One Light Still Shines: My Life Beyond the Shadow of the Amish Schoolhouse Shooting (9 page)

When Charlie arrived home that night, I had dinner waiting. Hard as it was, I held my surprise until we both sat down and began to eat.

“Charlie, something happened to me today. Something strange and wonderful.”

He looked at me with curiosity. “What happened? What do you mean strange?”

“And wonderful,” I added, not wanting to alarm him. “I hope you won’t think I sound crazy.” I suddenly felt concerned that he’d think I’d lost touch with reality.

“Marie, you’re the sanest person I know. Now tell me what happened.” He’d put his fork down now and leaned toward me, returning my beaming smile.

I told him everything, step by step, and stopped when I described the rain pelting the windows. “So I got up off the floor of the nursery” — I reached for my camera and held it up — “and there in the sky I saw a gorgeous rainbow! I took pictures so I can show you. I’ll get them developed right away.”

Charlie stared at me for a moment, a mix of bewilderment, surprise, and caution on his face. “Wow, Marie. I don’t know what to say.” He paused. “Do you really think God was
talking
to you, telling you we will have a girl named Abigail?”

“I do, Charlie.”

He took my hand in his and squeezed it to reassure me he wasn’t discounting my experience. The caution in his eyes remained.

“I
really
do,” I repeated.

Charlie’s eyes bored into mine as if he were trying to see what I’d seen. His face now looked hopeful yet guarded, and I understood completely. All afternoon I had been praying that God would give Charlie a similar encounter, one that would validate God’s message to me. I’d thought about the way Mary encountered God, when the angel told her that she would give birth to Jesus. And how, afterward, Joseph had his own encounter, and that had
settled his heart. I knew that I had met God that day, and I wanted Charlie to meet him too in a similar way. I felt that my healing from grief had advanced significantly because of this promise, because of
knowing
that God had seen me and had heard every cry and every word of worship that left my lips as I mowed the grass. During all those months of crying out, I’d needed to know God heard my heart. And now I knew. Looking into his gentle eyes, I ached for Charlie to believe in the promise as much as I did.

“I hope so. I truly hope so.” He placed the fingers of his right hand under my chin tenderly and guided my lips toward his. “I love you, you know,” he said softly, and he kissed me.

I glowed in the warmth of his kiss, and thought to myself,
Kissed by God today and kissed by Charlie.

The rainbow was a turning point for me. Dawn was breaking.

I began enjoying life again and finding the purpose and contentment I’d been seeking. Peace settled on me like a thick blanket. I started a part-time job as an administrative assistant for a local manufacturer and stopped “trying” to get pregnant. I had not given up on my dream to have a daughter; I just gave up trying to make it happen. I had my promise from God, and I trusted that he didn’t need help to fulfill it.

And apparently he didn’t. A few months went by, bringing us to just over a year since we’d conceived Elise. Beginning to suspect that I was pregnant, I secretly bought a pregnancy test. The following Saturday morning, when we woke up, I surprised Charlie by setting a test stick on his pillow.

His face lit up. “Really?” His eyes searched mine. “Have you taken the test yet?”

“Not yet,” I said. “Let’s do it right now.” I ran to the bathroom and returned a few moments later, stick in hand, and we sat together, holding our breath, and watched it. Like magic, it revealed the answer for which we’d prayed.

“This is too good to be true,” Charlie said, and he gave me a hug that nearly squeezed the breath out of me. We were both crying, too thrilled to speak for a few moments.

Over breakfast, we agreed that I’d see the doctor right away, and that we’d tell our parents now, knowing we would need their support on this new journey. We would wait to tell others until we had passed the twelve-week mark.

As the next few days passed, Charlie and I were joyful yet guarded, trying not to focus on the loss of Elise but telling ourselves that regardless of all else, we needed to trust God. Each morning I awoke filled with delight over the life growing inside me again, only to contend with moments of fear of losing this baby.

As we crawled into bed one night, I cuddled up to Charlie, laid my head on his chest, and said, “Charlie, I’m struggling with worry. I know God gave me the promise of Abigail, but I can’t help but worry that I might lose this baby like I lost Elise.”

“You too?” he asked. “Every time I get excited, I tell myself not to get my hopes up. I don’t want us to go through that pain again.”

I was relieved to hear him talking about his feelings.

“Whatever we face, we’ll face it together, okay?” I asked. “God will be with us.”

“You have such strong faith, Marie,” he said. Only later did it occur to me that maybe in that comment he was implying that his own faith was faltering. It didn’t seem so to me at the time. I thought he was just affirming me.

Within two weeks of discovering our pregnancy, I started having pain on my right side — something like cramping but much more intense. And I felt sick, as if I had a stomach bug. I made an immediate appointment with my family doctor. He thought it was just a virus and sent me home.

At work the next afternoon, I felt a piercing pain and almost passed out. I went home and climbed in bed, knowing something was wrong. Because there was no bleeding, I remained hopeful that my symptoms weren’t related to my pregnancy.

Over the next couple of days the pain came and went. My family doctor continued to advise that I should rest and stay hydrated.

Two days later, I started bleeding. My hopes sank. Was this the beginning of the end? I called my ob-gyn. When I described the symptoms I’d had earlier that week, this doctor felt certain that the baby was growing inside one of my fallopian tubes. She ordered some tests.

“I’m so sorry,” the doctor began, when the test results were in. I was sitting on the examination table with Charlie standing by my side. He squeezed my hand, but our eyes were on the doctor.

“You have an ectopic pregnancy,” she explained. “Your baby is growing in one of your fallopian tubes instead of the uterus. It can’t survive there. You’re starting to lose the baby. You also have a cyst on one ovary, and another cyst that has already ruptured, which probably caused the intense pain you experienced a few days ago. We’ll need to watch you closely over the next few weeks to see if you’ll require surgery.”

I started to cry. As Charlie turned to me, I saw on his face fear, worry for me, and his disappointment over losing our second child, all reflecting my own thoughts and feelings. The weight of his grief added to my own, and I could see that the same was true
for Charlie. How hard it is to comfort one another when the pain we see in the other’s eyes increases the burden for both.

“Is Marie in any danger?” Charlie asked the doctor. I sensed his anxiety.

“We’ll keep a close eye and repeat ultrasounds and blood work frequently. If you suffer any sudden pain, dizziness, or fainting, don’t hesitate to call. But right now I’m not seeing signs of danger.”

Charlie didn’t look reassured.

We drove home in silence and tears. What was left to say? The next day we chose to name our precious unborn child Isabella, meaning “consecrated to God.” She was in his arms now, having never passed through ours.

Part of me was frustrated with myself. Why had I once again allowed the joy and excitement of new life to take hold, only to be faced with the pall of death all over again? Charlie was mostly quiet, except for his frequent inquiries of how I was feeling. But when I would voice my own feelings, he confessed he felt the same.

But as I prayed over the next few days, I found myself increasingly thankful that I had spent every possible moment rejoicing and believing in the promise my Father had given concerning Abigail. I realized I
still
believed that promise would be fulfilled.

When I told Charlie what I was thinking, he shook his head. “I don’t understand your confidence in that, Marie. Maybe it’s just wishful thinking.”

Though Charlie seemed mystified by my confidence in God’s promise, my hope was not dimmed. And I could see that Charlie’s worry for me was overshadowing his other emotions.

The next couple of weeks were a blur of doctor visits, blood work, and ultrasounds. Even though my baby had died, it was
still lodged within my fallopian tube. We prayed for a miraculous touch from God.

With one more day and one more test before being scheduled for surgery, we returned to the office. “I’ve got some good news for you this time,” the doctor reported. “Everything is unexpectedly clear. Your body has cleared the fallopian tube as I’d hoped. You won’t need surgery.”

Charlie beamed, relief obviously washing over him. He leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek.

While it was indeed great news that I wouldn’t need surgery, I could not escape the sadness that all traces of my second child were now gone.

I revised my identity: mother of two babies in heaven … wife of Charlie on earth … and mother of Abigail yet to come.

My doctor explained that with the scar tissue inside one of my fallopian tubes, it would be more difficult or maybe impossible for an egg to pass through that tube, reducing my ability to conceive to only half that of a normal person. While I respected the doctor’s opinion, it didn’t shake my confidence in God’s promise. I knew I was going to hold Abigail in my arms one day.

“I’m afraid to hope for that,” was Charlie’s reply.

For me, the intensity of my second loss was not as overwhelming as it had been with Elise ten months earlier. The searching and struggling I had come through in the past year had increased my capacity for faith and trust. “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1). I was determined not to lose forward motion in my healing journey. I had learned I could walk through grief and find God with
me. I had discovered that even in darkness I could praise. I had seen God take the shards of my shattered heart and begin to craft a mosaic out of them, a new heart that incorporated the broken pieces, using each one, none gone to waste.

With every ounce of my being, I clung to God’s promise of a daughter named Abigail — a promise sealed with a rainbow.

In the weeks that followed, Charlie and I celebrated our second anniversary, Elise’s first birthday, Thanksgiving, and then our birthdays in early December. The fall and winter holidays, time traditionally set aside to gather with family and celebrate the goodness of the year, were now marred by substantial loss. Still, I was thankful for the brilliance of God’s love expressed in tangible ways, in the form of our love for one another and our loving parents and family.

“Charlie,” I said one night over dinner, “on my last trip to the doctor’s office they gave me this list of local support groups for parents who’ve lost children through miscarriage and stillbirth. I was thinking it might be helpful. Would you like to go with me?”

He didn’t look up at first. He sipped his tea, clearly thinking, but he seemed uncomfortable. “I don’t think so. Why don’t you go without me.”

“I just thought it might help both of us. I’ve got my mom and Aunt Linda to talk to. And you know how I talk to God all the time and feel like he’s really healing me. But you don’t have anyone to talk to.”

“I don’t need to talk about it,” he answered matter-of-factly, though not unkindly. “I know you do, but that’s not my way. It is what it is. A group isn’t for me.”

“Okay. Well, I’ll check it out.” I was disappointed. I wanted to draw closer as we healed. But even I had to admit that it was hard
to picture Charlie feeling comfortable with a group of strangers discussing feelings. Maybe it
wasn’t
for him.

While I was still standing in faith and believing for a daughter named Abigail, I also still had resurgences of emotional pain and perplexity, but as I worshiped through my pain and recalled God’s promise, the screams of doubt would be silenced. And so I embraced the occasional sadness, knowing that as I was open and honest with God, he would somehow reach down and continue to heal my wounded heart. Over time, his love would infiltrate my emptiness, and his life would saturate my barrenness.

I was beginning to accept God’s decisions over my life without fighting, and in this way I found joy again. Charlie, on the other hand, continued to be reserved about his feelings toward our losses, although he seemed to be reaching for the hope I was feeling.

I assumed that over time he would track with me — an assumption that could not have been more wrong.

“Mommy, come see what the neighbors brought!” Abigail called as she climbed the stairs at Aunt Linda’s to get me. It was mid-morning on Wednesday, I was upstairs. After folding the laundry I’d decided to read my Bible. It had been a quiet morning so far, but I was soon to discover it would be another day of ups and downs and ups again, not unlike the emotional journey I’d been remembering last night.

Abigail looked a little brighter this morning. Not quite cheerful, but with more expression on her face and in her voice. I’d heard the doorbell awhile back, but since no one had come to get me, I’d assumed that whoever it was didn’t need me. Now I
realized from Abigail’s exclamation that it had been one of Linda’s neighbors.

“Okay, I’ll follow you,” I said. “Where are your brothers?” I put aside my Bible and stood.

“They’re already playing with the new stuff.”

“What new stuff?”

“You’ll see, Mommy.”

Downstairs in the living room, I saw Bryce and my dad sitting on the floor, spreading out the pieces of a brand-new puzzle with large pieces perfect for my five-year-old son. Mom and Carson were hitting a big red balloon around the living room.

“Whatcha working on, Bryce?” I asked.

“Some of Aunt Linda’s neighbors brought a bunch of cool stuff. This puzzle, balloons, coloring books. It’s in that box over there.” He pointed to the corner.