One Light Still Shines: My Life Beyond the Shadow of the Amish Schoolhouse Shooting (13 page)

I stepped out of the car, joined hands with my children, and walked the few dozen steps past gravestones old and new, some worn by more than two hundred years of winds and weather, some of polished stone still gleaming. A white canopy stood over Charlie’s coffin, already placed beside his open grave. To the right, in pink granite, stood the heart-shaped stone that bore the engraved epitaph:

Elise Victoria Roberts
pledged to God
dau. of
Charles & Marie
born & died
Nov. 14, 1997

As I looked through my tears at the fresh-turned earth, I thought about the five other funerals that had taken place that week. The Miller family had buried two daughters. The Ebersol,
Fisher, and Stoltzfus families had each buried a daughter as well. Their worlds were broken, turned upside down like the dirt lying before me. Treasures lost, now buried; hopes ended and dreams destroyed. Yet poured into those chasms of loss was not bitterness nor anger, not hatred nor revenge, but love poured out to overflowing.

My eyes looked beyond the cemetery to scan the landscape I’d known all my life. I’d biked those roads, visited those farms, been welcomed into those barns, bounced down their lanes in milk tankers and sampled and weighed the milk from those cows. My great-grandfather and grandfather had done the same before me, as had my dad beside me, and my Charlie.

Our pastor lifted his voice in prayer. My children and I picked a flower from the bouquet atop the casket, one last remembrance of this day. And then the wall of grace became a receiving line of shared grief, hands extended, arms encircling, tears mingling with our own. It was at once excruciatingly painful and profoundly healing to grieve the loss of Charlie in the embrace of the Amish community.

As we were greeting each other around the grave site, my mother approached with a lovely Amish woman. “Marie,” she said, “this is Mrs. Miller, the mother of two daughters lost that day.”

I was standing face-to-face with the mother of Lena, age seven, and Mary, age eight, who’d died at Charlie’s hand. I was amazed — one of the families who lost daughters at the schoolhouse had come?

“I’m so sorry,” I choked out as we stepped into one another’s arms, weeping freely.

“And I am so sorry for your loss as well,” she said. She moved back to include the man standing behind her. “This is my husband.”

Then, one by one, every Amish family greeted me with words of comfort and compassion. To my utter disbelief,
all
the parents of the girls lost at the schoolhouse had come to grieve with me — to be certain that I knew I was not alone.

I’ve never been so emptied. I’ve never been so filled.

God’s strength flowed into me within the arms of that wall. I was forever changed.

On that day, at the graveside of my husband, I could not see the darkness of our loss. All I could see was the light of God surrounding my family. And it was a light so bright I felt I’d just been given a tiny glimpse of what awaits us when we stand face-to-face with God Almighty in paradise.

Years have passed since that day. Yet as I write these words, my heart still races and my mind still spins as I ponder and treasure the tenderness I was shown. The wall of grace that day told a love story.

Pastor Dwight stood before an unusually large crowd Sunday morning, every seat filled, and welcomed the many visitors who had come to show their support for my family. We loved worshiping here every Sunday alongside my parents, Charlie’s parents and grandparents, and other extended family. The outpouring of love and prayers from this congregation had covered us all this past week. Even so, my children and I had waited until the last minute before entering, unprepared to socialize on this first day after the funeral. Eager as I was to be here, my emotions were too raw for condolences and shared tears.

We’d made the right decision to have Charlie’s funeral at our old church, High View, the church of my past, a place of memories. Today I was back in the church of my present, Living Faith Church of God, which had been planted by High View. I was grateful that I wouldn’t have the image of Charlie’s coffin in my mind every Sunday as I worshiped here.

Abigail, Bryce, and Carson had awakened with excitement from their final night’s sleep at Aunt Linda’s. Today they were going home! Before leaving for church, we had scurried around
packing up the belongings we’d brought to Linda’s place. The kids had chattered the whole time about how good it would be to sleep in their own beds and play with our dog, Dale. They were adorable as they discussed how glad Dale would be to come home as well, after his week with my sister and brother-in-law. It was fun to hear the anticipation in their voices, as if we were getting back to normal.

Normal.
I had no idea what that might mean for us now. A
new
normal, I supposed. What would it feel like to be home? Charlie was everywhere and nowhere. Did I even want to go back? The knowledge of what lay ahead brought thoughts I was not prepared to deal with, so I pushed them aside, knowing their time would come soon enough.

I was relieved when we pulled into the church lot and saw no signs of media vans. When my pastor, Dwight, and I had talked a few days before, I’d told him I wanted to address the congregation today to share a bit of my journey over the past week with our church family. They needed to know we were okay. We’d been a part of this close-knit group of believers for nine years. I wanted to assure them that their prayers had brought strength. I wasn’t hiding under a bed somewhere, I wasn’t panic stricken, and I wasn’t a basket case, because God was doing something astounding in the midst of this tragedy.

Pastor Dwight shared briefly with the congregation about the events of the past week and the mending he saw God doing in the midst of great brokenness. Quite a startling concept — God’s ability to put the pieces back together in the midst of such great loss. Then Dwight called me forward, and as I walked toward the front I heard gasps and saw looks of surprise on many faces. The response didn’t bother me, and surprisingly, I wasn’t concerned
with what they were thinking. The evidence of God’s bountiful love surrounded me, and despite the wrecking ball that had splintered my world, I knew my foundation was secure.

Standing before the sea of faces, I recognized the look of hunger for good news. Mine hadn’t been the only life shaken six days ago. My entire community was in pain, crying out to God with grief, grappling to understand how a friend in their midst could do such a thing.
Where was God? How could he allow this to happen to us, our church, and our town?
These questions were haunting my friends and neighbors. I had to tell them what they had
not
seen: how God showed up, infused me with his strength, surrounded my family with his love, met our every need.

The Marie who stood before them now was not the same Marie of last Sunday. I wonder to this day if they could
see
the change I felt. The timid, shy, stay-at-home-wife-of-the-milkman who’d always shunned the spotlight, always placed herself in the middle of the crowd — never at the front — now stood before them burning to bear witness of how God’s deep mercy, his incalculable strength, had invaded her this past week. The old Marie would have been trembling to stand before them. Today’s Marie could hardly wait to open her mouth. And so I did.

“I have some things to share this morning that will surprise you,” I began. “If I were you, I’d have assumed that Marie was hiding under a bed somewhere, afraid to go out into the world. And I admit — it isn’t easy to come out of the covering we’ve had this past week. But I am not afraid. God’s strength is made perfect in our weakness, and his strength has been much in evidence this week.

“First, I want to thank you. You have poured out your prayers and love over us, and God is answering those prayers.”

I went on to tell them how God had responded in huge ways to
my cries for help. “I don’t know what to expect of the future, but I do know God is bringing healing in deep ways. I feel like I’ve been given two years of healing in one week.

“Among the many things I understand more deeply now than I did a week ago,” I said, “is the role of God as my Redeemer. To redeem means to exchange one thing for another, to buy back, to recover the value of something by exchanging it for another. Over these past few days, God has been replacing my weakness with his strength, the ugliness of sin with the beauty of forgiveness, the blackest darkness with his brilliant light. As impossible as it may seem, I am walking in confidence in God’s ability to repair each broken place in our lives and to restore our lives so that they are once again characterized by hope and joy.

“Please continue to pray for me and my entire family. Pray for the Amish families. Pray for the first responders and the burden they bear. Rejoice with me that God is working in all our lives through this.”

The congregation clung to my words. They had needed to know that God was with us all. I’d been given a glimpse of a depth of faith I’d never known, and as I shared it, I felt it multiply.

On the twenty-minute drive home from church, I noticed an unfamiliar car following me. It had exited the church parking lot right after me and stayed with me through several turns, even as I’d left the highway behind and headed down country roads. A reporter, perhaps, hoping to steal some pictures of my children’s return to their home? Maybe not. It might have simply been a neighbor on his way home from church, like me. But I didn’t want to take the chance. I attempted to lose him by taking a roundabout route on
rural back roads. Glancing frequently in my rearview mirror, I felt as if I were in a scene from some TV show or movie. I vacillated between feeling foolish and feeling dumbfounded, but the longer the car followed, the more my anxiety grew. I couldn’t believe this was happening the very first time I drove the car without another adult with me since Charlie died! The few times I’d been behind the wheel since last Monday, my dad had been by my side.

As I made my way south through Strasburg and toward Georgetown, I did my best to chat with the kids as normal. They didn’t need to know we were being followed.
If only Charlie were here, I wouldn’t be afraid.
A stupid thought, I told myself. If Charlie were here, none of this would be happening. God and God alone was my protector now. Without their father, it was now my job to make my kids feel safe. That’s why I decided not to call anyone on my cell phone — I didn’t want to alarm my happy kids.

Eventually, I outmaneuvered the car on my tail. There is a distinct advantage to growing up in the country and knowing all the shortcuts. As I neared my house, I left the main road and cut right across the back end of my grandpa’s property, bouncing over the grass. I did my best to make it seem like a fun adventure by telling the kids that I could four-wheel just like Daddy could. They laughed and thought it was a delightful way to make our grand return home. Little did they know how rattled I was, how vulnerable and abandoned I felt.

Relief eased my grip on the steering wheel as I parked my car in my grandparents’ garage. No need to announce my return to the media. Let them wonder. I herded the kids across my grandpa’s driveway toward the house, eager to get inside and out of sight as quickly as possible. The kids had no idea of my anxiety, and since they were happy to get back to their own house, they didn’t resist.
Then, short of the door, we all came to a sudden stop, happy to see “Old Grandpa” waiting for us. Warm hugs and bright smiles all around.

We were home.

Within ten minutes, our house was filled with family members wanting to show their support. Some had stopped at a local sandwich shop to pick up lunch items. As the food was laid out, others scurried around my house cleaning, rearranging, and trying to find something to do. Though well meant, the flurry of activity was too much for me to handle. I didn’t particularly
want
my kitchen rearranged and didn’t mind that there was dust in my living room after a full week away. Those things were unimportant at the moment. I just wanted to sit in my home and surrender myself to the reality of the future. So much had happened since the last time I’d awakened in my own house. It was hard to take it all in, and being back within our own walls brought a nearly crippling intensity of emotion.

With so much going on around me, so much noise, I lost sight of Abigail. I had
not
wanted to do that. What was my seven-year-old thinking and feeling?

I found her in her room and sat next to her on her bed. We sat quietly, looking out the window. A tear escaped and slid silently down my cheek, followed by more. What was to become of us?

Bryce and Carson came walking through the doorway. “Mommy, let’s look at the photo albums,” Bryce said. I could see it in his eyes: he missed his daddy.

My son, I’m sure, was looking for a way to make us all feel better and our hearts grow stronger.

We would make it through this together.

Minutes later, the four of us were huddled together on the couch, slowly turning pages of our family albums. Though surrounded by family milling around and talking to one another, we were our own island of four. As we looked at photographs of past joys we had celebrated together, my eyes could not contain the collection of sorrows spilling from my heart. Tears and more tears kept falling. Bryce’s eyes searched my face, looking for reassurance that I was going to be all right. My children seemed unsure about my display of emotion. “It’s okay to cry,” I explained. “When we feel sad or when we’re hurt, we need to express those feelings, and one way we do that is by crying.” I wanted them to be comfortable enough to cry too. Charlie had been unable to express the depth of his emotion — but that need not become true of their little lives.

Day slipped into evening as one by one our family members left. I was alone with my children for the first time in a week. As strange as it seemed, I felt a deep sense of peace. I was not afraid to be on my own. Doing my best to keep the evening routine fairly “normal,” I bathed each of them and put them into bed. We read stories and prayed together. This had been our routine for their whole lives — Daddy worked at night and Mommy put them to bed. Normal.

But what will happen in the morning?

I pushed the nagging question back where it had come from. I would deal with tomorrow in its own time.

To my surprise, they each fell asleep without difficulty. I’d been worried that the evening would be emotionally hard on all of us. I gave thanks to God and felt my trust grow that he would fill in the gaps of our lives and pick up the pieces I missed.

Yes, there was undoubtedly much I was missing. I walked
through the house — all but my bedroom — and let my eyes linger over the home Charlie and I had built together. The police had obviously gone through my house more than once in search of anything that might be considered evidence. I did notice a few things gone. But one thing stood out among all the others, and it was irreplaceable. Charlie was missing.

I went into the kitchen and opened the pantry doors. Clearly the police had as well — my organized shelves were now in total disarray. At least my supply of imperishables was adequate for several days, and thanks to friends and family, my refrigerator was now as overflowing as Aunt Linda’s.

But running my fingers along the pantry shelves of my heart yielded nothing. No bits of treasure left, not one morsel hidden. I saw myself on tiptoe, reaching, searching, but empty-handed. I felt empty and desperate.

I’d put it off long enough. With a deep breath, I stepped into my bedroom for the first time since I’d been home. Clothes were strewn everywhere, evidence of the search by police. It unnerved me that they had touched everything I owned and every article I wore. I started sorting piles of laundry. I would wash each item before I placed it on my body again. I gathered the pile of dirty clothes from the hamper in our bathroom but separated out Charlie’s things before throwing the clothes into the washer. I couldn’t bring myself to wash any of Charlie’s clothes. I’d leave them in a basket for a while. In some strange way, it afforded me the chance to momentarily escape the harsh reality of my life.

If his things are here in our room, then life is normal and none of this is real.

I spent the next few hours doing every load of laundry and putting my ransacked belongings back where they belonged. By the wee
hours of the morning, everything was neat and tidy and my children were sound asleep. And then I didn’t know what to do. I’d read no books for this, knew no one who’d faced such a time as this. I wasn’t a typical young widow, if there is such a thing. My husband wasn’t just dead. He’d
taken
himself from me and from my children, and he’d taken far more than that from this world — innocence and life.

I recalled a conversation with one of my mom’s friends on the day of the shooting. I’d been sitting at my parents’ kitchen table, trying to figure out the next steps for my children and me.

“What am I supposed to do?” I’d asked her.

“Marie,” she’d answered with reassuring confidence, “this has never been done before. Whatever you choose will be the right choice.”

I threw myself onto Charlie’s side of the bed and wept. As I clutched the sheets and pressed my face into the pillow, I could smell him. The essence of his being still permeated this place. Part of me wanted it to stay there forever, and part of me wanted it gone right away. The struggle between, on one hand, my grief at forever losing him and, on the other, the nightmare surrounding his death ripped at me, pulling my heart in opposite directions.