I, frankly, felt sorry for myself. I also felt overwhelmed. As I threw that “Why me?” question into the air, I got the unwelcomed answer I should have expected: “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you.”
I remembered the story I had heard while training to be a pastor in seminary about an early follower of Christ who felt she was doing the best she could but was overwhelmed. As she traveled in the back of a horse cart to get where she believed the Lord wanted her to go, it hit a large boulder and bounced her off onto the road. As she stood and dusted herself off, her response was, “Lord, when You do things like this to Your friends, it’s no wonder You have so few of them!”
I symbolically dusted myself off and headed to the hospital.
Belvedere Hospital is more than adequate for a small town, and the medicinal smells and bright corridors are typical of big-city facilities. I knew my way to the intensive care unit, where Tyler Wooten lay in a coma. As I arrived, his mother stood in the hallway wringing her hands.
Connie Wooten was probably in her forties, plain in appearance, thin, and with the countenance of someone who was overworked, overwrought, and perpetually tired. We found a waiting room nearby that was fortunately empty of other people.
She recognized me, and we went through the formalities of “good to see you again” even though we did so almost through gritted teeth because of the weight each of us was feeling.
I helped her get seated in the functional, chair-lined room and pulled another chair close enough to hear her clearly without forcing her to talk above a low, conversational tone.
As I sat there with her, Mrs. Wooten seemed totally lost. The hollow look in her eyes said it all. What has happened, and what am I to do about it? Her body trembled and her hands clutched a well-used tissue in her lap. I didn’t know if she was going to be able to tell me her needs or just collapse in a pile of grief.
I tried to give her a sympathetic look, because sympathy was definitely what she needed, but I wasn’t comfortable in physically reaching out to this person I had only seen once before. I felt like a guy who approached a girl at a dance and then wasn’t sure he wanted to dance with her. It felt awkward.
Fortunately, she broke the ice. “I’m glad you’ve come, Mr. Long, but I don’t know what to say to you.”
“First things first, Mrs. Wooten. How is your son?”
“The doctors say he is in a coma, and I know they don’t expect him to live. What am I going to do? I don’t want him to die, but it would almost be worse for him if he lives.”
“Well, let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.” I leaned close, my hands folded in front of me. “I know it’s painful for you, but can you tell me how all of this could have happened?”
Connie Wooten shook her head in disbelief of it all. I waited as she took some time to gather herself, and then she began with a sigh. “Tyler worshiped his dad. They were like best pals. Lou, my husband, was an auto mechanic, and he and Tyler loved to work on machines and equipment of any kind. And they loved to hunt. Lou taught Tyler about guns.”
Guns! She suddenly gulped, her hand to her mouth and her eyes wide. Fresh tears swam in them, and she appeared to have a hard time continuing her train of thought.
“Take your time.” I kept my voice steady and reassuring. “I know this is hard, but if I’m going to be of any help, I need to know as much as you are willing to tell me.”
After a long pause, Connie continued. “Anyway, like I said, Tyler loved his father. Then Lou got cancer and died two years ago.”
Again, Mrs. Wooten’s words brought on another flow of emotions as she realized she was on the verge of losing the rest of her little family, her whole world.
After more tears, another pause, and then visibly trembling, she continued. “I don’t know. It’s as though Tyler blamed his dad for getting sick and dying…like Lou had abandoned him. He handled his pain in a strange way. Instead of grieving, he just got mad. At his father for leaving him, at me because I wasn’t able to fill the gap, and at the world in general. And it wasn’t just for a little while. Over the last two years, it’s as though his resentment has grown.
“There’ve been other things, too, of course. With Lou and me both working, we made enough to get by. But now we have to live hand to mouth, food stamps and all that. Lou hadn’t put much aside, and what little there was—and more—got wiped out with his illness. So I’m sure Tyler resented not having things the other kids have, not being able to dress as nice as they do.
“That and us living in a trailer park and his mother working as nothing more than a maid at the motel. I’m sure the other kids at school were ugly to him, and the more his resentment showed, they probably treated him even worse.”
In addition to pain, shame oozed into the picture. She continued to wring her hands. She would gaze down and sigh hopelessly and then look up at me, wide-eyed, like a puppy begging for a treat. She seemed so genuine and vulnerable, and her words tore at my heart.
“You’re really helping me get the picture. I realize this is hard for you, but you’re telling me the sort of things I need to know if I can be of any help.” That is, if I can help her.
In truth, I had no idea how I could be of help, and I felt a little guilty for intruding so deeply into her privacy and her feelings. But I knew from many years of counseling that she was sharing vital information. So I encouraged her to keep going.
Again the sigh, the downcast look. “So,” she continued, “he’s become a loner. Not doing well in school, not showing any interest in sports or girls. Just keeping his head buried in that silly PlayStation playing games that aren’t good for him and cleaning those guns his father left him.”
At this point, Mrs. Wooten broke down completely, dissolving into tears.
My heart truly bled for this woman. I couldn’t conceive the depth of her grief, confusion, and loneliness. I reached out and took her hands in mine. I had been a pastor long enough to know that my words would be inadequate at this point. The important thing was for her not to feel alone, that someone cared for her and what she was going through. And despite my initial reluctance to get involved, I now really did care for her.
She eventually emerged from her grief long enough to say, “I just couldn’t reach him. The harder I tried, the further he pulled away. And now, here we are….”
I grimaced at her words because they reminded me of my concerns about my own son. I told myself to put that on hold. I had my hands full helping Connie Wooten.
Long ago I learned how difficult it is to console someone who has no background of faith, and that certainly seemed to be the case with Connie Wooten. The first step was simply to be a friend who cares.
“Mrs. Wooten…”
“Please call me Connie, Mr. Long.”
Big step! I took a deep breath. She had just leaped across the divide between acquaintances and friends by asking me to call her by her first name. It freed me up to confront her with the faith issue.
“Connie, there is no way for me to feel what you are going through at this time. No one can. But I can tell you that God loves you and cares very much about you and what you are dealing with. It may be impossible for you to believe that, but through the love of God, Mrs. Cook, the principal at the high school, called me to visit you, and I came. May I just sit here with you until we know something more from the doctors?”
“I know you have other things you need to be dealing with, Mr. Long. Don’t feel that you need to stay with me when others need you.”
The quality and sincerity of Connie Wooten came out even more clearly. Here she was, dealing with something few people, thank God, will ever have to deal with, and her concern was for me.
“Well, let’s just wait and see.” I gave her hand a soft squeeze.
Over the next couple of hours, we sat together in the intensive care waiting area. People would stick their heads in the door from time to time, but the doctor had yet to appear. The longer we waited, the greater the tension. Connie
Wooten continued to alternate between times of crying and wild-eyed attention to what went on around her. I prayed silently and spoke words of support from time to time as seemed appropriate.
I have to admit, however, there was another thought rattling around in my brain. It was about Brandon. Was there any similarity between Tyler Wooten and Brandon Long? One thing that linked them was their mutual fascination with games played on electronic gadgets, wasting time—as far as I was concerned—that could have been spent in interaction with others. Also, I could picture Tyler as sullen, a trait I had unfortunately noted in my son—at least in his contacts with me. Was Brandon a loner? Could he be developing the same symptoms that led Tyler to such horrendous action?
I didn’t really believe it, but the thought jarred my reverie. I needed to spend more time with my son. More constructive time.
Suddenly my thoughts were interrupted by the appearance of a doctor. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Wooten. We did everything we could.”
As the distraught mother broke down in tears, I took her in my arms and let her cry it out. There was no consoling her at this point. She had said earlier, and truthfully, that it would almost be worse if Tyler lived. Even if he had healed completely from shooting himself, he would have faced trial and life in prison. But now, faced with the reality of his loss, her grief was total.
Minutes that seemed like hours went by as I tried unsuccessfully to give her comforting thoughts—such as the need to try to put it all behind her and begin a new life, that God was with her in the midst of her profound grief—things of that nature that gave me something to do but were no help at all to her.
Finally, she gathered herself together as best she could.
When she had gotten control of herself sufficiently to speak, Connie Wooten asked me a question I never saw coming. “Would you be willing to have some sort of burial service for Tyler?”
I knew at that moment that my incarnation challenge had reached a new level of reality. If I was going to be Christ to Connie Wooten, my answer would have to be yes. But I knew that my yes would be a huge affront to Clifton Stoner, my congregation, and undoubtedly, the people of Belvedere.
Regardless of the consequences, I heard myself say, “Of course I will, Connie.”
Chapter 17
As I drove home from the hospital, I felt like a Ping-Pong ball being bounced back and forth—physically and emotionally. What had I gotten myself involved in? Every corner I turned seemed to confront me with a new challenge. Things were totally out of control. The one person I could count on, however, to help me sort all this out and give me the support I needed at this crucial time was Jayne. Surely that would be so, I said to myself as I arrived home.
Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way. After I had told her about the meeting with Connie Wooten, Tyler’s death, and my promise to perform some sort of burial service for the boy, she responded with, “Oh, Steve, surely you haven’t!”
I tried to explain to her how it had happened, and how I felt it a personal confrontation from the Lord to show I was willing to accept His incarnation challenge. She seemed somewhat mollified by my explanation as she pictured the disaster that loomed before us as a result.
Some people at Incarnation Church would be concerned that I had had any contact with Connie Wooten, and people throughout the community would as well. Mainly Clifton Stoner would think it completely inappropriate. What business did I have getting myself involved in the problems of those who weren’t members of our church? Especially a boy and his mother who were pariahs to the community. Was I just begging for trouble?
Of course not, I told myself. It was just—so it seemed to me—something that God asked me to do. Being able to explain that to others remained the challenge.
To Jayne’s credit, she let me talk it through as we sat on the sofa in the family room holding hands. In the end, she gave me a forced smile and said, “I know you believe you are doing the right thing. It’s just that we have to be realistic about whatever fallout it may have.”
I agreed with that!
Pivoting from one crucial subject to another, as my dear wife seemed adept at doing, she continued, “Steve, Hannah’s out walking Skeeter and Brandon is in his room. Maybe this is a good time for you to share with him all this stuff that’s going on in your life.”
“How can I do that, sweetheart? I can’t even sort it out in my own mind.”
“That’s the point.” She nodded. “Give him a chance to help you.”
That didn’t seem to be a good idea to me, but what did I have to lose? I knocked on Brandon’s door.
“Yeah?” came the reply.
“May I come in?”
“I guess so.”
When I entered the room, it was the same dark place it always seemed to be. Only the desk light was on and the blinds partially open. Maybe that helped Brandon see the images on his Xbox more clearly. He lifted his face from the screen. But of course that threw my mind back to Tyler Wooten because I could picture a similar scene that might have been in his bedroom. So, off to a bad start with my son once again.
Brandon’s countenance was as dark as the room as he turned to me, arms crossed, with anything but a welcoming look. His body language conveyed his thoughts loud and clear—why are you interrupting me when I’ve got something better to do?
My hope had been that Jayne had worked her magic on Brandon and that he would be more open to what I had to say. From the response I got as I stood there in the doorway, I wasn’t so sure. I said a silent prayer and walked into the room.
“Could I share with you some of what’s going on in my life for a few minutes? They are things that could affect all of us.”
Brandon gave me a “if you have to” look, so I dropped down onto his bed and started talking, probably giving him an overload. But let’s face it, I was overloaded!
“You were in youth church Sunday morning, so you didn’t hear my sermon, but maybe you have picked up some reaction or comments.”
“Not really.”
“Well, here’s what happened. It was sort of a combination of regular Sunday worship and a memorial service for Otis. By doing the two things together, it gave me what I thought would be an opportunity to reach the congregation in a deeper way. I gave them what I think of as being an incarnation challenge.”
“What’s that?” He scrunched his nose as though I had uttered a dirty word.
I wanted to tell him about Charles Sheldon and his book In His Steps and the, “What would Jesus do?” response to it because I knew that Brandon had seen WWJD bracelets on the arms of some of his friends. And I wanted to tell him that I thought God expected more than a WWJD response from Christians. He wanted us to incarnate Christ in our time, to be Christ to our world. That was the challenge I had given in the sermon, but I didn’t think Brandon was ready to hear that. So I gave him the abbreviated version.
“Well…” I shifted my position to face him. “It’s a way of looking at the Christian life…that God wants us to be Christians in all our thoughts and actions. I challenged them to take their faith more seriously.”
That sounded kind of weak to me, but it was the best I could do to explain something to Brandon at what I believed to be his present level of understanding.
“Why are you telling me this?”
“What I said was apparently something the congregation didn’t want to hear. When I asked them to come into the fellowship hall after the service to talk about it, I got zero response. Now Mr. Stoner accuses me of alienating the congregation. All he seemed to get out of the sermon was that I blamed the congregation for Otis’s death.”
“What’s that all about?” Brandon’s face screwed up, not following my train of thought.
“Well, as part of the sermon, I mentioned the note I had gotten from Otis after his death in which he said he couldn’t stand being so lonely anymore, and I raised the question of how a member of our congregation could die of loneliness. So Mr. Stoner saw the whole thing as my a
ccusing the congregation of not having been friendlier and more caring toward Otis. And as I’m sure you know, Mr. Stoner can stir up a lot of trouble if he sets his mind to it.”
Before Brandon could react to what I had said, I was suddenly reminded of the friendship that had existed between Otis and our son, of which I had been insensitive following Otis’s death, and I quickly shifted gears. Instead of babbling on about things I was dealing with, shouldn’t I really be trying to find out what was going on in Brandon’s life? His friendship with Otis might be a pathway into what he was thinking.
“Son, I know you cared deeply about Otis. Tell me more about him.”
Because I shifted gears so abruptly in my thought process, Brandon seemed caught by surprise. He looked at me as though wondering what this had to do with anything we had been discussing. Then, accepting the situation, he responded.
“Well, he was a nice old guy. I liked working with him around the church. But I guess he thought I was too young to really talk about whatever was going on in his life.”
I should have followed up with, “Son, what is going on in your life?” but I didn’t. Instead, I just started babbling again. Probably nervousness. All the while the thought paraded through my subconscious. This is my son. Why should I be nervous when I am around him, and why can’t I carry on a meaningful conversation with him? Is it him, or is it me?
“Otis was a nice guy. I know he appreciated your work, because he told me so a number of times. And he was quiet by nature. But I also think that he felt inferior to other people at Incarnation. Instead of being in church to worship with us, he probably saw himself as the hired help. He didn’t have the things other people have and couldn’t dress as well as the rest of us. But that was no excuse on our part. We adults should have reached out to him more effectively so that he would have felt a part of us, known that he was a part of us.
In His Place: A Modern-Day Challenge for Readers of In His Steps Page 8
