After we rolled the topic around for hours, Andy said, “I think it comes down to this: Do I want to be known as the father who blessed their marriage or the one who cursed it?”
We sat quietly as we contemplated the answer to that question.
Wednesday morning at the hospital, we came in to a touching surprise.
“Look!” I said to Andy as we walked into the room. I stopped in my tracks. During her shift, Marie—the night nurse—had washed Ann’s hair and braided it.
“I didn’t even know if she still had hair!” I gasped. After all the head trauma, we assumed most of it was gone except the small part that wasn’t covered by her head dressing. The braid was just a little touch of kindness, but it meant so much to us.
“How do these look?” a nurse named Pattie said, as she slipped the boots covered in thick gray fur onto Ann’s feet as she lay in the bed. The special boots kept her feet bent to prevent them “freezing” in a pointed position.
“They’re certainly a fashion statement, especially with that hospital gown,” I said, tilting my head to consider them. “But she always wanted Uggs.”
As odd as it sounds, we established a “normal life” at the hospital. We became friends with the nurses, who tended to Ann with such care and kindness.
“You guys should bring in some photos,” Marie suggested Wednesday evening. “I’d love to see what Ann looked like before all this.”
Her sweet request gave us the opportunity to look through pictures from cell phones and photo albums. I even found her baby “brag book,” which visitors enjoyed flipping through as they sat in her room. One particular photo—of Ann pushing her sister through Costco in a large grocery cart—caused everyone to smile until the contrast to the girl asleep in the hospital bed caused the smiles to fade.
In a further effort to make Ann comfortable, we arranged her special stuffed animals around her in bed; her boss from the store placed a Sophie giraffe on her bedside table; and we tucked a hand-crocheted afghan, a graduation present from her friend Khadijah, nicely around her legs.
Visitors came and went all day in our makeshift “home.” Even though the priests from Good Shepherd didn’t plan to stagger their arrivals, there always seemed to be at least one of them in our conversations, in the waiting room, or by our side. Being Holy Week, it probably was the most inconvenient time for them to drop everything to be with us at the hospital. Though Easter is an important holiday for all Christian denominations, some merely consider it a special Sunday when children wear new clothes, have an egg hunt on the church property, and gorge on melted chocolate infused with blades of grass. But it’s the holiest week of the year for Catholics—the high point of the liturgical calendar—and it represents the core of our faith and source of our salvation. We reorient our lives around the church, and special masses are held during the week.
Holy Week is ushered in the Sunday before Good Friday, which is known as Palm Sunday. It’s a celebration of Jesus’ triumphant entrance into Jerusalem when crowds welcomed, worshipped, and laid down palm leaves before him. Of course, that’s not how the story ends. Holy Week contains the greatest tragedy and sorrow of the year.
The story of the arrest, trial, and suffering of Jesus is called the Passion, after a Latin word meaning “suffering.” The whole week contains a certain sobriety, as the parish walks through the agony of Christ and relives the Gospel of Luke from beginning to end. Early in the week, each church in the city holds a penance service, and there are always several priests on hand for the sacrament of reconciliation, or what people commonly know as “confession.”
“Would you mind hearing our confessions while you’re here?” Andy asked Father Kevin, after he realized we’d not been able to make it to any of the penance services that week. Father Kevin smiled as he brought out a stole from his pocket and placed a band of colored cloth around his neck.
“Always prepared,” he said, gesturing to a more private room for our individual confessions. The sacrament of reconciliation is a time for us to sit down and reflect on our lives, to admit the things we have done that don’t live up to God’s standards. In the book of 1 John, God instructs us about the practice: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness” (1:9). After confession, the priest usually assigns some sort of penance. This is simply an action that someone can take to reestablish the relationship between the sinner and God, in order to restore God’s grace.
At least that’s how it is supposed to work.
Once I went to confession with the girls when they were teenagers. Father Bill, who was probably eighty years old at the time, heard the confessions of Sarah, Allyson, and Ann first.
As I entered the room, he said, “Are those your daughters?”
For a moment I hesitated. Since I had no idea what the girls had confessed, I wondered if I should I claim them. He laughed at my pause before assuring me, “They’re great girls.”
Relieved, I knelt down and said, “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been three months since my last confession.”
“I have anger toward my husband. I don’t give him the respect he deserves, and I argue with him frequently,” I confessed.
“For your penance,” Father Bill said, “say the Our Father twice, very slowly.” In a way, penance completes the process.
Most people would’ve come out of the room, prayed, said their penance, and gone on with their lives. But I couldn’t. More accurately, I wouldn’t. Not that day. In fact, I may have left angrier than when I arrived. I had secretly hoped that after I told Father Bill why I was so angry with my husband, he would side with me or justify my anger. I imagined Andy sitting at home, not even thinking of our fight, and certainly not acknowledging that he had any fault in it. And there I was, humbling myself before God.
I was sick of being the one doing all the work! I loaded the girls into my car and went along with my errands of the day, without obeying Father Bill’s instruction.
The next morning, when I woke up, I turned over and saw Andy sleeping soundly on his side of the bed. As I looked at him, oblivious to what he’d done, it dawned on me that I still hadn’t done my penance. Then, with equal force, it dawned on me that I didn’t care. I secretly relished the fact that I wasn’t completing my penance. To do so would be to admit my wrongdoing, which somehow seemed to relieve Andy of any responsibility. No one but God knew I was in rebellion against Andy, which made it easier to maintain. I guess I hoped I could teach him a lesson, that my anger would somehow hurt him enough that he’d change. And so I pouted, considered how wrongly Andy had treated me, and congratulated myself for taking my faith more seriously than he did.
It took a lot of energy. Maintaining a steady stream of hostility, contempt, and aggression toward him did little or nothing to Andy, but it ate me up. Finally, after an entire week, I got tired of it. I got down on my knees next to my bed (though I rarely do this when praying), folded my hands together, and said the words the priest had instructed.
“Our Father who art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name,” I said, very slowly. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.”
As a Catholic, I’d probably recited this prayer thousands of times. We say it as a part of the mass before taking Holy Communion, the Liturgy of the Hours, and the rosary. But there was something different about saying it this time. Father Bill had instructed me to say it deliberately. Slowly. Twice.
“And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,” I said. “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, amen.”
And then, after taking a deep breath, I said it all again.
“Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us,” I repeated, really spacing out the words as instructed, letting their meaning cling to me, change me.
By the time I said “amen”—the second time—God’s grace washed o
ver me. When I acknowledged my own sin without focusing on Andy’s, the bitterness was taken away. Only when it was gone did I realize that God’s grace had been kept from me because I was unwilling to obey and feel his forgiveness.
Forgiveness didn’t come naturally to me. If doors could come off their hinges when slammed, we would’ve replaced all the doors at our house. I’m a really good door slammer. Many times in our marriage, my anger at Andy was probably disproportionate to the offense. At the beginning of every month—after we deposited Andy’s paycheck—we’d go to Walmart and buy all our major groceries. My paycheck covered eggs, milk, and bread—all the “fill-in” groceries that need to be replenished over the course of life. My money also paid for the girls’ music lessons and the extraneous things that seem to pop up all the time. Because he handled the bills, I never challenged his financial decisions; and I expected him to return the favor.
I’ll never forget the time we were shopping at the beginning of the month when I picked up a box of generic Oatee O’s.
“The girls like Honey Nut Cheerios,” he said, picking up a brand-name box and sticking it in the cart.
“But that box costs $1.50 more.”
“We can afford to get the girls the kind of cereal they want,” he laughed.
“I don’t think they taste that much better,” I said.
“But the girls like this one,” Andy repeated, and the more expensive cereal remained in the cart.
Just one aisle later, I picked up a bag of Starbucks dark roast ground coffee.
“Wait,” he said, holding up a generic brand. “Here’s one that’s half the price.”
“I thought we could occasionally splurge on the things we like,” I said, putting the Starbucks into the cart, right next to the cereal to emphasize my point.
“This is just as good,” Andy insisted. “We’ll get this kind.”
“But I like Starbucks better. We’re talking about pennies per cup of coffee.”
He didn’t even bother to respond, but instead just reached into our cart, removed the Starbucks, and replaced it with the cheaper version.
“You’re overreacting. Coffee is coffee,” he said. “Why are you so upset about this?”
“You’re buying Honey Nut Cheerios because that’s what the girls like,” I said, “but you refuse to buy the coffee I like because it’s too expensive.”
“But they like the Honey Nut,” he said, in the most unassuming voice. He had absolutely no idea why this was problematic, which dumbfounded me. I didn’t know how to respond, but I grew livid as I stood under those fluorescent lights.
“I’m buying the kind of coffee I want from my own checking account,” I said, very slowly, holding the coffee next to me. “I’ll just have the cashier ring this up separately, so you don’t have to take out a loan for it.”
It was the kind of argument that escalated quickly, both of us shocked that we were standing in the middle of an aisle, furious at the other. People looking for their own coffee products scooted by to give us privacy. Then the whole way home I tried to explain how it wasn’t about the coffee, but how he didn’t think enough of me to buy the good coffee. He never understood. For him it was only about saving money.
Another time we were shopping for a new car. As we walked through the Hyundai parking lot to the new vehicles, one of the SUVs from the used car lot caught my eye. It was a shiny, black Mercedes, and—because it was used—it was priced about the same as the new vehicles we were going to see.
“Oh, Andy,” I said. “Look at that! Can we test-drive it?”
“Why do you want to test-drive a Mercedes?”
“Come on,” I said. “Let’s just drive it and have some fun!”
“We’re not going to buy a Mercedes.”
“I know. But it’s here, and it’s a beautiful day,” I urged. “Let’s just take it for a spin.”
“But if you’re not going to buy it,” he said, “why do you want to drive it?”
“Because it’s a Mercedes,” I said, feeling that should’ve settled it. “I’m never going to have another chance to drive a Mercedes!”
When we got home, I slammed the door to my bedroom, flopped myself on the bed, and cried out to God.
“What am I supposed to do with him?” I asked. By this time in our marriage—after seventeen years—our relationship was stretched really thin. After I gave birth to Ann, I had another stillbirth. It seemed particularly cruel for us to bury two babies. To add even more heartache, this time it was a boy we’d named Lucien. The tragedies that we’d gone through, not having a church home, and the normal wear and tear on all relationships had taken a toll. As the years went by, we had been attending church less and less. The Methodist church didn’t seem to have the spirituality I was looking for. Andy and I would joke that we knew the sermon was over only after the minister had told three jokes and at least one fishing story. After going there for several years, I discovered there are twenty-six tenets of the Methodist faith, and I couldn’t name one of them. I always felt like a Catholic who went to a Methodist church—never a true Methodist.
Just before Sarah entered the sixth grade, when she would have started going to the youth group, I found out from a friend that the church had a sex ed class for the youth. I’m sure part of the course was abstinence, but I was shocked to learn that they also taught them how to use birth control—just in case, in a you-know-how-kids-are-these-days type way.
Andy and I knew we couldn’t attend a church that taught our daughters what we felt was our duty to teach them. In a way this incident made us take our faith more seriously, and it awakened my deep longing to return to the church of my youth.
“We need to take the girls to church,” I said, after several weeks of sleeping in on Sunday. Though Andy agreed, we didn’t quite live up to our aspiration of church attendance, and the weeks turned into months, which turned into years.
One fall Sunday in 1999, Andy was out of town, and I took the girls to a Catholic church named Good Shepherd for mass. We filed into a pew near the front, with the girls sitting on my left near the center aisle. We listened to the announcements—they were having a weekend retreat—and the homily. But when it came time for communion, something went awry. Ann, who was the youngest and totally unaware of how things work in a Catholic church, stood up and got in line with everyone else.
Sarah and Allyson scooted out of the pew to retrieve their sister. Somehow, and I’m still not sure how, they ended up in line as well. It was too late. We were so close to the front of church, it was all over before I could reach the end of the pew.
When I made it up to the priest, I held out my hands and he placed the host on my palm.
“The body of Christ,” he said.
“Amen,” I said.
But instead of the priest moving on to the person behind me, he leaned over to me and whispered, motioning to my girls. “They aren’t Catholic, are they?”
I guess it was obvious they didn’t know what they were doing.
Up to that point, I had been enjoying the mass. The familiar rituals and prayers. Reciting the creed and acknowledging to myself that, yes, I did believe all those things. Now, however, I went back to the pew, devastated, my face reddening with shame. My girls were Catholic. At least my oldest two were, because they’d been baptized in the Church. But I knew that’s not what he meant.
Just because they were baptized Catholic didn’t make them Catholic, any more than me attending the Methodist church had made me Methodist. My daughters really didn’t know what it meant to be a member of the faith into which they had been baptized. If I didn’t like the Methodist church, then I should’ve found another one—any other church. I should never have let my family languish for years without a spiritual anchor.
After mass, I went up to the priest.
“I just wanted to explain about what happened in there,” I said. “Actually two of my daughters are, in fact, Catholic. At least, they were baptized . . .”
Aft
er he listened to my convoluted story of unrealized potential and broken vows, he simply said, “Enroll them in religious education.” It wasn’t an admonishment, and it wasn’t a suggestion. It was a gentle commandment.
I knew it was a message straight from God.
Almost immediately, I plunged into the heart of the church. I enrolled our family as members, attended a weekend retreat, and started faithfully attending mass. Even though Good Shepherd was a place I’d never regularly attended, I finally felt I’d come home. And I couldn’t help but sing out my praises louder than anyone else during the mass. Suddenly God became so alive to me that I often teared up as I sang, “Glory to God in the highest, and peace to his people on earth.”
But one of my first priorities was to enroll my girls in the religious education program. They took it pretty well.
“It’s an obligation that I have as your parent,” I explained as they loaded up into the car to go to church for their lessons. “To bring you up in the training and instruction of the Lord.”
“Aren’t we already ‘up’?” asked Allyson.
“How long will it last?” Ann asked.
“Well, it starts now and ends in December next year.”
“We’ll be in college by the time this is over,” Sarah groaned.
“Listen,” I said. “All kids count the weeks until summer break. This won’t hurt you, and it might even be good for you.”
But even as we dove headfirst into church, it added yet another issue to my relationship with Andy. When he had said he thought we should get the girls in church, I’m sure he wasn’t thinking of the Catholic Church. While I had been willing to go to any church Andy wanted, neither of us really wanted to return to the Methodist church we’d been attending. By then I had no desire to search for another “compromise” church. “I feel like an outsider,” Andy said to me as he saw how dedicated I’d become to the church in just a few short months. “It’s like you’ve moved on spiritually to a church that won’t even allow me to take Communion with you.”
We talked—sometimes for hours—about what he thought were the Catholic Church’s overly restrictive rules regarding joining the Church and participating in the Lord’s Supper. Secretly, I knew Andy wouldn’t feel so rejected if he didn’t really want to be a part of it.
Forgiving My Daughter's Killer Page 7