Twist of Faith Read online

  The words of the song grew louder, and that small group of friends sang along with the music: Take your candle, and go light your world. I could hear Fi’s clear voice ring out above all the rest. If Angie was here, I thought to myself, she would be right there walking beside Fi.

  Even back then Fi loved to sing—we’d often hear her beautiful voice ringing clear and loud from wherever she worked. I think singing came naturally to her, but she also got a lot of practice as a little girl singing with me and my older sister, Becky, in bed, the lights off, everyone else quiet in the house. During the fall of 1975, Fi announced her engagement, the last of us three sisters to marry, and she wanted Angie to be her flower girl.

  Only twenty-two years old on that day of Angie’s accident, Fi worked hard for my Daddy’s masonry business, scooping sand into the mixer with a shovel. Soon Fi and Ruth, my sister-in-law, worked through half of the pile of sand, so Fi ran into the neighboring barn for the Bobcat tractor.

  Fi knew the grandchildren could be anywhere, so she always took her time backing out. Glancing over her shoulder, she checked to make sure the driveway was clear. Then she backed out and pulled into the barn, ramming the sand forward. She backed again, always checking, always looking.

  The next time she looked over her shoulder, she saw Daddy waving his hands frantically and running toward the back of the Bobcat. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a tiny body lying limp where the Bobcat’s wheels rolled just moments before.

  My Angie.

  Daddy arrived at the back of the Bobcat, still waving his arms, still yelling, “Stop! Stop!” as he bent over to scoop up her body dressed in pajamas. For years Fi and I spoke of this moment in hushed whispers, just the two of us. I remember more than once Daddy happened to interrupt us discussing the accident. He wanted to talk about it, to tell us what he saw and experienced, but we never let him do it. “No, no,” we’d say, “don’t talk like that, Daddy,” and we’d change the subject. Ours was a private grief, and neither one of us could bear the thought of hearing the details of those last moments. Now his body sleeps in the ground beside Angie’s, and I feel horrible for never listening to him, never letting him purge himself of the horrible scene he must have witnessed.

  Fi accidentally backed over Angie, nineteen-month-old Angie with the sweet smile and golden curls, and she watched Daddy run off toward my house, carrying the small bundle. Fi knew she was dead.

  “I believe she’s dead,” Daddy choked out in a hoarse voice again and again as he came around the corner of the barn toward where I stood frozen in the frame of our front door. His mouth trembled with emotion. “I believe she’s dead. I believe she’s dead.” I wouldn’t take her, so he laid her down on the grass at my feet. She lay motionless and limp, but perfect. Not a drop of blood. Somehow I knew she didn’t have a chance.

  So I ran.

  Up and down the sidewalk, in circles, then back and forth again, screaming and pulling my hair. I circled around again and stopped in front of Daddy. I wanted to run away. Just run down the road and through the fields and up into the hills, but I couldn’t leave without Angie.

  I picked her up. Children grow, and we tend to emphasize how big they’re getting, but when I picked Angie up, I realized just how light she felt, how little her frame, how fragile her bones. The way she lay in my arms felt so natural, so normal: how could she be dead?

  “Oh, Angie, no, Angie, oh no, God.” A stream of words, and soon I ran again, this time with her. In the midst of the chaos one thought began growing in my mind: I must get her to the clinic; they can help her at the clinic. I sprinted down the lane toward Daddy’s car, still carrying Angie, the stones cutting into my bare feet. I didn’t even feel them.

  It took a long time for Jonas and I to make our way from the auditorium: days, centuries even. So many congratulations, so many farewells, so many tears and laughs and promises to stay in touch. It felt as though the end had arrived. I grieved the loss of the company with many of the same emotions with which I grieved the loss of Angie. And in many ways that last day of the convention served as the funeral: the tears, the farewells, the support from family and friends. But as I walked through the long halls, stopped again and again by another friend, another story, the smallest margin of doubt crept into my mind: Did I make the right decision? Did I make a mistake in selling this company?

  Seemingly out of nowhere, one of our franchisees from California crossed the room and gave me a hug. Small talk. Smiles. Then he looked into my eyes and said something that comforted me:

  “Anne, I have three words for you: it’s all right.”

  Thirty seconds later, a minute, two minutes, who knows how long, but eventually Fi found herself sitting all alone in an area of chest-high weeds alongside the barn while everyone else raced around in the chaos and tried to herd all the other children together. Her mind closed down as complete shock set in. She sat there, weeping, staring blindly at the back of Daddy’s car as it tore out of the lane, sending stones and dust high in the air, carrying me and Daddy and Angie away. Fi remembers the moment the car turned out of the drive, the eerie silence left behind, and the way she put her feelings into a mason jar, screwed the lid on tight, and never opened it again.

  Meanwhile, racing away in Daddy’s car, I held Angie like a baby, glancing down at her small white face turning the lightest shade of blue. Besides that, she looked perfect, felt perfect. I held her close to help her fight the growing coldness spreading from the tips of her fingers and up her arms. Then I noticed a ruby red bead of blood coming from first one ear, then the other. Angie’s nose began to bleed, just the slightest red sliver. I jerked my head up, stared through the front windshield, as if by not seeing Angie bleeding I could somehow make it not so.

  Now, even thirty years later, I ask myself, Why didn’t I look at her in those last moments? Why did I look away from her precious face?

  Daddy drove quickly. Within five minutes we arrived at the clinic. I ran inside, once again paying no mind to the stones on my bare feet or the way I looked, disheveled and still in my housecoat, stained by Angie’s bloody nose and ears. I walked straight up to the counter and gently laid Angie upon it as if she were only sleeping.

  “I think she’s gone,” I whispered without a tear, my voice cracking only slightly.

  The receptionist looked taken aback, then dashed around the counter and took Angie. I followed her as she walked quickly back to one of the examination rooms.

  My eyes struggled to adjust to the room’s dim light. The shadows pressed in. The doctor came and began examining my little girl, holding a stethoscope to her chest, looking in her ears and mouth. I wanted to tell him to be gentle—that she was just a little girl. Such a little girl, so small on that big table. Silence existed, nothing else. Once again I turned away, couldn’t watch, only stared at the blinds on the window. The silence became unbearable. Finally I spun around, somehow still held back the emotion, and asked, “Is she gone?” willing him with all my might to say “No, she’s almost gone, but we’ll fight hard and save her. We can save her.” Please say that, I thought, please say you can save her.

  The doctor looked up at me with sad eyes, still leaning over Angie, his stethoscope dangling helplessly from his neck.

  “There is nothing we can do.”

  He pulled the white sheet up over her face.

  Arriving in my hotel room at the convention that night, the sadness I felt about selling the company faded a bit. The positive aspects of the sale began sinking in: I would now have much more time to spend with my girls, my grandchildren, and Jonas; the challenges that came with running a family business were behind me; I would no longer have to worry about managing the expectations of 250 franchisees; and of course the most obvious outward plus: a bank account with more money than I had ever imagined.

  I remembered being a little Amish-Mennonite girl, listening by my bedroom window one evening, eavesdropping. My aunts and uncles had come to the house because my parents weren’t able to ma
ke ends meet. There were tears and voices talking in hushed tones. I don’t know the details of the arrangements, but in the coming weeks relatives occasionally arrived bringing “extra” preserves, clothing their children had grown out of, and sometimes envelopes with money addressed to Mother or Daddy. During those times I realized we were poor. I began, even at that young age, to feel responsible, and I wanted to help my parents any way I could.

  Now there we were, a million financial miles from that situation. Would all of this have happened if I would have called Angie back that day, if Daddy succeeded in getting Fi’s attention, if Angie would have walked a different way, or if those men left our house ten seconds later? What a confusing feeling that can be sometimes, when I think about how I wouldn’t be where I am today if Angie would have lived. What a difficult success, when so much of it seems hinged on the path my life took after that terrible day in 1975.

  Seconds, minutes, hours later: I can’t remember much about the passage of time in the dim room where the doctor declared Angie dead, but at some point Jonas came into the room where Angie lay, still covered. I didn’t dare pull the white sheet back. For a thousand years we stood there, Jonas holding me.

  “We could pray for her, hon,” I sobbed into his neck. “I think if we prayed hard enough, we could bring her back.”

  I believed it then, perhaps still do. I thought the strength of my emotion surely could have convinced God to bring my Angie back to me. Jonas’s perfect response settled the matter. He didn’t argue with me about the merits of prayer or the likelihood of bringing someone back from the dead. He didn’t philosophize about the sheer number of people each day who lost someone and felt exactly like I did. He simply asked me a question.

  “Anne,” Jonas whispered into my hair, “do you really want to bring her back to this? This pain, this hurt?”

  Looking down at the sheet that covered her broken and bleeding body, I knew the answer. We walked out the door, leaving her there under the white sheet, my little angel.

  Jonas and I drove slowly back to the house. Nearly everyone we knew arrived before we did, our friends and family providing a much-needed refuge. When I walked into the house, my mother hugged me, crying.

  She whispered into my ear, “Anne, Fi’s not very good; she thinks you’re mad at her.” And I remember the guilt when I realized I never thought about Fi or how she felt. Never once during the whole ordeal did I take care of Fi—how awful she must have felt for driving over Angie! At that moment I decided, Okay, I have to be strong for Fi. I braced myself, walked slowly across the room through the crowd. Fi lay on the sofa, fetal position, clutching a pillow to her face. I could barely see her eyes peeking out from under the pillow—they looked wild and scared.

  “Do you hate me?” Fi asked.

  “Of course not.”

  “Can you ever forgive me?” Fi asked.

  “It was an accident. Of course I forgive you.”

  Some may find it hard to believe, but forgiveness for Fi entered my heart immediately. I never felt angry or upset with Fi on the day Angie died, never since then. In fact, I think the fateful bond that joined Fi with Angie on September 8, 1975, somehow transferred to a bond between Fi and me.

  The irony of the situation began sinking in over the coming days. I reflected in my journal:

  Strange as it may seem, when we wrote our will, we had requested for Aunt Fi to take care of Angela, should anything happen to us . . . and the same day Angela’s death was in the paper, Aunt Fi’s engagement was in the paper. For some reason God had these two bound together . . .

  The viewing came on Wednesday night, September 10, at 7:00. Jonas, LaWonna, and I went in before anyone else to see Angie for the first time in over two days. I already missed her terribly, and after entering Furman’s Home for Funerals, I found myself pulling ahead, starting to run, but Jonas gently held my hand.

  “Walk, Anne; walk to her.”

  The coffin seemed so small. Angie lay all in yellow, a rose freshly picked, the tiny body of an angel, completely at peace. But when I reached in to touch her, she felt too cold, and her golden hair lay lifeless. How could this be my Angie? How could it have come to this? How could God let something so terrible happen to someone so innocent?

  Nearly seven hundred people came to see Angie that night. My friends from church grieved with me over the loss of such a precious child. Before her death, Angie’s reputation had spread among the congregation as a child who smiled for everyone, waved her pudgy little fingers hello to anyone she made eye contact with. Now they all came to say thank you to Jonas and me for sharing our child with them, even if for such a short time.

  Outside of the funeral home, Fi waited, unable at first to go in. When she finally entered, she could only glance at Angie’s body for a moment. She clung to me for what seemed an eternity, the two of us joined together in an immeasurable sadness.

  Finally the night ended. The final hug, the final condolence. Jonas, LaWonna, and I left after everyone else, and Mr. Furman walked us to the door. LaWonna became very upset. She didn’t want to leave. A quivering frown sat below determined eyes. Finally I coaxed her troubles out of her.

  “Momma, are we going to leave Angie here?”

  “Yes, honey.”

  “Who’s going to watch her?”

  The funeral director bent down and looked into LaWonna’s eyes.

  “I’ll watch her. We take very good care of little children. She won’t be alone tonight.”

  Thursday morning came cloudy and gray. I prayed a simple prayer before the funeral: “Lord, if you really love me, please let the sun come out today.” Perhaps a selfish prayer, but I felt that God could maybe give me a pretty day in return for my daughter. More than six hundred attended the funeral, with cars waiting up over the hill just to park at the church. The children’s choir sang “This is the Day” and “When He Cometh.”

  As Angela’s short little coffin drifted into the ground just outside of Maple Grove Mennonite Church, my five brothers sang, “Angie won’t have to worry anymore.”

  I sat on the grass with Jonas and LaWonna, listening to the words of that song, and the sun crept out from behind the clouds. I looked up and silently said, Thank you.

  We left her body there that day, turned our backs and returned to our small mobile home. Whenever we left the house, we drove past the spot where Angie lost her life. Every day, I heard the laughter of the other grandchildren floating up the lane. Every night, I would wait until Jonas went to bed before collapsing on the sofa, grief-filled sobs wracking my body.

  Fi went back to work on Monday, shoveling sand in the barn and driving the Bobcat again and again over the very spot where Angie died, not because she wanted to, but simply because that is what we did then. We got on with things. We continued, usually in silence. So many things about the day of September 8 went unspoken: things between me and Jonas, or me and Daddy, or me and the rest of the family. And in those unhealthy silences grew bitterness and depression and guilt.

  I tried to keep a brave face. My journal entries from that time sound persistent in their attempts at staying positive. But inside, behind the writing, I was scared of life, doubting my faith, and losing a sense of myself. I was only twenty-six at the time.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Into the Darkness

  What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life?

  The world would split open.

  —MURIEL RUKEYSER

  Afew days after the convention, I found myself at my daughter LaWonna’s house. She had just moved back from California a few weeks earlier with her husband, Russ, and her children, Trinity and Ryan. I helped her unpack boxes and ready her new home. I couldn’t believe she’d finally made the move—now my entire family lived within walking distance of my house. After Trinity’s birth I had decided to make a priority of spending time with her, traveling to California every six to eight weeks even during the busiest times. Now her beautiful smile and tender spirit live just around
the corner. Flashbacks come like jolts of electricity when I remember that LaWonna was Trinity’s age, quiet and carefree, when Angie died.

  My happiness over LaWonna’s move home pretty much defined my life during those post-convention days. On the outside anyway. On the inside anxiety crept up: I didn’t know what the future held or what my role in life would be. What would it feel like not to be Auntie Anne anymore? To cover the anxiety, I busied myself beyond belief: I ran like a marathon trainer; I worked around my house like a full-time maid; I drove from here to there and back again running errands; I set up times for coffee with friends, filled every remaining minute of my day to ensure I stayed busy and allowed no time for thinking. I even stayed up late at night reading, anything to keep my mind occupied.

  After Angie died, I felt useless. LaWonna had turned four the previous summer and required little maintenance, especially with all of the cousins around to play with. I found myself holding empty days, with no diaper changing or bottle feeding or baby carrying required. I spent most of the time crying on the sofa.

  Jonas seemed to recover well from the accident. I thought he still looked sad, but I don’t remember seeing him cry much about Angie, and our talks about the accident came few and far between. I began to feel embarrassed that I couldn’t deal with her loss, began hiding my crying from everyone. Soon I slept on the sofa, not wanting Jonas to know I cried myself to sleep each night. An emotional wall began to rise between me and my husband.

  I remember driving down the road with LaWonna one rainy day in December 1975. She was singing, and I was feeling sad, as usual. These were the days long before children sat in car seats or any of us wore seat belts regularly—LaWonna sat up front with me and edged over against my leg while I drove, put her arm around me, and looked up at my face.