I will never leave you or forsake you.
In the days following, Jenny found she was able to begin moving again. It wasn’t easy but somehow she found the strength. In those moments when the shock of Jonathan’s accident and the numbness of being without him assailed her senses, she would lift up a small prayer of thanksgiving for all of God’s blessings in her life. If she found herself despairing or starting to spin out of control, she recited the words of her mother’s favorite hymn out loud:
“Loben wir ihn von ganzem Herzen! Denn er allein ist würdig. Let us praise Him with all our hearts! For He alone is worthy.”
Step-by-step Jenny experienced the healing she needed. The progression could be brutal at times, but Jenny’s will was strong. At other times in her life, that had been to her detriment, but now at last it began to serve her. And as she made choices to go on with her life, she felt her faith rising slowly but surely. It was as though she had fallen from a high precipice into cold, deep water where all was dark and she could not breathe. But as she began to move toward the dim light above her, she knew that she would eventually come back to the surface and live again.
Often she would wrestle with many emotions at once: shock, denial, bargaining, anger…and at those times she would feel as though she would never escape the traps they set for her. But Reuben and Jerusha would be there for her, lifting her arms in the battle just as Aaron and Hur lifted Moses’ arms, and the enemy of her soul would be pushed back.
Jenny’s greatest joy in those days came from Rachel. Rachel was a resilient soul, and she had accepted things being the way they were long before Jenny could. In her grossdaadi’s arms Rachel had found the male presence she needed, and so she became reconciled to the idea that Jonathan had gone ahead to be with Jesus. For Jenny, Rachel became like a light before her feet on a dark and toilsome journey. When she wanted to stop, Rachel was there with a smile or a hug. When she needed a touch from the Lord, it came through a snuggle or a kind word from her little girl. And as the darkness was pushed back, Jenny began to find herself.
Jerusha and Reuben encouraged her to begin taking part in the daily life of the farm, and the old ways of her childhood helped her to build a structured schedule into her days. As she did, she could see herself developing an identity that no longer included Jonathan. At times this was the hardest part of the process, but eventually she recognized that this was the only way she could recover.
Ever vigilant, Reuben stepped in during the hard times and encouraged Jenny to take part in the church or the Amish school, where she soon served as a helper and eventually as a teacher. And so the days passed, and as the deep winter gave up its icy grip on Apple Creek and the first touch of spring began to melt the morning frost from the etched glass of the window in her room, Jenny slowly began to come back to life.
Then came a day when Jenny awoke to a soft dawn that crept into her room like a mischievous child, softly kissing her awake with the delicate touch of a rose-colored morning. Jenny opened her eyes and saw the pale colors blushing in the fresh sky. She rose, wrapped a shawl around her shoulders, and slipped outside. The day was fresh and clean and warm, and the grass felt cool and damp against her bare feet. Above her head the plum trees were just sprouting the tiny pink buds that would soon burst into brilliant color and paint the world with God’s palette. A single wren twittered its call, and stillness lay on the land.
Jenny’s heart stirred within her at the unexpected beauty of the morning. An old barn cat came around the side of the house, meowed loudly, and bunted her head against Jenny’s leg. Jenny smiled and reached down to scratch the cat behind the ears.
“Hello, Perticket.”
The old cat stayed for a moment, enjoying the attention, and then wandered off. Jenny took a deep breath, and the fresh air tasted sweet. The sun began to peek up over the hills to the east, and bright rays of sun shining through the trees cast easy shadows across the fields. A little breeze sprang up, and the air stirred around her, gently lifting the curls from her face. Above her a formation of Canadian geese flew north, honking as they went. Jenny was touched by the wonder of the day, and a thought rose in her heart like a small trout rising for a fly in a still mountain lake.
I’m still alive. This didn’t kill me, and I can still find joy and wonder in a day.
The screen door creaked behind her, and she looked around to see her papa coming out on the porch. He was dressed for work, and his handsome face broke into a smile. Reuben stepped down from the porch and came over to Jenny.
“You have a glow about you this morning, dochter. It’s good for my heart to see life creeping back into you.”
Jenny stepped into the circle of Reuben’s arms.
Yes, I do feel life coming back into me. It’s as though I have been raised from the dead!
“Papa, thank you!”
“For what, Jenny?”
“For not giving up on me, for walking beside me, and for being my rock when the storm raged most fiercely about me.”
Reuben’s arms tightened around her. Then he spoke, and she could tell the words were difficult by the way they seemed to be pulled from him, syllable by syllable.
“When our Jenna died, I wanted to die too. I felt so helpless, and I believed that but for my wrongheadedness, Jenna would have lived. If das Vollkennen des Gottes hadn’t sent someone to help me, I would have died by my own hand. And then Gott, in His infinite mercy and grace, sent you to us. I can’t explain how it happened, but when I saw you for the first time, I knew you belonged to me and to your mama forever. I knew I had been given a second chance, and I loved you with every bit of the love I had for Jenna. And so when I see you suffer, I suffer too.”
Jenny looked into her papa’s eyes, the deep sea-blue eyes with the smile behind them, and saw home and safety in them.
“And so I would do anything to see you happy again. You make sonnenschein in meinem Herzen. And now you have given us Rachel, and the joy she brings with her is beyond our understanding. I can’t give Jonathan back to you. If I could, I would give my own life to do so. But that’s beyond me, so I give you my love and this place and whatever you need to be happy again. That’s my prayer.”
And as the bright spring sun warmed the earth, the winter of Jenny’s great sorrow began to melt away. The icy stronghold that had imprisoned her dreams and hopes crumbled under the warmth of her father’s love, and the river of life began to flow once more in her heart.
CHAPTER NINE
Healing Words
What words can I find that describe Jonathan or serve his memory as they should? Kindness? Compassion? Wisdom? Self-sacrifice? Joy, gift, safety…love? Somehow I can’t seem to capture the essence of Jonathan with mere words. He was my true love, my best friend, my companion, my coworker, my true yoke-fellow…all of these things. And yet, I still haven’t arrived at the heart of the matter. Maybe I’ll never be able to describe him or what he meant to me until I, too, have crossed over and my Lord explains it to me.
Jenny put down her pen and looked at the words in the journal. She gripped the edge of the page, ready to tear it out, but something held her back. Then she carefully closed her journal and stood it up in an alcove of the small desk that Reuben had built for her. Her journal—Jenny smiled at the notion and the amazing thing that had happened to her in the past few months. In the depths of her sorrow, Jenny had discovered a desire and possibly a gift for writing.
It had begun not long after the early spring morning her papa helped her find joy again. As she walked in the fields on a clear May morning, taking lunch to her daed, time seemed to shift. For a moment it seemed she was back in Paradise, taking Jonathan his lunch and hearing his clear, beautiful voice drifting across the farm to her on the wings of a song. He sang as he walked the rows, top-seeding last fall’s oat field with legume seeds. The seeds flew out of the hand-cranked seeder as his strong hands turned the handle, keeping time with the words that floated out of his mouth.
“Lassen Sie ihn, d
er gelegen hat, seine Hand auf dem Pflug nicht sehen sich um! Presse zur Absicht! Presse Jesus Christus! Derjenige, der Christus gewinnt, wird sich mit ihm von den Toten am jüngsten Tag erheben.”
Jenny remembered the words and sang along in English.
“Let him who has laid his hand on the plow not look back! Press on to the goal! Press on to Jesus Christ! The one who gains Christ will rise with Him from the dead on the youngest day.”
Jenny was lost in her memory. Jonathan had been a wonderful singer, and she loved his voice…
Then the moment passed, and she paused and looked around. She wasn’t in Paradise; she was back in Apple Creek, taking lunch to her papa instead of her husband. For a moment the familiar sadness engulfed her, and then she had an inspiration. After she gave Reuben his lunch, she ran back to the house and found a scrap of paper and a pen. She sat down at the kitchen table and wrote a note to Jonathan.
Dearest Jonathan,
Today I heard you singing as I walked alone in the fields. I love your voice. I am glad you never became a successful musician when you lived in San Francisco, for if you had we never would have met. Instead you sang your songs to the Lord, and I was blessed to hear your gift. By the way, I kept your guitar. I don’t know why, since you put it away when you joined the church, but for me it is part of who you are. I remember when you sang a song for me long ago, and the beautiful sound of the music and the words enthralled me. You said you wrote the song for me. I remember it so clearly.
Tonight, I whisper in your ear,
I always want you near.
Tonight, kiss me tenderly,
Come so easily,
Into my heart tonight.
Your songs—how I miss them.
Jenny
Jenny stared down at the note and realized that for just a moment, as she wrote, the weight had lifted from her heart.
Maybe if I write down my memories of Jonathan, it will help me to fend off this loneliness. If I can’t have him to hold, I can have him to remember.
The next time Jenny was at the General Store, she looked for something she could use to write in. She found a plain, lined notebook with a black-and-white speckled cover and a place to write on the front cover. She bought it and took it home. She sat at the kitchen table and wrote simply “Jenny Hershberger, Journal 1—1979” on the cover. And that is how she began. At first she wrote only about Jonathan, but as she emptied out the hurt and the pain on the pages, she found there was room in her heart to write about other things too. She wrote about Rachel and the funny or wonderful things she did and said.
Tonight we asked Rachel to say grace at dinner. She prayed, “Dear Gott, thank You for these pancakes.” When she finished, Mama asked her why she thanked Gott for pancakes when we were having chicken. Rachel smiled and said, “I thought I’d see if He was paying attention.”
One day Jenny wrote a short poem about Reuben.
Safe in loving arms I rest
My cares away on spirit wings
And here my aching soul caressed
By loving words the angel brings
To whisper in my papa’s ear
His strength for me breaks all my fear
And love with gentle voice can sing
And tell me how my life is blessed
My papa’s arms shall hold me fast
And bring me safely home at last
Her interest in the history of her people reawakened, and she started visiting the Wooster library once a week. Her old friend Mrs. Blake was still the librarian and welcomed Jenny back with open arms.
From then on there were many nights when Reuben came home to find Jenny lost in thought at the kitchen table, sucking on the end of her pen as she stared down at the words she had written. Jerusha cooked dinner around her and Rachel asked for her mama’s attention, but Jenny would be lost in thought. It was on one of these evenings that Reuben realized that Jenny was finding healing in the words she wrote. The next morning Jerusha found him in the woodshop, laying out some of the choice pieces of wood that he kept for his projects.
“What are you making, husband?”
“I’m going to make a desk for Jenny that she can put in her room. Her writing takes her mind off her sorrow, and after she writes she’s so much more with us. But she needs a quiet place away from all the hubbub.”
Jerusha smiled and laid her hand on Reuben’s arm. “You are a good papa.”
Reuben spent a month making the desk. It was crafted from birch and lightly sealed with a clear stain—a simple design but beautifully made, with two drawers in the front and a small set of shelves on the back edge to hold her journals. One day when Jenny was out, he moved it into her room. He stood it by the wall close to the window so she could look out on the world as she wrote. When she came home and went into her room, she came straight back out and gave her daed a long hug. No words were necessary.
After that, Jenny made a short time for herself each day to sit alone in her room and write. Soon she had filled five notebooks. As she wrote she sensed that perhaps God had a blessing for her in the writing, but it was not something that came to her easily. When she read her words back, she could see that she was still an awkward writer, and it bothered her, so one day when she was at the library, she shared her frustration with Mrs. Blake. Her friend smiled at her.
“Writing is like any creative craft,” the librarian said. “It takes time to develop your skills. You have a gift, Jenny. I remember the work you did for me when you were an intern and an assistant here. The research was always so complete, and your writing was clear and concise. The best way to improve on that is to just keep writing. There are also some excellent books I can recommend that will point you in the right direction.”
Mrs. Blake selected a few titles for her, and Jenny checked them out and took them home. As she read through them, she could see some of the common traps she had fallen into. Use the active voice. Get rid of the “hads” and write in the present. Show, don’t tell.
Then she went back to her entries and began reworking them. She labored over them and sometimes made corrections late into the night. After a while, she could smile as she read her first awkward attempts.
As her skill developed, she realized there was still much to learn. One day when she was at the library, Mrs. Blake directed her attention to a flyer posted on the bulletin board. It was for an adult-education creative writing class to be held at the library on Tuesday evenings, starting in two weeks. She thought about it, and when she got home she went to her daed.
“Papa, there’s an adult-education class at the library I’d like to take. It’s a creative writing class, and I think it could help me with my writing. I want to ask your permission since I am living under your roof and you’re caring for me.”
Reuben looked at his daughter. “You are old enough to make your own decisions, dochter. I’ve been watching you find joy in your writing, and I want to encourage you. I would only ask one question. Do you know where this is leading you?”
“I’m not sure, Papa. Mostly I write about Jonathan. But at some point I think I would also like to try my hand at chronicling the history of our family. I’ve been going through the old books at the library, and my interest in history seems to have been rekindled…but not for the same reasons.”
Jenny smiled at the memory of her obsessive search for her birth mother and the part her papa had played in it, although reluctantly at first.
“I want to be sure you can stay within the Ordnung, Jenny, and yet I know that times are changing. I don’t want to limit something that Gott may be doing in you.”
Jenny looked at her papa in surprise. “Why, Papa, I believe, as Jonathan might have said, you’re ‘loosening up’ a little.”
“Youth has a way of making a fool of a man. And old age can sometimes bring wisdom.”
“Is that from Proverbs, Papa?”
“No, that’s from a little book called Reuben Figures It Out.”
They both laughed. Their m
erriment brought Jerusha and Rachel into the room.
“What’s funny, Mama?” Rachel asked.
“Papa and I were just laughing about the things we learn as we grow older, Rachel.”
Reuben picked up Rachel. “We’re finding out somehow we don’t get smarter as we go along, little one. We just discover how foolish we always have been.”
“I don’t understand, Grossdaadi.”
“You will, Rachel. You will. Just give it time.”
With Reuben’s blessing, Jenny continued to write. She signed up for the class in Wooster and arranged a ride for herself every Tuesday evening. And that is how the Lord led her to the day that would forever change her life.
CHAPTER TEN
A Helping Hand
JENNY WALKED DOWN THE HALL to the room where the writing class was being held. She stopped at the door and peeked cautiously around the doorjamb. Just as she feared, the room was filled with Englischers. Not a single Amish person in the room.
She took a deep breath and started to walk into the classroom. Just as she did, someone collided with her from behind, knocking her bag and her notebook from her hand.
“Oh, excuse me,” said a deep voice behind her.
Jenny turned. The perpetrator of the collision bent down to pick up her things. When he stood back up to hand them to her, Jenny saw that he was a tall, very handsome man with deep blue eyes.
“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I saw you stop and I was going to step past you when you went again. I was in kind of a rush. Please forgive me.”
“No harm done,” Jenny said.
“Are you here for the class?”
“Yes, I am.”
“It’s interesting that you should come tonight.”
An old irritation rose up in her. “And why is that?”
“I’m speaking for a few minutes tonight about the number of books that are being published about the Amish.”
Jenny's Choice (Apple Creek Dreams #3) Page 6