town had come under a national spotlight.

“The detectives told me it will be the same for Charlie’s funeral,” I said. “Were there a lot of reporters around Georgetown today?”

Linda said, “Yes, but it’s different than you might think, Marie. Instead of focusing mainly on Charlie’s actions and motives and the grief of the community, the world has been captivated by the Amish people and their immediate forgiveness of Charlie, and the way they’ve reached out to his parents and your family.
That’s
what people are talking about — TV and radio talk shows, newspapers, online.”

Mom’s eyes were soft as she began to speak. “God is doing something. And not just here — it’s touching people all over. This response from the Amish challenges people. It challenges me, all of us, to extend forgiveness to one another. People are amazed. They’re asking how the Amish have been able to forgive. What an opportunity for the gospel to be in the spotlight. God is moving.”

I sat quietly, trying to absorb that the world was being stopped in its tracks by the grace-filled response of the Amish community. The ones whose daughters had been taken by death were beaming radiant life not just to our family, not just to the community, but across the globe. My spirit lifted.

“Oh, I wanted to tell you all what happened to us this morning,” Mom said. “You know that dense gray mist hovering here when we left this morning? Just as we reached the highway, the clouds suddenly parted and these incredibly radiant sunbeams pierced right through the clouds with a brilliant light. The landscape around us had been completely hidden, but when the light beams appeared through the lingering mist everything glistened. Marie, you should have seen it! It took our breath away.”

“That sounds so beautiful, Mom. I wish I’d seen it,” I said, picturing the scene.

“I said to your dad, ‘I can’t wait until God does something grand in this situation, just as he lit up this sky and burned away that bleak fog.’”

When I heard the expectancy in Mom’s voice, it occurred to me that my own expectations for the week had been bleak. I just wanted the entire ordeal to be over. I hadn’t been looking forward to the new things God was going to do. I’d just been in survival
mode, groping for God’s help to cope, rather than living in expectancy of what great things he might do.

Mom’s words rang in my ears: “I can’t wait …” Her encounter with the sunbeams reminded me of my encounter with the rainbow years ago, and of how my anticipation of God fulfilling his promise of Abigail had filled me with joy and sustained me through the loss of Isabella. Maybe I was missing an opportunity to worship God in a spirit of
expectancy
this week.

When I finally crawled into bed that night, though I had no
emotion
of anticipation, I closed my eyes, willing to yield myself to this Holy Exchange — my nothing for his everything. All God required of me was to trust.

“Father of Light, stir my faith with expectancy of great things from you, even in this utter darkness.”

I don’t know exactly how it happened — not all in a moment that can be identified — but as I look back now I see that as I kept reaching, so did my Lord. As I reached up to the Lord, he reached way down deep inside of me, and bit by bit exchanged my despair for faithful expectation.

This swap, completely unmerited by me, revealed to me God’s nature as my loving Father. Even when I was wounded and unable to see who he truly is, his goodness was not confined by my limitations. Even when I was blinded by the darkness of grief, his light still shone.

We so seldom see the present in light of the future. Thankfully, our Creator does. He is constantly creating us with the future in mind. I would never that day have dared to dream a dream as big as what God had in store for me yet that week. God is so much bigger than our dreams.

My memories of much of that week are a blur, and over the final couple of days, I remember little of the daylight hours. It’s the nights I remember — the interminable nights of lying sleeplessly in bed as my mind ranged far and wide and the hands of the clock refused to move. During those silent, timeless nights, my sleeping children breathing peacefully at my side, I did the only things I could do. I thought. I prayed. I remembered.

I waited.

In the silence of Friday’s early morning hours, I crept out of bed and down to the kitchen. It was only 2:00 a.m., at least four hours before the sun would rise, but I’d tossed and turned long enough waiting for dawn. I’d been thinking about the first responders and felt something stirring in my heart.

Aunt Linda had created a gift basket of some items she’d thought I might need this week, among them some lovely stationery and pens. I fixed myself a hot herbal tea, a fruity blend, and arranged myself at the large kitchen island.

I began my letter to the firefighters who’d worked heroically to save the lives of the innocent girls and so tenderly cared for the bodies of the girls already lost. I wrote how sorry I was for what they had seen, and though I couldn’t imagine what they’d experienced that day, I told them I was sorry for the difficulty they must be facing in putting those images out of their minds. I told them they were heroes with servants’ hearts. I signed the letter and began my next, this one to some neighbors who had reached out to meet our needs.

I realized that I was writing for my own benefit as much as for others’, because I had no way to repay them for their sacrifice. I ached to do
something
for what Charlie had done, and I prayed with expectancy that God would work in each life of those who’d served with such kindness. This seemed a much more productive way to pass the minutes and felt far more useful than endlessly waiting for dawn to come.

After a few letters, I stood to stretch and felt drawn to the door leading down to Linda’s art studio in their lower level. My children had told me that while I’d been with the detectives yesterday, Aunt Linda had given them “art lessons.” As I went down the steep staircase, the scents of the art studio — paint and paper and linseed oil — rose to greet me, carrying with them pleasant memories of my healing days here after Elise.

Linda had tacked their artwork up for display on the wall, and I easily imagined the words of praise she’d found for each. I brushed my fingers over the watercolor “masterpieces” my children had painted under the inspiring tutelage of their aunt Linda. Who knew what seeds of creativity had been planted?

The memories of my studio days while healing from the loss of Elise turned my thoughts to Charlie. I so wished he had found an outlet for his pain.

One day, years ago, I’d tried again to help him purge his feelings. It had been the week of Easter, which I remembered because each Easter season the loss of our two girls always seemed to resurface for him.

That Easter Sunday as we watched Abigail and all the other little girls walking into church, he said to me, “There’s just something so beautiful and innocent about little girls in new spring dresses, with barrettes in their hair and shiny new shoes.” He squeezed my hand and I sensed, though I wasn’t sure, he was thinking about Elise and Isabella.

The following Sunday afternoon, while Abigail, then age two and a half, and eight-month-old Bryce were taking a nap, I took a glass of iced tea to Charlie on the porch, where he sat reading a hunting magazine. He smiled and took the glass. I came back a moment later with my own glass and sat beside him. I waited a few moments to make it seem as if I were bringing this up casually, even though I was sure he could see through me.

“Charlie,” I said, “I’ve been thinking a lot about Elise lately, about how life goes on after a tragedy like that. Even though it’s been nearly five years, I know it’s still hard for me. It must be hard for you too — but you don’t talk much about it.”

He kept his gaze on the magazine and sipped his iced tea, as if I hadn’t spoken.

“If you don’t want to talk about it with me,” I said, “is there someone else, a friend, or our pastor, that you could talk to about it?”

He looked up from his magazine and gazed beyond the fields across the road. I waited, because Charlie had never been in a hurry to put his thoughts into words. “I don’t know what difference it would make,” he said at last. “I don’t find it that helpful to talk about my feelings. It doesn’t change anything.”

I longed to ask him whether he was talking with God about it, as I was, but since Elise’s death Charlie had seemed very uncomfortable talking about his relationship with God. Even before her death he’d been reserved about his feelings — since then, he’d been even more remote. “But is there someone you could talk to if you wanted to?”

He looked at me briefly, then away. “No men I know ever talk to me about their pain or their feelings — why would I think they would want me to talk to them about mine?”

This memory saddened me. I’d prayed, I’d shared, I’d hoped, but as far as I knew, after the loss of Elise, Charlie never seemed to find a connection with God intimate enough to allow him to release the pain and find a measure of peace.

Back in the present, in Aunt Linda’s kitchen, the dishwasher suddenly came on, the timer having been set by Linda so its noise wouldn’t interfere with the peacefulness she maintained during our days. I found the swishing rhythm a nice break from the silence of the bedroom where I’d lain awake so long.

When my fatigue made it too tiring to sit up anymore, I headed back to bed, snuggled between Abigail and Bryce again, and let my mind wander.

There was much to be done before the funeral. I decided to do my best to view the several visits still ahead of me through the new lens of expectancy I’d prayed for last night, and see these visitors as God’s agents, playing a role that I needed, whether or not I felt I had the emotional energy to deal with them. It occurred to me that every choice I made this week would model for my children how to handle the weights and worries of this world. I needed to help them expect to see God at work as a shining light every day, even when all we see is fog and all we feel is pain.

It was easy to look forward to the visit of the two counselors later
that day. They were great with the kids and were helping us find the words to talk about the events of the week and Charlie’s choices.

“All three of your children,” one counselor had assured me, “are responding in healthy, normal ways to this very unhealthy, abnormal situation. You and your family are doing just what they need. Keep up the great work.”

Listening to the quiet breathing of the children in sleep, I clung to those reassuring words. I also appreciated how the counselors offered me a safe place to explore my thoughts and feelings. My mom and dad, when comforting me, were themselves grieving a horrible loss, and I often tried to hold my grief in check so as not to increase their pain.

There was something more I yearned to discuss with the counselors, though I realized it would take far more than one conversation. I wanted their insights on depression and what might have been going on inside Charlie that had led to this violent act. There would never be, of course, any logical explanation for his actions, as his unconscionable acts defied logic and reason. But I needed help understanding how such darkness could have been gnawing at Charlie without leaking out to those of us who loved him most. With sadness I realized that I would likely need to wait a lifetime before I could ever truly understand. Some mysteries are held for us until heaven.

While it was easy to wait in expectancy for the counselors, I wasn’t nearly so positive about the day’s upcoming session with the detectives. How could I apply my lesson of expectancy to them? I appreciated their kindness and the importance of their work but was filled with anxiety for them. They had carried an enormous burden since Monday morning, returning many times to the bullet-ridden, blood-spattered schoolhouse and visiting the
families of all the children. Were they able to sleep at night? Did they see images of the dead and dying girls when they closed their eyes? Did they still hear the cries of the wounded and the grief-stricken wails of parents and grandparents who’d rushed to the schoolhouse in terror? When they chose this work — to serve, protect, and save the lives of those around them — they couldn’t have envisioned that it would look like this. How would they recover? Would they be able to go back to work?

I did the only thing I could for them. I prayed and believed God for his healing in their lives and his provision for their families in even greater ways than he was already doing for me.

Four a.m. The clock on Aunt Linda’s dresser stared me down in the wee hours of the morning. Would this waiting never end?

The funeral would be Saturday. Still more than twenty-four hours away. Though I was dreading it, I had reached the point where I wanted it behind me. All I had to do was make it through today, if today would ever dawn.

The children were longing for home, though home without Charlie was impossible for me to imagine. Mom and Dad too must be eager to get back to their own beds. Surely Aunt Linda must be ready for a break, though I’d never caught as much as a whisper of complaint. She’d been a woman on a mission of mercy, and all of us had been on the receiving end.

Four days. Is that really all it has been?
I felt as if since Monday morning, when Charlie had called me, we’d been trapped in limbo — a bizarre existence of intense emotions, from the heights of burning-bush moments on holy ground to the depths of desperately black chasms of grief. Yet on every one of those days, God made himself known in unmistakable ways.

I had two more hours till dawn, and clearly sleep was not coming. I turned on my side to study Abigail’s sleeping face and thought back to the rainbow God had given me to seal his promise that Charlie and I would have our Abigail.

“We have the most wonderful New Year’s Day surprise for you,” I announced to my parents with Charlie, glowing, by my side on the couch. We were in my parents’ family room, enjoying the warmth of their woodstove, along with my brother, Ken, and sister, Vicki. All eyes turned toward us.

“We have a card for you,” Charlie said as he handed them the handmade card I’d created. My mom and dad opened the card and read it before passing it on to my brother and sister.

Everyone leaped to their feet for hugs with tears of joy. Somehow, even from the first moment of knowing I was pregnant, Charlie and I had both believed that this pregnancy was different. Though we were anxious about reaching forty weeks, our outlook was predominantly hope-filled, believing that the baby growing in me was our Abigail.

Each of the many medical tests I underwent confirmed that hope — everything was progressing perfectly.

“What do you think you’re going to have?” a friend at church asked me when word got around. I always answered the same way:
“A girl, because God told us so.” I would then tell the story of mowing that summer day and the exchange that followed between the Lord and me, including his choice for her name, Abigail, and the rainbow that sealed his promise. Some people lit up with interest in my God-encounter. Some looked at me askance or smiled condescendingly at what they perceived to be my naiveté. Their responses didn’t matter. I loved sharing my story.

Being pregnant with Abigail demonstrated how the trials of losing Elise and Isabella had deepened my trust. Had I given in to anger and bitterness at their loss, I would not have enjoyed expectantly watching to see what God would do. Instead, I had gone to God in prayer, immersed myself in his Word, sung his praises, and returned to my Father over and over again during the wait. Would God have given me my Abigail even if I had not done those things? I believe he would have, because I did not
earn
her through those actions. She was not my prize for a job well done; she was an expression of God’s goodness and grace. But the joy and confidence of my faith would not have been so overflowing had I not waited expectantly, arms outstretched, watching for his good gifts.

I thought of the day when God spoke her name to me and sealed his promise with the rainbow — up to that point, my most powerful experience of hearing God’s voice. But as I lay wide awake in bed, watching Abigail’s eyelids flutter in sleep, I looked back on the several times this week since Charlie’s call that I had heard God’s voice. Back in 1998 and again this week, I could have dismissed the experience as the desperate delusions of a grief-stricken woman, her imagination running amok — but I didn’t. I had been given the faith to believe his words about my future.

I would need that faith and expectation over the next few days, especially Saturday, the day of the funeral — no matter how overpowering the grief over losing Charlie.

I looked across the room at the clock. Finally! 6:00 a.m. Friday morning. I had things to accomplish and dawn had come.

Counselors. Calls from a few close friends. Conversations with the detectives reviewing a few final security details, and a conversation with the funeral home refining a few details of the service. The day was a blur. But there was one thing I couldn’t neglect to do: prepare the children for every step of tomorrow.

“Hey, kids, let’s go outside and color with sidewalk chalk,” I said. Three eager kids were out the door before I was.

“Tomorrow is an important day.” I tried my best to sound casual as we colored. “We will have a special service at our church — a funeral for Daddy — with our closest friends and family. Then we’ll ride to the cemetery together where his body will be buried.” And so we talked. I did my best to prepare them for what was to come and to answer their questions. They were somber but didn’t appear to be worried or frightened. Maybe they were more prepared than I.