One Light Still Shines: My Life Beyond the Shadow of the Amish Schoolhouse Shooting (15 page)

One day an evening-news journalist called Charlie’s family with a request for someone to come on the show; he promised to put the information for the trust fund on the bottom of the screen during the interview. Some thought it sounded like he was trying to do us a favor. But I was angry. I would not be bought — and God certainly didn’t need to rely on this man to provide for our family. I declined the request. This wasn’t just a story; this was my life.

Another afternoon, the doorbell rang. I looked out the window and saw that it was a floral delivery. When I opened the door, the entire upper half of the delivery woman’s body was obscured by the largest bouquet of long-stemmed white roses I had ever seen.

“You won’t believe who these are from,” the voice behind the roses said.

“Try me,” I said, laughing.

She lowered the flowers so she could see me over the top and spoke the name of a well-known talk-show star. “There’s a card,” she said, clearly suggesting that I read it right then so she could hear. Instead, I thanked her, said goodbye, shut the door, and then opened the card. It spoke of concern for my children and me and offered deep sympathy. I was touched but skeptical. Still, at least it had come with no request for me to call and no strings attached.

Less than five minutes later, the phone rang. My guard down for the moment, I answered.

“Hello, Mrs. Roberts?”

“Yes, who’s —”

“Do you like the roses we sent?” she interrupted. Then, without waiting for an answer, she launched rapid-fire into what sounded like a script. “I’m the producer of …” She mentioned the well-known daytime talk show hosted by the one who’d sent the
roses. “We are
so
concerned for you and your children and wanted to extend the opportunity to appear exclusively on —”

This time, she was the one who didn’t have time to complete her sentence. “No thank you,” I said, “and please do not call again.” I hung up feeling manipulated and used. I hadn’t sensed concern for us at all — only a desire for a hot story.

Their card didn’t make it into the keepsake box with the many others. It went out with the trash.

I had no doubt that God was using the media in a powerful way, and I understood the public’s interest in discovering the story behind the story. But my first priority was to nurture and protect my children and provide a healing home for all of us. When and if God called me to step into the public eye, I felt certain he’d let me know.

While I was still at Aunt Linda’s, a local counselor who had been helping many in the community in the aftermath of the shooting, including some of the Amish families, had called to set up a meeting between the Amish community and my parents, Charlie’s parents, and me. He offered to be the moderator for the meeting and suggested that we gather at the Bart Fire Hall.

In our little community, this building had long been the home of quilt auctions, fundraising meals, craft and antique shows, and receptions. So it had naturally become the hub of all the activity surrounding the shooting — the staging area for the media, as well as the drop-off location for gifts and supplies for the Amish community and for us. Most of the on-air reports, I was told, took place with the fire hall as the backdrop.

The day for the meeting came a few weeks after we returned
home. I was nervous as I walked with my parents just a few doors down the street from their home to the fire hall. My memory paints this as a cloudy, gray day. Puddles lingered on the ground from rain in previous days, and the air felt chill and raw. The natural surroundings echoed the feelings in my heart.

The closer we got, the more anxious I became. I was afraid I’d be unable to keep my composure in a room filled with so much grief brought on by my husband. But remembering my new commitment to living with expectancy of what God would do, I forced myself to keep walking forward.

Inside the hall was a circle of chairs several rows deep. I sat with my parents and Charlie’s parents on one side of the circle. Our pastor, the counselors who had been working with our family, and a few close friends joined us as well. Directly opposite us were the families from the Amish schoolhouse. In the second and deeper rows sat other Amish family members, as well as many police and other first responders.

The moderator began with a prayer. Inside I was crying out for God to sustain me. Seeing the faces of the families all together brought home to me in a new way the severity of the loss. It wasn’t that I hadn’t understood the scope of the tragedy. Still, seeing all the families face-to-face made my heart hurt.
Charlie, why did you do this? How could you do this?
I sent a plea heavenward.
God, comfort us all.

The Amish families were invited to share their thoughts or ask questions. The room was etched in silence, as if everyone held his or her breath, waiting for the first word to be spoken.

An Amish man began, saying the same thing I’d thought that first day a few weeks ago: “We didn’t know how we would get through this.” He and his wife shared that they had been leaning
upon each other and God for the strength necessary to walk through each day. His grace, they told us, sustained them. I sat beside my parents, absorbing the weight of the words spoken, trying, unsuccessfully, to hold back tears. Each shared a heartache that pierced the core of our being. It was a tender exchange of truth, grace, and mercy. It was painful, but within the pain was a healing balm.

Then it was our turn. My parents and Charlie’s nodded for me to go first. What did I have to say of value? What could I possibly offer? The families facing us had suffered unspeakable loss, yet had reached toward me, extending forgiveness and mercy to all of us for what Charlie had done.

I don’t recall my precise words, but I spoke from my heart.

“I am so terribly sorry for your loss. I cannot find words powerful enough to express my gratitude toward each of you and your entire community. God is using your forgiveness of Charlie and your grace toward our family in our healing.”

Then I addressed the first responders with great sorrow for what they had witnessed and immense appreciation for how they had served us all so selflessly. Emotion choked me, and my words felt inadequate to touch the nightmare of pain in the room. Charlie’s actions had wounded so many.

Finally, I told them of the sustaining power of Christ we were experiencing in our home. I described the healing that God was doing in my own heart and those of my children. I was totally unprepared for the visceral response in the room as soon as I mentioned my children. Many leaned forward, others tilted their heads, and all eyes focused on me as I said, “I’ve been so worried for them at school, afraid that other children or parents might say cruel things and inflict wounds that could last a lifetime. But God
has protected them. To my amazement, not one unkind word has been spoken to them at school. Not one.”

I saw relief wash over the Amish faces, relief that reached straight into a most tender place inside me. Several of the men and women responded, saying that they too had been concerned about my children and were praying for them. Words failed me. They had been praying for the children of the man who’d murdered their own children.

Charlie’s parents and my own then offered their contribution to the circle, for which I was grateful. They too were suffering deeply, and I prayed for God’s healing and release as they spoke.

Of the many expressions of compassion and genuine love exchanged around the circle that day, there is one I will never forget. An Amish father, one who had lost a daughter, began to speak, directing his words toward me. As he spoke, my heart melted, and I felt embraced not just by his words, but also by the arms of God.

He stood as he spoke. “We think about you and pray, because when the day is over and the night is quiet and we feel our grief close in on us, my wife and I have each other. We can cry together and be held in one another’s arms. But we feel compassion for you because you are alone.”

To know that in the midst of their grief, they were capable of seeing the truth of my life, and the sorrow I knew in private places, penetrated my heart with radiant, heavenly light.

Their hurt went deep, but not so deep as to drown out the ability to see into the life of another suffering human.

We spent about an hour exchanging thoughts and feelings around the circle. Then we were all told that gifts and packages had been accumulating for both my family and the Amish families at the fire hall, and they’d been sorted out for us. I wish I could
find the words to convey my amazement when we were ushered to a table with groceries, cards, and gifts for my children and me. One Amish family had brought a handcrafted doll bed labeled for my Abigail — who, of course, was the same age as several of the girls whose lives had been lost. I wept freely.

I had come to this meeting with dread, afraid I would fail to find the words, fearful that I could not endure the depth of pain that hall would hold. I came away enriched and full and deeply bonded to all in our circle of shared grief. I left with a heart that, while broken, experienced great mending at the hands of those who knew the pain and empty places left by Charlie’s choices. The darkness of our tragedy had been redeemed, exchanged, replaced with beauty and light unimaginable.

The glow of that light was planted deep within my heart. It glows still. I am certain that in the tapestry God is weaving of our lives, this scene is woven in golden threads.

I heard a knock at the door and jumped. Chiding myself for being so edgy, I left the kids eating breakfast in the kitchen and looked out the French doors. A woman a few years older than I was, wearing casual clothes, stood on the deck. She didn’t look like a reporter. I opened the door halfway.

“Are you Marie Roberts?” the woman demanded.

No courteous greeting. I was a bit taken aback. “Yes,” I said.

“I just needed to come see for myself if what they say is true — that you really knew
nothing
about your husband’s plans to murder those girls.”

She’d said it — exactly what I’d been fearing the general public must be thinking about me.
A liar, covering up her failure to act, or an idiot, blind to the obvious.
Until now, no one had confronted me with it directly.

I stepped out onto the deck and closed the door behind me, hoping this would not be a lengthy conversation. I was getting the kids ready for school and didn’t have much time to chat.

“I didn’t know.” I felt like a girl called to the principal’s office to explain a cheating scam she knew nothing of. “I had no idea at all.”

“How is that
possible
?” Her voice, which up till now had sounded like she was conducting an interrogation, now took on a pleading tone, not so much a demand as a desperation to understand what seemed unfathomable. “There must have been
some
clue!”

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Charlie had never been violent a day in his life. No rage, no threats. I knew nothing until I got his call from the schoolhouse that morning. I’m sorry.”

She stared into my eyes as if trying to see into my soul. I could see her anguish, trying to comprehend the incomprehensible. I knew the feeling. I’d seen the same look in the mirror.

“Okay, then,” she said abruptly. “That’s what I needed to know.” She turned, walked down the steps, got into her car, and drove away. I never learned her name and never saw her again. But I didn’t need to. She was, for me, the skeptical public that I feared lurked in every store, gas station, bank, and schoolyard, throwing accusing glances and whispered disdain in my direction. She was the reason I wanted to hide.

Several days later, I returned home after picking the kids up from school and found a second message from Dan Monville among the many on my answering machine. He gave much of the same information as before. This time he said that he’d told my aunt that I hadn’t called him back. He had asked her if she couldn’t just drop the stuff he was trying to get to me off at my house, since she visits her brother (my grandfather next door) frequently. But, as he explained in the voicemail, she had declined, saying that I was probably just busy and he should call me again.

This time I rolled my eyes as I deleted the message. Yes, I
was
busy, and no, I still didn’t want to have “visitors” over. The only people I trusted in my world now were those who’d already been in it before the shooting. I didn’t need the stress of anything new right now. I felt guilty and rude for not answering, but I simply didn’t have the energy for things like this.

The process of trying to find “normal” again was giving me whiplash.

Healing takes time and energy. The damage Charlie had done in a span of minutes was going to take me, and everyone else touched by that violence, a very long time to sort through.

I did what I knew to do — I sought God’s comfort, asked his protection against the lies of the enemy, recited what God had done for me so far, and sang words of praise that I didn’t
feel
yet knew were true.

Then one morning, my open Bible in hand, I realized that what I was feeling was dread, almost resignation, for all that lay before me.

Yearning for peace, I immersed myself in the Psalms before tackling the challenges of the day. In the verses I read there, God asked me to take a leap.

I’d
been
doing this. I’d been trusting in him, believing he was my strength and shield. I’d had tremendous moments of miraculous joy — God was keeping his word! But as God knew, that peace would also evaporate at times, leaving me weary.
Lead me like a shepherd, Lord. Carry me forever in your arms.

I didn’t know how there could be anything so beautiful as what I felt him promise in those verses — to take away my clothes of mourning and clothe me with joy.

I felt God gently encouraging me to focus — no, to refocus — to embrace every part of my life as being clothed with promised joy instead of weighty dread. It wasn’t failure when I recognized the heaviness as it resurfaced, but I knew that to move beyond it, I would have to allow him to transform the elements of my life into the very promises I read in the Word. As I surrendered to his
prompting, the heaviness would lift — God’s peace and joy would come.

I thought over the details of my life: I had three beautiful children on earth and two more walking glorious streets above. And a husband lost. Horrible things really do happen. Tragedy strikes midsentence. Yet in the midst of it, there is still joy.

He wasn’t simply asking me to forget that harsh realities existed, but instead he asked me to embrace life and love
all
of it!

You want me to love this?
I asked — in awe, not arrogance. Shocking as it may seem, he said simply,
Yes.
As I considered his words, my perspective shifted:
He is a good Father who gives good gifts to his children. He is, somehow and unbelievably, purposing to give me goodness. My heart cannot contain the mystery nor comprehend what it includes or requires, but I want it desperately. Help me love this existence, all of it.

He was not asking me to love the circumstances, the tragedy, the loss and devastation — those things broke his heart. He didn’t love them. But he challenged me to look
through
them and love each day, each hour, each minute of my future.

This would require an act of wholly devoted sacrifice. I grabbed his hand that morning. I closed my eyes and leaped toward him — not wanting to see what I was jumping over, nor even wanting to know if I was going to make it. I knew I must cross over to the other side if my perspective was to change.

I want to love my life. Will you show me how?

The kids seemed to be adjusting well. No nightmares or acting out, both things that the counselors had said to expect. I knew that didn’t mean their grief was over, and I wanted to do all I could to keep positive memories of their father alive.

Bryce had always enjoyed tagging along with his daddy, working together on projects of any kind and playing together in the yard whenever the weather was nice. They spent many afternoons playing soccer, Bryce charging down the yard attempting to kick the ball around his dad and scoring a goal on the other side. Charlie, like any good father, often pretended to be completely overpowered by Bryce’s furious pace. Bryce and Charlie would high-five after a successful shot and then switch positions, with Bryce then set to block Charlie’s shot. Almost every time Charlie came running toward him, Bryce’s skill routed Charlie’s kick. His confidence soared, and his enthusiasm for the game deepened. He couldn’t wait for the next opportunity to take on his daddy.

I wasn’t Charlie. I wasn’t a soccer player! But I did my best to kick the ball around with Bryce in the yard many afternoons. And I realized that I didn’t need to be what I wasn’t. God had provided my brother and my dad, who made it a point to roughhouse and play ball with my boys.

Carson’s vibrant personality and snuggly disposition had always delighted Charlie and me. Charlie, in fact, had been the more likely of the two of us to launch into spontaneous play with the kids; I was usually more focused on household responsibilities.

One morning while his siblings were at school, I snagged Carson as he was running by and tossed him onto my bed for tickles. “Guess what I remembered this morning?” I said to my wiggly little boy. “Sometimes, if your daddy and I wanted to talk, just the two of us, Daddy and I would sneak in here and sit right on this spot of our bed.” Our master bedroom, just off our family room, gave Charlie and me the opportunity to sit on our bed and chat while the children played — we could see them but also have a bit of privacy.

“But
you
”
—
I gave him another tickle — “always loved to close doors. I remember that if you saw us sitting here you would come running toward us, grab the door, and pull it shut. Daddy and I would laugh and open it again, and you would squeal and do it again and again. One day, after you closed it, Daddy laid down on the floor like this.” I demonstrated by shutting the door and pressing my face to the carpet to peer under the door, spying on my young son.

“I ‘member,” Carson said. I’d known he would because this had been a favorite for Charlie and Carson.

“Daddy tapped his fingers on the bottom of the closed door like this,” I said, tapping, “and you would sneak up on the other side of the door to find out what that sound was, and Daddy would suddenly stick his fingers out under the door. And then what did you do?” I said.

“Grab Daddy’s fingers!” he said.

“Let’s see if you can grab mine,” I said. With the door closed between us, we played the finger-grabbing game. Carson laughed on his side of the door. I was glad he couldn’t see my tears.

I continued to have occasional sessions with the counselors.

I didn’t want to carry unanswerable questions about Charlie with me for the rest of my life. I needed to address them as best I could, bury them as we had Charlie, and then move on.

So what
did
I know?

I knew that Charlie didn’t know how to communicate his deep feelings. I knew that he didn’t understand the necessity of releasing the pain he felt. He thought that he could keep it all bottled up inside and deal with it on his own.

Even though our lives were beautiful and full with three children he deeply loved, there was a gaping wound in Charlie’s heart. He did his best to deal with it, but it was there even when we couldn’t see it. He wasn’t able to understand how a God of love had allowed us to walk through such heartbreaking circumstances. His note on the day of the shooting had said that he felt he was “getting back at God” for taking our daughter away. How could his reasoning have become so severely compromised? I needed to surrender that question to the God of mercy and leave it in his hands.

For nine years Charlie had lived through the pain of loss. It was a cancer that ate away at everything inside of him. I was thankful that he wasn’t dealing with the pain anymore, but I was aghast at the pain he’d inflicted upon so many.

Though I loved my husband, I hated what he had done to those children, their families and ours, and the community. And I hated the way he’d left me to deal with the aftermath. It was beyond my comprehension that he would choose to leave our kids like this and take the lives of other children, creating in their families the very pain that had plagued him for so long. I honestly wasn’t angry with
him
— his brokenness pierced me far too deeply to evoke my wrath — but I had no vocabulary sufficient for how grieved I was by his choices.

What I knew about loss and difficulty so far was this: our circumstances do not prove or disprove God’s love for us. His love is not measured by our circumstances. It is meted out instead in terms of his sacrifice, his grace, and his redemption. We live in a fallen world. Everyone has the ability to make behavioral choices, and those choices ultimately have consequences, positive and negative, in our own lives and those around us.

Charlie made a choice that ravaged the Amish community,
our family, and many others. In ending his own suffering, he had inflicted far greater suffering on the people he left behind. I would never understand all the reasons why — as if there could be rational reasons for a decision like that — but I did recall signs of his struggle. For instance, as I’d told the detectives, from time to time over the years, I’d been able to see that Charlie continued to struggle with the loss of our daughters. He wanted concrete answers but there were none.

For my part, the joy I found through Abigail, Bryce, and Carson diminished my ache for those joys we’d lost. Once when Abigail was in first grade, Charlie and I had spent an hour or two at school during parent visitation week. Afterward I had said to Charlie, “You saw the way Abigail loves jumping rope on the playground with the other girls at recess.” I smiled. “Singing their rope-skipping songs, trying to work their way up to double Dutch … I was thinking today that Elise would have been two years older than she is. I wonder how they would have gotten along.”

Charlie thought for a minute, then said, “Abigail seems to get along with everybody, like her mama.” He threw me a sly smile. “I think they would have loved being together. I wish Elise were here.”

“I do too, Charlie. As much as I don’t understand losing her, I cling to Romans 8:28, that all things work together for good for those who love God. Somehow God still brings good out of loss,” I said, hoping to start a discussion.

But he remained silent.

It’s odd, the things that can trigger sadness. Often in a moment you never expected, your breath is completely taken away. Words, a smell, a picture — seemingly insignificant — bring back profound memories and thoughts.
What would it be like if she were
here now? How would her laugh sound? Would her hair be curly like mine?
Charlie wasn’t the only one who missed our little girl. But for some reason, while I healed over time, his pain must have become silently toxic.