One Light Still Shines: My Life Beyond the Shadow of the Amish Schoolhouse Shooting

by Marie Monville

  “I ‘member,” Carson said. I’d known he would because this had been a favorite for Charlie and Carson.

  “Daddy tapped his fingers on the bottom of the closed door like this,” I said, tapping, “and you would sneak up on the other side of the door to find out what that sound was, and Daddy would suddenly stick his fingers out under the door. And then what did you do?” I said.

  “Grab Daddy’s fingers!” he said.

  “Let’s see if you can grab mine,” I said. With the door closed between us, we played the finger-grabbing game. Carson laughed on his side of the door. I was glad he couldn’t see my tears.

  I continued to have occasional sessions with the counselors.

  I didn’t want to carry unanswerable questions about Charlie with me for the rest of my life. I needed to address them as best I could, bury them as we had Charlie, and then move on.

  So what did I know?

  I knew that Charlie didn’t know how to communicate his deep feelings. I knew that he didn’t understand the necessity of releasing the pain he felt. He thought that he could keep it all bottled up inside and deal with it on his own.

  Even though our lives were beautiful and full with three children he deeply loved, there was a gaping wound in Charlie’s heart. He did his best to deal with it, but it was there even when we couldn’t see it. He wasn’t able to understand how a God of love had allowed us to walk through such heartbreaking circumstances. His note on the day of the shooting had said that he felt he was “getting back at God” for taking our daughter away. How could his reasoning have become so severely compromised? I needed to surrender that question to the God of mercy and leave it in his hands.

  For nine years Charlie had lived through the pain of loss. It was a cancer that ate away at everything inside of him. I was thankful that he wasn’t dealing with the pain anymore, but I was aghast at the pain he’d inflicted upon so many.

  Though I loved my husband, I hated what he had done to those children, their families and ours, and the community. And I hated the way he’d left me to deal with the aftermath. It was beyond my comprehension that he would choose to leave our kids like this and take the lives of other children, creating in their families the very pain that had plagued him for so long. I honestly wasn’t angry with him — his brokenness pierced me far too deeply to evoke my wrath — but I had no vocabulary sufficient for how grieved I was by his choices.

  What I knew about loss and difficulty so far was this: our circumstances do not prove or disprove God’s love for us. His love is not measured by our circumstances. It is meted out instead in terms of his sacrifice, his grace, and his redemption. We live in a fallen world. Everyone has the ability to make behavioral choices, and those choices ultimately have consequences, positive and negative, in our own lives and those around us.

  Charlie made a choice that ravaged the Amish community, our family, and many others. In ending his own suffering, he had inflicted far greater suffering on the people he left behind. I would never understand all the reasons why — as if there could be rational reasons for a decision like that — but I did recall signs of his struggle. For instance, as I’d told the detectives, from time to time over the years, I’d been able to see that Charlie continued to struggle with the loss of our daughters. He wanted concrete answers but there were none.

  For my part, the joy I found through Abigail, Bryce, and Carson diminished my ache for those joys we’d lost. Once when Abigail was in first grade, Charlie and I had spent an hour or two at school during parent visitation week. Afterward I had said to Charlie, “You saw the way Abigail loves jumping rope on the playground with the other girls at recess.” I smiled. “Singing their rope-skipping songs, trying to work their way up to double Dutch … I was thinking today that Elise would have been two years older than she is. I wonder how they would have gotten along.”

  Charlie thought for a minute, then said, “Abigail seems to get along with everybody, like her mama.” He threw me a sly smile. “I think they would have loved being together. I wish Elise were here.”

  “I do too, Charlie. As much as I don’t understand losing her, I cling to Romans 8:28, that all things work together for good for those who love God. Somehow God still brings good out of loss,” I said, hoping to start a discussion.

  But he remained silent.

  It’s odd, the things that can trigger sadness. Often in a moment you never expected, your breath is completely taken away. Words, a smell, a picture — seemingly insignificant — bring back profound memories and thoughts. What would it be like if she were here now? How would her laugh sound? Would her hair be curly like mine? Charlie wasn’t the only one who missed our little girl. But for some reason, while I healed over time, his pain must have become silently toxic.

  Charlie’s “bouts of depression” rarely lasted more than a few days and never interfered with his ability to keep in step with daily tasks and work. During those times, which seemed to happen a few times each year, Charlie would withdraw — so I countered by trying to do everything within my ability to keep life enjoyable and moving forward, hoping that I could encourage his healing. I knew that he would feel better if he would just talk about his pain, but he wouldn’t. The more I pushed him to talk to someone, the more he withdrew. I wanted our marriage to include a sharing of burdens with a transparency that left us mutually vulnerable as well as mutually loved. Instead, Charlie slowly built a wall of silence I was not welcome to cross.

  I was disappointed; this was not what we had promised each other — to love and to cherish, to go through life together. His silences weakened the vibrancy of our marriage, and over time, I mourned the loss of what we’d once shared.

  In turn, I stopped sharing with him much that I was going through.

  Looking back, I could see that I began to keep my problems of everyday life between myself and God. I lost the habit of including Charlie in my spiritual journey.

  Of course, Charlie’s periods of apparent depression were only occasional. And though our deepest thoughts were not often shared with one another, our family time was still filled with joy. My husband loved his family, and he was a tender father who enjoyed each moment with his children. He took our daughter shopping, taught our son to build things, and changed the diapers of our youngest without hesitation. I have many happy memories of the years we spent together and the variety of ways he gave his love and provided for our family.

  Charlie and I, like most young couples, were simply living life as it came.

  Yes, my husband was a quiet man, especially when it came to his feelings. Many men are. True, Charlie had bouts of lingering sadness, but they always passed.

  And although my husband seemed to lack deep, meaningful relationships with other men that went beyond work, weather, and sports, how many wives would say the same of their husbands?

  I, like many wives, had my prayer list for Charlie. My heart had cried out for what I knew God wanted for him. My desire was to see a close relationship with God rise up within my husband. How many hundreds of thousands of Christian wives would say the same? In the weeks before his death, I had cried out to the Lord, “Do something powerful with his life.”

  Regardless of what we were missing, I loved what we had. After all, we were young. We would have other seasons of life to reignite the emotional closeness. We had a lifetime ahead of us.

  Only we didn’t.

  “Marie, you’re so strong.” I heard those words, and words like them, at church, at the grocery store, even in the lobby while I waited for Abigail at dance class. It wasn’t true. It wasn’t my strength they were seeing, but God’s.

  I marveled at it myself. This woman so infused with strength was not the girl I had known myself to be. I had always been the one who ran from the spotlight, avoided confrontation, the middle-child-peacemaker-problem-solver, always self-conscious about others’ perceptions of me, trying to tweak my every thought or action to total perfection before taking a step or uttering a word. Anticipating
, planning, organizing the next action or need, always attempting to stay one step ahead, never asking for help lest I burden others. All those traits had been to compensate for and cover my weaknesses.

  I was strong now not because of some innate characteristic, but because I was acutely aware of how, in all aspects, I fell so far short of the mark, and therefore I was crying out to God for help in a multitude of ways. And he was answering! I had leaned into his whispers, longing for peace, and he’d replied with a shout that redefined me.

  Jesus was removing my old worn garments of self-perception and showing me instead who he says I am — his daughter, recipient of grace sufficient for every moment, focus of his eyes ablaze with love unconditional and truth unavoidable.

  The result was not at all what I expected. Never in a million years would I have expected this breaking of myself to result in a fresh outpouring of self-confidence! In the midst of suffering, loss, and questions, I was finding episodes of irrepressible joy and unstoppable hope. I became fully convinced that not only could God do anything — but he would do everything needed.

  By November our new family routines had been established. Daily I worked to treasure normal moments, trying to enjoy each single day without regard to what lay ahead. The calendar, however, showed a heartbreaking concentration of milestones over the next few weeks. November 9 marked what would have been my tenth wedding anniversary. November 14 was Elise’s ninth birthday, then Thanksgiving. December held my birthday and Charlie’s, then Christmas. I didn’t want to think about even one of these dates without Charlie; the accumulation of them was overwhelming. To top it off, everyone around me was also suffering, dealing in his or her own way with loss and inner turmoil from Charlie’s actions and his death. As those dates came nearer, I felt myself slipping into gray, a deepening sadness coming over me, in spite of the newfound strength God had been giving me.

  The life of a single mom isn’t glamorous. My days were long and intense. I rose early, feeling like the sole player in a symphony, racing from one instrument to another, trying to play each one perfectly according to the score set before me.

  Wake up, get ready, feed the dog, wake the children. Invest myself in meaningful conversations on an elementary-school level before it was time to jump into the car and drive to school. Come home and breathe for five minutes before laundry, house cleaning, and phone calls. (Message deletions might be more accurate, thanks to the still-relentless producers.) Play with my baby and connect with his heart, inspire curiosity and creativity. Run out the door and back to school by the end of morning kindergarten. Then back home to feed my hungry little bears, read stories, play together, and put the baby to bed for a nap. Deposit coins of love into my son’s account, sweet moments carved out and shared between mother and son. Wake the baby, drive back to school, wait in the lobby until my eldest was dismissed. Then back home, my three treasures playing together while I made dinner, then homework, baths, and bed.

  In my solitary, dusk-kissed moments after their bedtime, I spent the last of my energy for physical exercise on my elliptical trainer to strengthen my body. While I did, I meditated on Scripture. I knew God loved to exchange my stale air for the very breath of heaven, and I was desperate for it.

  One day would bring the confidence necessary to propel my little family through the next twenty-four hours. The following day would suck the air right out of me, and I would find myself weeping repeatedly. On top of all that, continued assaults from the media wanting interviews exhausted and annoyed me. When would they give up? But even on the airless days, I set aside my doubts and searched for God’s wisdom and truth, inviting it to penetrate deep, to the very center of my being.

  My newfound peace answered many of my questions about the process of grief. With the quieting of those questions, however, an ever-so-gentle whisper made itself heard. From the time I was a little girl, I’d known that as God knit me together in my mother’s womb, he meticulously sewed into my heart the desire to be a wife and a mother. Yet as an adult, these most prominent desires of my heart had been defined by loss and devastation — the deaths of Elise, Isabella, and now Charlie.

  Why did you make me this way? I asked the Lord. Why must I seek to satisfy my longing for a family only to see it consumed by the fire of loss?

  I thought of all the prayers I’d prayed for my marriage. I’d desired greater growth for Charlie, enabling us to walk our road together, arms linked, conversations about the Lord easy, giving and receiving who we were, empowering each other to new heights along the way. Had those prayers been in vain?

  As I searched for God’s good things in the midst of that question, I found myself praying surprising words: I’ve always wanted to be a wife — but, Jesus, if it’s just you and me, forever, I’m okay with that. You are my husband. You will protect, provide, refresh, encourage — you embody all a man should be. If there isn’t a man on the face of the earth capable of sharing my life as it is now, I am disappointed — but I understand.

  I sensed the Lord replying that no prayers were in vain, and he encouraged my heart to believe that there still might be a future husband for me and that I should continue praying those same things I’d prayed for Charlie for the new husband he would bring.

  But I had no desire to meet a man anytime soon. With my first dream freshly broken, still cleaning up shards left along Charlie’s path of destruction, I wasn’t ready to contemplate a new relationship.

  And I had one request: If there is a husband in my distant future, please — just bring me one guy, Lord. I’m not going to date.

  I closed the subject. God had shown that he knew my heart, and that was enough for me.

  One day I received a call that encouraged me to keep my heart focused and my priorities in all the right places. An Amish neighbor called me. He was very close friends with the King family, whose six-year-old daughter, Rosanna, had sustained a severe brain injury in the shooting and had been in Hershey Medical Center ever since. The Amish gentleman wondered if I could drive his family the thirty miles to Hershey to visit with the King family at Rosanna’s bedside. He told me that he sensed that the visit would offer an opportunity for connection, given their grief and my own.

  I was in awe of his invitation. I saw God at work, agreed without hesitation, and arranged for my kids to stay with my parents.

  I was nervous as I drove to the Amish farm a few days later, up hills and down, across bumpy roads. The jolting ride seemed to match my emotions. Fog clung heavily to the earth that morning, and I could see only what was immediately before me. Surprisingly, that brought my heart and mind into clearer focus. I didn’t have to figure everything out in advance, I realized. It was okay to simply take the day as it came, embracing the moment but not necessarily preparing for it. I found that outlook of simplicity freeing — especially given the too-demanding expectations I was constantly placing on myself.

  Once I’d picked up my guests, I chatted easily with the Amish family — husband, wife, and three children — during the forty-minute drive. When my Amish friend and I entered the elevator at Hershey Medical Center, another couple stepped in as well. The man clutched People magazine, details from the shooting blazed across the cover.

  “Tragic, isn’t it?” he said, holding up the magazine cover for all to see. “Too awful for words.”

  He clearly had no idea we were directly involved.

  “Yes,” I said, keeping my anonymity. “No one can fathom the toll of such a loss.” The door opened, we stepped out, and when the door closed behind us we all looked at each other. In one glance, our eyes conveyed a heartrending exchange at a depth our mouths could not utter. My spirit felt dark and frozen. But I called on the Lord to bring my eyes back to the good he was doing in the midst of the tragedy.

  Love the moment. Love my life. Expect to see God at work. I practiced as best I could, and God enabled me to put one foot in front of the other toward Rosanna’s hospital room.

  As I stepped into the room, Rosanna’s parent
s rose to greet me. I exchanged embraces with Mr. and Mrs. King and was moved to tears as the two Amish dads, clearly dear friends, embraced, joy mingled with sorrow.

  Then an awkward silence settled over us for a moment, and I wrestled back the anxiety rising inside me. I focused on a thermos full of coffee, books on the window ledge, food brought to share between friends. These typical comforts of home settled the quaking inside me, reminding me that love and gentleness could exist in a place otherwise scarred by violence and cruelty.

  Rosanna’s mother accompanied me to her daughter’s bedside. I wasn’t sure whether she was unconscious or sleeping. Monitors were beeping quietly and a bag of medication was dripping silently in an IV.

  We shared life in the face of death. They spoke of Rosanna’s injuries. Injuries sustained at the hand of my husband, I thought. Wounds on her body, wounds in our hearts. Raw trauma in their lives and mine as well.

  “Tell us, how are your children?” Rosanna’s father asked me, turning the conversation.

  “They’re sleeping well and are glad to be back in school. They both rejoined their soccer teams.” I paused.

  “That’s good to hear,” Rosanna’s mother said. “We’ve been praying for them.” I was struck by the relief on their faces.

  “Tell us how you are,” Rosanna’s father said, while her mother looked into my eyes with such tenderness. It was clear that they wanted the sincere truth.

  In this room I needed no pretext of strength. None of us did.

  “It’s hard to know how to be a mom right now,” I said. With the words came tears. “I want to be everything they need, but I know I can’t be. I’m reaching for God’s strength, but I’m so aware of my limits.”

  They nodded and we all looked at Rosanna. It was clear I had just spoken their hearts as well, and their tears joined mine. I felt accepted in grace and tenderness, not in judgment.