by Kerri Rawson
Back inside my dorm, I felt like I’d aged a decade over the past four days. I set my alarm, wondering whose bright idea it was to schedule a class at seven a.m. (or to sign up for it).
The next morning my alarm blared from the edge of my dresser. I sat up, turned in bed, and swatted at the big gray button on top.
I’ll just hit the snooze once.
Eight minutes later, blurry-headed, I reset the alarm for a few hours later.
Forget it. I will skip, just this once.
Right now, you’re making the choice to not get up. To screw up.
I was able to quiet the small, persistent voice by rolling over to face the wall, pulling my comforter up to my chin, and squeezing my eyes shut. Sleep alleviated all worry, all pain, all suffering—it wiped out everything.
Instead of beginning to deal with the gaping hole that’d been knocked into me, I threw myself into college life. Weekdays were busy with attending classes, having meals at the dining center with a growing group of friends, and attempting to study in the evenings. On home game Saturdays, I stood for hours with Rita in the student section clad in purple, cheering for our Wildcats. Sundays meant sleeping in, playing Frisbee golf, and eventually getting around to my textbooks.
In early fall, I went with a group of friends to the student union to watch Phenomenon, the last movie I’d seen with Michelle. I’d gone to a theater with my family on the Fourth of July and by some quirky chance ended up at the same show as Michelle and her parents. Afterward, our families visited together, standing outside on concrete that sparkled silver under a glowing pink-and-green neon marquee.
A few weeks later I was with Michelle on our long weekend, and she bought the soundtrack to the movie, which led with Eric Clapton’s “Change the World.” On that shopping trip, we talked about the main character, a brilliant man who leaves a legacy of love before dying way too young.
I cried during the movie in July, and now sitting in the student union, I could barely contain my sorrow. Sobbing, wiping my nose and face on my sleeve, I couldn’t understand what was wrong. I felt like the walls of the auditorium were closing in as I tried to tuck up my uncooperative body as small as I could, hoping no one would notice me.
After the show was over, we began walking back to our dorms, but I couldn’t stop my tears or the seizing in my chest. Not explaining myself, I took off, leaving the group, trying to flee the sharp, black pain searing my heart. Why doesn’t anyone understand how much this hurts?
Over the previous weeks while walking on campus, I would find something familiar in a walk, a ponytail of light-brown hair, or a laugh, and my heart would lift. There’s Michelle! She’s right here!
Then—Oh, that can’t be her. She’s gone.
I kept running the day we lost Michelle through my head, picturing jeeps rolling down the sides of mountains, picturing the details of the crash and the terrible hours afterward. I could see it, even though I hadn’t been there. It was stuck, replaying over and over. How could I tell anyone? They would think I was going crazy.
After I got back to my room, Rita sat up with me till late, listening and offering her calm presence. She told me she’d been praying for me. As I crawled into bed, my face red and tearstained, I thought more about praying. It sounded comforting, but I was too angry with God.
Where was he that afternoon? Why didn’t he save her?
Michelle believed in him. If anyone were in heaven, she would be. She had to be. I couldn’t face it at all if she wasn’t somewhere. If she was in heaven, then there had to be a heaven. If there was a heaven—then there had to be a God. But I didn’t believe God existed anymore. But Michelle . . .
Around and around, the wrestling in me circled till I drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER 9
. . . Makes You Stronger
NOVEMBER 1996
MANHATTAN, KANSAS
I was fighting off homesickness by Thanksgiving and was glad to see my dad, who’d driven up to take me home for break. He would make the four-hour round-trip again in five days. This became a ritual of ours, going back and forth on Route 77, picking up fresh popcorn at a corner gas station along the way.
As we passed through the changing colors of the fields and prairies, we’d spot deer, wild turkeys, and red-tailed hawks. Dad would point out silos and barns and made retirement plans; he wanted to buy an old homestead tucked near the Cottonwood River. I reminded him he’d be alone because Mom wasn’t going to be having any of that.
Dad often showed Mom and me an old barn near Florence. We had a running joke, calling it “Dad’s retirement home.” Dad knew Mom wouldn’t ever live in a run-down place out in the boonies, and Mom believed he was kidding around.
Except, after he was arrested, Dad shared extensively about nefarious plans involving barns and silos, this one in particular. So Dad had more than one joke running all the times we passed it. Now he’s spending his retirement in a maximum-security prison—he’s still out in the country, though.
Over the fall, Grandpa Bill and Grandma Dorothea rode up one Saturday with my parents to visit the campus and have lunch at the downtown Applebee’s. Grandpa was continuing to wear down but was in good spirits that day.
When they were preparing to leave, Grandpa hugged me tight and stepped back, putting his hands on my shoulders and looking into my eyes, making sure I was paying attention to what he wanted to say: “I’m proud of you, kid.”
In November, Grandpa was well enough to escape the cancer wing. Frail and thin, he still greeted all of us on Thanksgiving Day with a smile, leaning on the black cast-iron railing on his porch. Grandma insisted on hosting dinner for a crowd and we cousins piled our plates high. We followed dinner with a game of Wahoo, yelling loudly, “Come on, sixes!”
We took the last pictures we would ever have with Grandpa that day, standing in front of his and Grandma’s white-manteled fireplace. My grandparents sat in front of us, Grandma’s hands clasped around Grandpa’s. He’d been too weak to come downstairs to join us in Wahoo that day; I should have realized then how short our time with him would be.
Four weeks later, “Silent Night” was the last song we sang on Christmas Eve by candlelight in a darkened sanctuary, a sacred tradition in our old wooden church. Dad was an usher, wearing a gray suit and red tie, and he walked up the aisle, lighting the first person’s candle in each wooden pew. That person turned to the next person, who then tilted their candle to the flame—one flame leading to a hundred as the sanctuary warmed with dancing light.
Standing between Grandma Eileen and Mom, sharing a green hymnal between us, I blended my voice with theirs, as I’d done for years. The light from the candles flickered off the stained-glass windows; my stomach was in knots from trying to hold back my sorrow, and my voice quavered as I sang. Sleep in heavenly peace.
I took a big gulp of air and gave myself over to the tears. At the end of the song, we blew on our lights to extinguish them, and the church sat in dark stillness.
As the lights came back on, a burned, acrid smell hung in the air. I nudged my grandma for some tissues, wiping hastily at my face. Mom and Grandma were dabbing at their eyes too. Folks were passing by us in the aisle, wishing us merry Christmas with looks of uncertain solemnity. Our congregation knew we had lost Michelle four months ago and were facing losing Grandpa soon.
This was the first year Grandpa Bill and Grandma Dorothea had not sat with us during the Christmas Eve service and the first year we would not be heading to their house afterward. On this night their home sat in darkness, while Grandma sat next to Grandpa in the ICU as he was succumbing to his battle, a Do Not Resuscitate bracelet looped on his arm.
Grandpa had been in and out of consciousness over the past week, trying to fight off an infection that was defeating his body.
The doctors had told us, “Days left, at best.”
While standing in the emptying sanctuary I hugged Grandma Eileen and Granddad Palmer tight. They told me they would see me tomorrow for Christmas. G
randdad, trying to get me to smile, joked, “You better get to bed early so Santa can come.”
Out in the fellowship hall, I followed my mom as she visited with folks, some of whom asked me about college. Although I skipped some classes over the fall and hadn’t studied as hard as I could have, I finished the semester with a solid 3.33. By most standards, I’d done well, but my GPA wasn’t high enough to stay in the honors program. The Cs I received in two prerequisites for vet school didn’t bode well either. Every time I thought about my grades, my guts twisted. I could have tried harder—I’d made the choice not to do my best.
Two days after Christmas, Mom and Dad thought it was best for Brian and me to stay home while they went to sit with Grandma next to Grandpa. His heart was still in the fight, but his body was giving up; he wasn’t expected to make it through the day.
Sitting next to our Christmas tree, I spent the afternoon with the sniffles, curled up in our recliner, under our brown-and-white blanket Grandma Dorothea had crocheted. When the phone rang, I knew the news before I picked it up. Mom’s voice broke as she said, “Grandpa has gone on home now.”
Mom found comfort in the chime that went off in the hospital right after Grandpa died. It meant a baby had been born at almost the exact moment my grandpa passed.
Mom told me later that Dad had wept over his father’s body. Wrecked with grief, he had walked hunched over down the hospital hallway. She said, “I don’t think your dad had ever sat beside someone who died before.”
When I heard these words, I was filled with sorrow, picturing Dad next to Grandpa’s frail body. Dad was grieved over the loss of his father—he had loved him, very much. It’s impossible for me to reckon that with Dad taking the lives of ten innocent people.
Our family gathered together a few days later at the cemetery. Huddling under umbrellas, we buried Grandpa, age seventy-four, on a rainy, wintry day.
Sitting around Grandma Dorothea’s house that afternoon, I cheered up as stories filled the living room. Grandpa’s three younger brothers spun tale after tale, much to the delight of the rest of us.
JANUARY 1997
MANHATTAN, KANSAS
I returned to college mid-January—the campus locked into frigid temperatures, the trees bare, the grass lying brown and dormant. I loathed winter, but I was relieved to be back in Manhattan because it was not Wichita, where we had to keep having funerals for people I loved.
It’d been gut wrenching to watch my grandpa waste away over the past two years; I knew he was at peace now, but I couldn’t understand why he had to suffer. Why didn’t God help him?
I was hurting, lashing out at God, then feeling guilty for my anger.
God was holy, and I was supposed to be penitent.
But I wasn’t feeling remorseful for my anger. I was peeved.
I’d been trying to walk away from God and I thought I’d done it, but now he kept wrestling with me.
Grandpa believed in him.
If anyone was in heaven, Grandpa would be—right there with Michelle.
Around and around, losing Grandpa on top of Michelle was compounding my grief.
I figured being back with my friends and having new classes would pull me out of the gray bleakness continuing to overtake me. But a shift began in my friendships and small rifts began to form. On top of everything, I had the lousy idea to take on an unforgiving, self-induced eighteen-hour course load with three weekly science labs.
What I didn’t realize at the time was that I was going through my first bout of depression, and its sometimes companion, anxiety, was following right along, ganging up like a couple of mismatched brutes. It would be another ten years before I heard someone say the words “You have anxiety and depression” in regard to myself.
By the end of February, alternating between turning inward on myself, wanting to be alone, and lashing outward for feeling left out of our larger group of changing friends, I pushed Rita away. Deciding it was best to tiptoe around me, she would get ready in the early morning, gather her books and backpack, and quietly slip out the door. She wouldn’t return till late at night, taking off her shoes before walking on our tile, afraid she would wake me up—trying to find peace for both of us.
I’d been a good student in high school, excelling even in the hardest classes offered. Now, midsemester, I floundered. I skipped classes, slept in till noon, crammed late into the night before tests, and frantically printed off term papers minutes before they were due.
I was killing my GPA—ruining my shot at veterinary school. I was even likely going to lose my scholarship that covered the cost of books and supplies each semester.
I was disappointed in myself but didn’t know how to get out of the vicious cycle.
The smiling college students who’d visited our senior class the year before with brightly colored brochures neglected to mention losing your mind as an elective course curriculum.
This wasn’t what college was supposed to be like. It wasn’t what life was supposed to be like either. Days ended in tears, tossing and turning in my bed, silently screaming, raging inside at myself, at the ceiling, at a God who surely didn’t exist.
One March evening, while standing in the middle of my dorm room, I reached an empty, gray nothing within myself.
Maybe I could end it. I could jump.
Walking with my shoulders hunched over, I reached my fourth-floor window in a few steps. I pressed my head against the cool glass pane fastened firmly in place.
I wasn’t high enough. I’d likely just break my leg or somehow land in the nearby pine tree. I turned away from the window and walked slowly over to my hard desk chair, sadness descending throughout my body as I sat down, lowering my head.
I was in trouble.
I reached out to a long-distance friend whom I’d been emailing back and forth with since January. Although I didn’t tell him I’d thought about jumping, he knew I was struggling and suggested I visit the mental health center on campus.
Me? See a shrink? I’m not in that bad a shape.
I hated the thought of having to tell a stranger I was hurting, that I couldn’t handle things on my own. Raders dealt with their own crud in Kansas countryside tradition: head down, dug in, doing whatever life called for next. Dealing with it in your own way and time, you’d eventually get over it.
Or you wouldn’t, but other folks wouldn’t know you hadn’t.
But I wasn’t getting over it.
Resigned, I mustered enough courage to walk across campus to ask for help.
While sitting in the waiting room holding a clipboard, I hesitated before marking the little box next to “thoughts of suicide.” My rear end landed on a couch in a little room, where I threw soggy, falling-apart tissues by the handful into my therapist’s trash can over several weekly sessions.
The therapist had me recall the day of Michelle’s death in detail, desensitizing myself to it. My therapist said replaying an accident was a common reaction to trauma. It was also common to think you’re seeing your lost loved ones among the living.
Eight months after Michelle’s funeral, I was finally beginning to face the loss. The therapist had me look at the hole I’d dug for myself, the one I wanted to crawl into and die—to honestly admit I was hurting. She didn’t flinch when I told her I was angry with God.
There was no shame in the little room with the warm listener and helper.
In therapy, we worked on strategies to get through the remaining weeks of school and talked about what I was looking forward to—my upcoming Grand Canyon hiking trip.
PART II
Make Your Way Through the Wilderness
See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.
—ISAIAH 43:19
CHAPTER 10
Know and Respect Your Limitations . . . Yeah, Right
MAY 1997
GRAND CANYON, ARIZONA
Dad thought this hiking trip was “goin
g to be great” and his daughter was doing “great!”
He didn’t know his girl had splintered inside over the past months and was still fighting at times to hold herself together. Tucked behind a tough facade, flippantly trying to look and act as expected, I felt like I’d miserably failed everyone around me instead. Failed myself.
I’d scraped by with a bunch of Cs my second semester, dodging questions about my classes on our drive over Memorial Day weekend to the Grand Canyon, my face flaming red. I was relieved school was out—glad to be free for three months, glad to be back with my family, and glad to be back at this magnificent park.
Standing on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon was breathing life back into me. The canyon dazzled with color, setting the world ablaze in flaming reds, burnt oranges, and rusty browns. It mesmerized with sweeping vistas, towering buttes, narrow gorges, and sheer cliff faces. I loved it here, even if I questioned our sanity in backpacking below the rim.
“Are we really headed down there?” I said as I elbowed my cousin A. D. “Whose idea was this again?” At five feet nine, I was usually one of the taller ones in a group, but the guys all had at least a few inches on me.
A. D. grinned. “It’s his idea,” he said, pointing to my dad, whose dark hair, cut military short, was beginning to salt and pepper. So was his mustache.
We were there “to have an experience,” as Dad put it. I knew behind his dark lenses Dad’s eyes were shining today; he was full of excitement that we had made it back here.
“It’s going to be an adventure of a lifetime, guys,” Dad said, spreading his arms wide over the view in front of us. “See that thin, brown line—way down below? That’s Tonto Trail. We will be coming across it, around Battleship, and up Bright Angel a week from now.” Dad pointed to a massive red-and-orange rock formation rising high from the plateau below.