One Light Still Shines: My Life Beyond the Shadow of the Amish Schoolhouse Shooting (14 page)

I don’t know how long I lay there. I do know that slowly the suffocating weight of grief lifted just enough to allow me to pull myself up, prepare for bed, and turn on my CD player. Back in bed, I let the melodies of worship wash over me. I needed to reach for something beyond these circumstances and my ability to reason them out. I thought of all the ways my Lord had shown up since last Monday. He had come in strength from the very first moment, and I had been confident of his presence and his power all week long. I had never before felt him so tangibly. It was as though he really was right next to me, in physical form. My senses
were acutely aware of his nearness. Learning about God and truly knowing his heart are two vastly different experiences. I had spent my whole life knowing
about
him. In the past week, I truly
knew
him to a depth I’d never imagined possible.

And as I lay in bed that night, he was there in the room with me. I knew he saw my longing for him, and in a beautiful way that drew my heart toward his even more. It wasn’t that he delighted in my circumstances, but rather that my desire to turn completely toward him and surrender the little that I had left was all he wanted. An awareness of his presence and of his desire to be ingrained in my every movement washed over me.

While I couldn’t in this moment imagine good things springing forth in front of me, God could. He was writing a new story: mine and my children’s.

With God anything was possible. Had I not seen God’s vision of me as a tulip petal falling, caught by the hand of God?

Had I not been filled with a supernatural zeal to pray his Word over my home even before the police came to tell me what had become of Charlie?

Had I not seen my weeping father embraced by a man whose family had lost a child at the hand of my husband?

Had I not been cocooned in the shelter of his wings at Aunt Linda’s? Watched as gifts for my children arrived on the doorstep? Been fed by the kindness of strangers? Heard the whispers of God invite me to a Holy Exchange?

Had I not stood shielded by the wall of grace?

I opened my Bible and turned to John 1:1 – 5 (NASB).

Christ is the Word. He is with God, and he
is
God. I left my Bible open on the bed next to me. Since he is the Word, then Jesus was lying right next to me.

I slept in peace until the light of morning.

How does a family move forward when the fabric of their lives has been ripped apart?

One thread, one stitch at a time. There was no other way.

On the one hand, I found great solace in knowing that the Master Craftsman was weaving a grand tapestry of our lives. Every scene — the frightening, scary scenes as well as those wondrous, light-bathed ones — would somehow fit together to show the story of God’s intervention in the lives of this mother and her three little ones.

On the other hand, in my current state, not only could I not see the tapestry in its entirety, there were many moments when all I could see was a mass of tangled string snarled around my hands, twisted around my feet, knotted around my heart.

As much as I longed to know where God was taking us, it was not within my reach to see the whole — only this part. My job was to trust that every stitch he made was in his complete control and to simply live the scene of the day.

God, in his infinite wisdom, knew better than to show me the woven masterpiece of my future. I would have laughed at the
seeming absurdity of what he had in mind. He knew I needed time before he unveiled the secrets of my future.

I awoke early Monday morning, grateful to have slept four hours. This was the first day back to school for the kids. I wasn’t worried, but I was unsettled. Were they ready? Was I?

The foundation had been laid with great care. Abigail, Bryce, and I had spent a lot of time talking throughout the past week at Linda’s. I’d shared the details of the schoolhouse shooting with each of them. How their little hearts could possibly hold such information, I did not know, but it appeared that they had absorbed the knowledge of the events without crumbling and, to my relief, looked forward to this new day. The school, my parents, and I had worked through a plan together, and I was thankful for the presence of counselors and personnel trained in helping children and educators through crisis and trauma. The teachers had been prepared to help the students and to offer suggestions for appropriate word choices in conversations with my children.

I could see some anxiety in Abigail as I got her ready for school; she wondered what her second-grade friends might say or ask. Bryce, in morning kindergarten, just didn’t want to be in the spotlight.
That
sounded familiar. We agreed that we all just wanted to feel normal and blend in, but, I emphasized, it might take some time before we felt that way. We’d have to be patient and trust God to help us get through any uncomfortable moments.

My plan was to drive them to and from school for the first month or so, as an extra precaution against any unwelcome conversations that might happen on the bus. Teachers, I’d reasoned, could keep an eye on things in the classroom, but a bus driver
couldn’t possibly be aware of conversations on the bus. I felt like a tigress determined to protect my cubs.

We’d decided to ease back into the school routine, attending for a few hours each day, building up to a full day by the end of the week. After I dropped them off, Carson and I headed home for our first alone time in our new life.

Eleven a.m. arrived. It had been one week ago, this very minute, when Charlie had called me for the final time. Eleven a.m. passed. I was still breathing. Another stitch in the tapestry.

Carson was building a tower with his favorite blocks. Had he really understood the words I’d spoken about his daddy? What would happen at noon? That was the time Carson usually woke Charlie, who had worked overnight and arrived home to go to bed at around 4:00 a.m. Would my toddler go looking for him? I didn’t think my heart could bear to see him running into our room with that big smile, only to be disappointed when he didn’t find his daddy there. Did he understand that Charlie was gone?

I was relieved when noon came and went without incident. Maybe Carson understood more than I suspected. In fact, the entire day went smoothly. A gift. A few more stitches.

It’s easy to take everyday life for granted, and a shame to recognize precious moments only once they’ve passed. In my new reality, I welcomed a sink full of dirty dishes, laundry awaiting a spin through the washing machine, and scraggly grass in need of the lawn mower. The pain of my grief still throbbed behind every thought, but the idea of normal life held a quality of profound beauty now that soothed me.

It was with that celebration of normalcy that, on Monday
afternoon after school, the kids and I walked to the post office, just a few doors down from our house. We strolled past the neighbor’s house and crossed the street to the post office, directly across from the Village Dry Goods, an Amish store where Charlie had often taken Abigail for a shopping treat. Everywhere I looked I saw the memories of my childhood, my adolescence, my married life. Good memories.

I’d had my mail held all last week in a locked post office box. As I walked in, key in hand to unlock it, the postman gave a friendly laugh. “It wouldn’t all fit,” he said.

“What do you mean?” I asked, opening the little brass door. I saw just a few letters.

“I’ve got the rest back here in a crate. I’ll go get it.”

I’m sure my jaw dropped when he came back holding a white corrugated mail crate filled to the brim with letters and oversized envelopes. “You can take this crate home with you and just bring it back for refills,” he said. “I expect there’ll be more to follow.”

I was stunned. I suppose I’d been so protected from the media that in spite of explanations from my family and the detectives, I hadn’t comprehended the global impact of this horrific event. I was soon to find out.

“Whoa! Is all that mail for us?” Bryce said, eyes wide.

Abigail helped carry the crate back home, since I was carrying Carson on my left hip. We all wondered the same things: Who were the letters from? How did they get our address?

When we got home, I placed the letters a handful at a time on our living room floor. To my surprise, our complete address didn’t appear on most envelopes. Apparently, address lines like “Shooter’s Wife” or “Marie Roberts, Bart, PA” were enough to get the mail to my little brass box from many other states and, to my
total shock, from countries around the world. The kids sat with me, and we stared at the piles, trying to decide what to open first.

I picked up an envelope and held it, nervous. What if some of these letters were filled with hate and accusations? I peeled back a corner and slid my finger along the top.

But when I read the words carefully written inside, a wave of relief, love, and compassion flooded me.

How did she seem to know exactly what I was thinking and feeling? I was touched by the tangible expression of her concern in a small check.

I opened another card.

Also in the envelope was a picture drawn by a child for my children.

Words of life poured over me, washing away fears and heaviness. I was lifted and comforted with each message.

A woman in Scotland wrote:

These cards were evidence of the many people around the world who were praying and encouraging my family through this tragedy.

“I pray you will feel the Heavenly Father’s arms wrapped around you, holding you close,” one letter read. Through these tangible expressions of love, I most certainly did.

One of the letters I received that day was from a woman named Dara. She’d grown up in a small town just a couple of miles from where I lived. She too knew the pain of sudden loss. Her words went straight to my heart:

She included her email address, and I emailed her back the same day. Her life had gone on after her loss — a message I needed to hear. In the years since her husband’s death, I learned, she had met and married a missionary and now they lived in Guatemala with their blended family. We developed a friendship that endures to this day — an unexpected gift on this journey.

Until I read those letters, I’d seen the media as the enemy — a great intrusion upon our lives and our town, a hungry force seeking to devour my children’s privacy and my family’s peace to feed its insatiable appetite for ratings. All true, I suppose, from one perspective. I’d listened as my family had tried to convey how fascinated people were by the forgiveness of the Amish, but without seeing or hearing it for myself. But reading these deeply personal
letters, my eyes were opened to this truth:
God
was using the media to broadcast the power of his forgiveness, and he was stirring mercy and kindness in the hearts of good people stamped with his image all over the world. Light from darkness.

As the week went on, there were a few nervous moments for my children at school, but I was only a phone call away and could have been at school in less than ten minutes. No such phone call ever came. Since Bryce was in morning kindergarten, we had the afternoons to spend together while Carson napped. I was often nervous in the afternoon when we went to pick up Abigail, because it meant waiting with other parents for our children to come streaming out. I realized how strong an urge I felt to hide.
Do they know who I am? What are they thinking about me?
Sometimes other moms chatted with me, but none of them asked about the crime or its aftermath. We talked about homework, class activities, and funny moments with our kids. I was thankful for “normal” conversations — I didn’t want to stand out any more than my kids did!

When Friday came, we were all amazed that we hadn’t experienced anything troubling or hurtful at school. It seemed miraculous. Abigail’s and Bryce’s friends had been caring and thoughtful, as had their parents, and many had reached out in tangible acts of kindness — new videos to watch, fun snacks to eat, notes of encouragement. We felt loved on all sides — evidence of God’s love for us. I saw this as an unexpected gift.

When we hear a story on the news or read something captivating in the newspaper, we experience a general curiosity: a part of us wants to know more, and we wonder how we’d face the same ourselves. I felt true repentance for any judgment I’d
ever made against someone else based simply on what I’d heard or read about them — a mistake I was determined to never make again. And I felt true gratitude for our school community and the kindness we’d been shown.

Another few stitches.

While I rejoiced that school life quickly felt normal, little else did. My phone rang constantly, as did my doorbell. My close friends and family called my cell phone, and while many calls on my home phone were touching calls from neighbors and friends, most calls on my home phone — all of which I let go to voicemail — were from producers inviting me to be a part of their show. These were quickly and easily deleted and forgotten. Calls filled my answering machine so quickly that it was not unusual to see the words “Mailbox Full” flashing on the screen by early afternoon after emptying the mailbox the night before.

One message was unique. The calm male voice began by saying, “Your aunt gave me your number.” I missed the rest of his message as my mind went off in its own direction.
Someone I know gave someone I don’t know my phone number?
I wasn’t happy. Then I relaxed. After all, my aunt was trustworthy.

I rewound and replayed the message.

“Hi, Marie, this is Dan Monville. Your aunt gave me your number. My coworkers and friends at church have been praying for you. They know that I have a distant connection to your extended family, and they gave me some things to give to you. Give me a call so I can drop them off sometime.”

I vaguely knew Dan Monville. When I was thirteen years old, I’d gone to his wedding when he married my dad’s younger cousin.
In the years since, I had heard my Aunt Shirley and Uncle Barry speak highly of Dan, most often to my grandparents who lived next door. I knew he had two children, a daughter several years older than Abigail and a son close to Abigail’s age. He and his wife had been divorced for several years, but even so I knew that he was highly regarded by his in-laws, my aunt and uncle and grandparents. This seemed unusual, since so often families tend to side with each other regardless of reason and truth.

He must be a decent man
, I thought, but I wasn’t interested in meeting with someone I didn’t know well. His eyes would undoubtedly hold questions and looks of pity. The eyes convey much, announcing the heart’s intent before one word is spoken.

I deleted the message. He would have to figure out another way to deliver whatever he had.

Requests continued to pour in from news and media outlets across the globe, asking me to come to them to be questioned — or at least that was how I perceived it. They called them “invitations,” but rightly or wrongly, I imagined that they were more likely to be interrogations, with only one goal — to increase their ratings. Since they weren’t police, they held no authority over me, and I had no desire for any further inquisition. I’d had enough in one week to last a lifetime.

I was desperate to keep my family out of the spotlight, to protect my brood like a mother hen sheltering them beneath her wings. I felt a fierce determination that no matter what it took, we were going to be normal — maybe not now, but someday. While the schoolhouse tragedy was an inescapable part of our life, I was determined not to allow it to define our destiny or prevent us from living healthy, normal lives. We were not going to be paraded around by the media. My resolve was rock solid.