Then the color guard marched out onto the field, and the announcer told us to stand for the national anthem. Seventh grader Jackie Monroe from Bethel Springs Junior High began her solo, but then modulated whenever she began a new phrase. After her battle with pitch, I could appreciate the flag was still there.
Then the Good Notes continued with mostly patriotic stuff: “My Country ‘Tis of Thee,” “You’re a Grand Ol’ Flag,” “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” and a desperate closing attempt at the 1812 Overture.
“Let’s go for a walk,” Dad suggested, and Mom answered by offering her hand as Dad helped her up. Matt and I watched them walk away, tiptoeing between blankets.
“Where are they going?”
“Don’t know,” he said. I looked across the last thirty yards, trying to find anybody I knew. “Remember how we always used to come here for the fireworks?” Matt continued.
“Sort of,” I answered, the memory a shadowy recollection.
“We always had a picnic and ate all sorts of stuff Mom never bought at home. Kind of like today,” Matt said softly. “And once a piece of a firework landed on our quilt.”
“Seriously?”
“If you look I’ll bet you can find the hole.” Matt stood up and took out our flashlight and ran the beam over the log cabin pattern until he found the blackened hole. “Look right there!” The singed mark made it real, even if I couldn’t recall the wounding.
“Why did we stop coming?”
“Joel didn’t like the noise. Plus it was too late for him.” Matt looked serious, as if remembering something I didn’t want to know about. Was there something else I had to dread?
“Do you ever feel sort of guilty when you think of something that … that might be all right, since he’s gone?” Matt asked me quietly.
I knew the feeling. And whenever I thought of something like that, I did feel guilty. I remembered when Joel was born and how I felt mad that we couldn’t ride bikes and go hiking and roller-skating as a family. Now we were going back to our lives before Joel, and I wasn’t sure if it was okay to be happy. It was hard to explain.
“I was dreading sharing a room with a preschooler,” Matt admitted at last. “That makes me feel bad now.”
“I know what you mean.” I had spent three years with Joel, and sometimes I had looked forward to the day he’d move out with Matt and I’d have my room back. And once I sent away for “Amazing Instant Life,” a sea monkey kit advertised on the back of Matt’s Marvel comic books. I had to wait six to eight weeks (sixty-one days to be exact) before it arrived. But Joel flushed it down the toilet before I could see my crustacean in suspended animation turn into a humanoid creature like the advertising claimed. I was really mad at him.
“Joel never really got into trouble.”
“And he never will,” Matt said. “Not like us, anyway. We’ll never be as good as him because he didn’t live long enough to be bad. Even though you’re near perfect, you can never be as good as the memory of Joel.” Matt spoke so softly and gently. He wasn’t mad at me or anyone else. It was just a truth Matt had figured out. “And even though I know I shouldn’t feel angry about it, I still do.”
What could I say to that? But that’s not what killed him, I thought. But grief and guilt were killing us.
“Now I’ve said it, and nothing awful happened,” Matt confessed as he shrugged his shoulders. “I guess talking about it does feel better than holding it in my head.”
I wanted it out of his head. I wanted Matt to keep talking and talking. I probably needed to hear him say things more than he needed to say them.
“Matt, what did you think was the worst part? I mean, over there in Washington.” In a sentence, I was back on the boardwalk with the car and the ambulance and the long drive home.
“The hospital,” he answered easily. Too easily. The hospital was the sad memory that came back uninvited. The place where hope was extinguished. “We stood around waiting and waiting and then the doctor came and told us he was already dead. They should have a better way of doing that.”
“You mean saying someone’s dead?” I asked. “Is there a good way?”
“I don’t know,” he answered. “I guess you do have to know.”
“Miss Patti and Rita don’t know. They still have hope, sort of.”
“But they never get to move on, either.”
I shook my head. He was right. We could move on with a different kind of hope, maybe even today.
Dad and Mom returned and sat at the other end of the blanket. Mom handed over a bag of popcorn in a paper sack and a cold bottle of Grape Crush. She leaned back against Dad as he held her in his arms. Something so new and yet so familiar. Reborn.
“You’re a gift from God,” I whispered to Matt.
“Gee, thanks.” Matt laughed.
“No, really. That’s what your name means,” I explained. “That’s why Dad named you Matthew.”
We were silent for a long time, staring up at the sky. I longed for the first blast, wondering where the fireworks could fit in with a sky riddled with stars. Mom and Dad murmured softly.
“Did you like Birch Bay?” I asked him.
Matt sighed. “I don’t know. It’s hard to take the good out of the bad. I remember we were having a fun time before, and it felt like we were a family.”
“Would you go back?”
“Never.”
“Me neither!” And we both laughed at the same time, as the first rocket shot into the sky with a whistling sound. Independence Day. The Fourth. The day after the third. Almost a year ago.
“That’s a twizzler!” Matt shouted, and then I remembered our naming game. We had all sorts of names for the various fireworks. Sort of like how God knows all the stars in the sky by name.
“I like the noisy ones,” I shouted. “The big bangs.”
“I like the fizzy ones,” Matt admitted.
I felt nervous and I couldn’t explain why. The blasts continued, but I was silent. A triple-decker, a rainbow, buzzing bees, and then sparklers.
“What’s wrong, Abby?”
“I don’t want them to be over,” I said. I knew that the bigger and better the fireworks, the closer we were to the grand finale. I tensed for the end, when no more fireworks would light the sky.
“Abby, they just started!” Matt said, too loudly. “Relax! Just watch them!”
A twizzler and multicolored sparklers were followed by a series of booms we called heart attacks. I waited through the thunderous noise and then asked again. “Do you think we’re at the grand finale?” A snap-crackle-pop went off.
“We’re a long way off!” Matt sat up and pointed to the new spectacle. “Awesome triple pop!”
“Tell me when we get to the finale.”
“Abby!” Matt sounded disappointed in me. “Stop it!”
“But I want to know, Matt,” I pleaded. “Just tell me. I need to know.”
“I’ll try.” He turned to look at me. “But I can’t always tell.” I must have looked worried, because he reached out his arm. “Just hold my hand, Abby. Enjoy them, and I’ll give you a triple squeeze when we hit the finale.”
My brother was holding my hand, and he had ridden the rides with me all day, and instead of heading off with his friends, he was staying with me for the fireworks. I wasn’t sure it got any better. He probably even remembered that a triple squeeze meant “I love you.” And maybe this was what heaven felt like: when you wanted a moment to go on forever.
I hurt all over from the absence of Joel, the brother who had made me a middle child, then left me as the baby of the family, but my hurt suddenly seemed so different now. Tonight was good because even though there was hurt, there was hope.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Dad came to church with us the next Sunday. And the next. For two Sundays in a row, we sat in the balcony and I counted the children in the colored glass. I knew by then that nobody could escape the picture, but when I could count on something being constant, I felt reassured.
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“I used to wish I could be in that picture,” I said to him.
“That would be nice, wouldn’t it, Abby?” Dad put his arm around me and rubbed my shoulder with his hand. He looked sort of sad as he studied the children, and I wished my dad wasn’t too old to join them at Jesus’ feet. Dad’s eyes were moist, so full that when he looked down at his congregation, he brushed his eyes with his hands. I looked away.
“This is my last Sunday in the balcony,” he said. I frowned, wondering if this meant we weren’t going to church anymore, but he leaned over and whispered in my ear, “If God’s still here, then I’ve got to find Him.”
Where did he plan on looking?
On July nineteenth, the Bethel Springs Presbyterian Church readerboard read:
SUNDAY, JULY 25, 1971
SERMON: WHEN GOD IS DEAD
REVEREND MCANDREWS PREACHING 10:30
I ran all the way home to ask what it meant.
“So you think God is dead?” I asked Dad, breathless with anticipation and my run home. “Everybody is wondering.” I threw in everybody for emphasis.
“Everybody is wondering, huh?” Dad smiled. “Then I guess everybody will have to come find out!” he said, nodding to me.
“So you’re not going to tell us what it’s about?” Matt asked.
“Something tells me you’ll be with everybody at church on Sunday,” Dad said, and Matt shook his head and grinned. Dad had him. “Front row balcony?” Dad teased. “Sounds like attendance will go up!”
Dad returned to his church office the next day. I watched for signs of what God being dead meant.
I knew if Dad was going to say God was dead, we were finished at Bethel Springs Presbyterian. I considered the move and imagined a different house and a big backyard. I tried not to think that Rita might not be my neighbor. But if there was a chance Dad’s sermon title was what Mom called a “teaser,” we might have hope.
The return of the reverend was the talk of Bethel Springs, and that week was the longest month of my life.
On Sunday, Matt returned to the balcony with me. And pretty much everybody was there. We could see a lot of the people we saw at Christmas and Easter. Matt counted more than four hundred heads, most of whom I didn’t recognize. But I spotted Dr. Hutchinson, the Monroes, Mr. and Mrs. Gorski, and even the Morettis, who decided not to be Catholic for the morning. Uncle Troy ushered in our neighbors the Whites, and even Bruce Hanley with his two kids. It looked like most of Bethel Springs had turned out for Dad’s “God Is Dead” sermon, and the spillover was filling my balcony pews.
The bulletin listed songs and verses but didn’t hint at the last agenda item, which would determine our future. We could hardly wait for the sermon. That was a first.
As we sang “Near to the Heart of God,” I scanned the verses for clues.
“There is a place of quiet rest … there is a place of comfort sweet … there is a place where all is joy.” We sang it faster than usual, as if in a hurry. Either that, or we finally had an organist who could play it at the right tempo.
Then Mr. Rodecker came to the pulpit to read from Deuteronomy, one of those books so full of rules I couldn’t relate to it. But today it felt strangely familiar and I followed along in my Bible, searching for clues from what Moses told the Israelites.
I liked when Mr. Rodecker read that God would go before and fight on their behalf, and as I underlined it, he continued, “‘In the wilderness where you saw how the LORD your God carried you, just as a man carries his son …’” And then I stopped. There was more after that but I couldn’t focus. Just as a man carries his son. Just as a man carries his son. I kept thinking about that until Dad returned to the pulpit for the responsive reading and instructed us to open to the back of our hymnal.
“‘A Time for Everything,’ from Ecclesiastes 3,” Dad began. “Please join me in reading the bold lines.”
“For everything there is a season.”
“And a time for every matter under heaven.”
“A time to be born, and a time to die.”
“A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted.”
A time to die? The congregation kept reading, but I couldn’t join in. Something followed about a time to heal and a time to weep and a time to speak and much more. But a time to die?
When there were no more bold lines about time, Dad continued alone.
“‘What gain has the worker from his toil? I have seen the business that God has given to the sons of men to be busy with. He has made everything beautiful in its time.’” Then Dad raised his head and continued, by memory, from his heart, looking at us. “‘Also he has put eternity into man’s mind, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I know that there is nothing better for them than to be happy and enjoy themselves as long as they live.’” Dad paused, as if waiting for the weight of the words to sink in, then closed the massive Bible and placed his sermon on top. Only one page.
“Someone once said that ‘time heals.’ I’ve discovered it doesn’t. There are wounds too deep to be erased by the passage of time.”
I shuddered. Dad was giving up. I looked quickly at Matt, who sucked in suddenly, as if preparing to hold his breath.
“But time measures seasons. And now it’s time,” Dad began slowly. “Time for a new season. It’s time to plant and build and dance and mend. And if you’ll have me, it’s time to embrace. I have had time to search and a time to give up, a time to keep and a time to throw away. I’ve had time to gather stones. I’ve had time to be silent, and now it’s time to speak. And so I tell you today, that when God is dead, it may be that He only seems dead.”
I exhaled slowly; maybe my dad still believed. But what did that mean? I had come to realize I believed whether he did or not. But what would his time to speak mean for our family? Did it mean a new cover for a new puzzle, and could we put us all together differently?
“I don’t have any answers today. I have understood the burden, but I cannot comprehend the beauty. I’d like to be able to tell you that I can fathom God because of what I’ve felt this past year, yet I cannot. I’m still searching. But I have eternity in my heart. I have time to grow.”
I looked over at Matt and shrugged my shoulders. This was not Dad’s usual sermon.
“The books and the counselors say you feel shock, sorrow, grief, and numbness. I think I experienced all of that. And it took a lot of time. I’m a little slow.” He looked up and laughed. That was not in his notes. We all laughed as if to say it was okay. “So I need to thank you for being patient with me. But even more so, I need to thank my family. For any of you who have been through a dark tunnel, you know what it means when someone takes you by the hand and leads you to the light.” Dad looked straight at Mom and she held his gaze. “That’s what Renee has done for me.” I squeezed Mom’s hand. I was so proud of her.
“My son, Matt, he’s all that I could ever ask for in a son. That’s all I’ll say.” Dad looked down and waited. For some reason those two short sentences took nearly everything out of him.
Then he popped back up with a smile. “And Abby?” he asked in a happier voice, finding my face in the crowd. “Abby was everything constant. Through a time of sorrow, she reminded me there could be joy.” Dad smiled up at me and I smiled back, and then I turned to smile at Matt and Mom. It didn’t really matter what Dad said now; we were going to make it.
“You knew Joel.” Dad cleared his throat and then his voice became congested. “I loved him and I still love him and I thank God that I had him for three years.” Dad nodded reassuringly toward Mom. Though we are four, we have always been five and he knew it.
“But this loss changed us. I’ve been asking lots of questions lately. I even asked, ‘What if there isn’t a God?’” Dad waited as if to let it sink in. “I asked, ‘What if there is no heaven?’”
My lip hurt from biting it so hard. I felt the eyes of Dad’s congregation searching the pews for our family. Matt questio
ned me with his elbow. Without even looking at him, I acknowledged Dad’s confession.
“Don’t act so shocked,” Dad continued. “I know each one of you has asked questions like these.” I turned to see the other members of the balcony. Some pursed their lips as if they were angered by his suggestion, but many were nodding their heads in reluctant agreement. I looked back at Dad, who was smiling up at me like he didn’t care what anybody thought.
“During this time of doubt, it occurred to me that because I wasn’t talking to God and He wasn’t talking to me, I assumed He was dead. But I found out that just when God seems dead—it might be when He’s coming back to life.”
It was summer, but it felt like spring, Easter Sunday. Resurrection. We had been about death, but now we were about life.
“Like the Israelites in today’s reading, I have been carried like a father carries his son, and yet I have not trusted Him. Still, I know He has gone before and He will show me the way, if I will follow. I have faith, just a little, but I still have it. I pray daily God will help make it grow. Now more than ever, when faith is the hardest and the least likely, it’s the most needed. And it’s the best way for me to say I love God. And I think I do.”
Dad pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his forehead. He never did that during a sermon.
“I’m back up in the pulpit. Be patient with me. I have more questions than answers. If you’ll work through them with me, I’ll do my best for you. I’ll try to be the minister you need.” Dad picked up his page and folded it in half. “I love you all and thank you for your prayers.”
And then Dad did something really shocking: he just sat down. I saw heads turn and women dab their eyes. What had happened? I turned to Matt, but he had no explanation.
“Three points?” he whispered, holding up three fingers. I shrugged, and my frown gave way to a silly smile. I tapped my watch and held up five fingers. Dad had only spoken for five minutes, and I had actually paid attention the whole time. Matt shook his head and exhaled.
I craned to see Mom’s reaction. What was she thinking? The organist made a hasty return to her bench, unprepared for the brevity of Dad’s message. Her first notes sounded dangerously like Mom at the keyboard, but nobody minded: Reverend McAndrews was back.
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