Jenny's Choice (Apple Creek Dreams #3)

by Patrick E. Craig

  “And I you, Mama.”

  Jenny leaned over and kissed Jerusha’s pale cheek. She went to her papa and lifted his hand and held it against her face. It was cold, but she did not mind.

  “Goodbye, Papa. I will see you again.”

  Then the breeze swept the smell of lilacs from the room, and the first shaft of sunlight broke over the hills to the east, and Jenny was alone.

  An hour later, Bisschop Troyer came with the elders of the church and their wives for a brief service. Then Johann and three of the elders closed the coffins and carried them out to the waiting buggy that would transport them to the cemetery. Jenny and Rachel were dressed in black, as were all the Amish that day. When Jenny walked outside, she was amazed to see the long line of black buggies in the lane in front of the house. She could not count them, but she thought there must have been more than a hundred. Bisschop Troyer spoke quietly to Jenny.

  “There is room in our buggy for you and Rachel if you would ride with us.”

  “Thank you, Johann, that’s very kind of you.”

  She and Rachel climbed into the buggy, and they began the slow seventeen-mile drive to the graveyard, where Jerusha and Reuben would be buried next to Jerusha’s grossmudder, Hannah. Rachel leaned against Jenny.

  “Why does everyone we love die, Mama?”

  Jenny put her arm around Rachel. “I can’t answer that, dear one. I don’t know the reason.”

  “Are you mad at Gott?”

  “No, my dochter. There’s no reason to be angry with Him. We read in the Bible that long ago Adam disobeyed Gott and that’s why people die. But we also read that Jesus died on the cross so we could live forever. Your papa and grossdaadi und grossmudder have gone to a place where they will never die again. And one day we will go too. No, Rachel, it is not du lieber Gott’s fault people die. There is no reason to be angry with Him.”

  “All right, Mama. But can I still be sad?”

  “We will be sad for a long time, dearest. But we still have each other, and we will have to love each other so much in the days to come that it will help to fill the empty places. Ja?”

  “Ja, Mama.”

  Soon the steady sound of the horse’s hooves lulled Rachel to sleep, and Jenny sat silently for the rest of the ride.

  When they came to the cemetery, Jenny saw something strange. A group of men were standing by the side of the road in a military formation. They all wore hats, and as she looked closer, she saw that the men were veterans of the armed forces. And then she saw Bobby Halverson in the front rank. He and the other men stood at attention. As the hearse came by, a sharp command rang out.

  “Preeesennnt arms!”

  The hand of each man rose in a slow salute, showing the soldier’s greatest mark of respect. The men stood at attention, holding the salute. Bisschop Troyer, who was next in line behind the hearse, stopped his buggy. He looked at Bobby and the rest of the vets, and then he motioned to Bobby to come into the procession ahead of him. Bobby nodded to his guidon. Another sharp command rang out.

  “Orrrderrr arms!”

  The hands came down.

  “Slow march! Forwaaarrd, march!”

  The group moved out onto the road.

  “To the right flank…march!”

  The column slowly turned to the right and fell into line behind the hearse. The men’s arms were checked at their sides. The procession passed through the gates and into the cemetery. After Bobby and his men passed, the bisschop chucked his horse and started up. And so an Amish man and Congressional Medal of Honor winner Reuben Springer went to his final rest, his beloved wife at his side, as the honor guard marched with a slow, measured step behind the hearse and the long line of Amish buggies followed along.

  After the two-hour service, Jenny and Bobby stood at the grave. It was a beautiful spring day. The two coffins lay together in one large grave. Two simple headstones stood ready, etched with her parents’ names, the dates of their births, and the date of their deaths. The long line of mourners had passed silently by, and each had dropped a clod of dirt on the coffins. Jenny wondered at the multitude of people who had come.

  So many…so many loved you!

  Now she stood with Bobby and held a clod of dirt in her hand. She did not want to drop it—it seemed like such a final thing. She didn’t want to close the door on this part of her life, but she knew she must. Slowly her clenched hand released, and the handful of dirt dropped silently into the grave. Bobby followed her, tossed in his handful of dirt, and then turned to Jenny.

  “Your father was my best friend from the first time I met him in Wooster before the war. I never thought I would outlive him.”

  Jenny smiled at Bobby. “Papa never let us know much about what he was feeling, but I do know this, Bobby Halverson. He loved you deeply, he prayed for you always, and he was blessed by your life as it touched his. And because you were his brother, I have something for you.”

  Jenny reached into the pocket of her apron. She grasped the cloth strap, pulled the object out, and handed it to Bobby. It was Reuben’s Medal of Honor.

  Bobby reached out and took it.

  “Shouldn’t you keep this for Rachel and the rest of your family to remember what he did?”

  “For the Amish, it’s not something that’s important to us—not as important as it is to you, since you were there. I was going to bury it with him, but instead I wish you to have it. It’s something my papa would have wanted.”

  Bobby turned the medal over slowly in his hands.

  “Reuben won this by taking life. But at the same time he also preserved life—mine in particular and the lives of hundreds of men who would have been killed outright or been hunted down or starved in the jungle if the Japanese had overrun our position. I think that was something he came to understand in the last few years, and I believe he was able to release the guilt he felt.”

  “I think you’re right, Uncle Bobby. In the last few months I know he found peace.”

  She reached into her pocket again. “This is something Papa showed me when he was telling me about the war. He carried it with him all his life.”

  It was the family portrait Reuben had shared with Jenny—the Japanese man standing stiffly at attention, looking straight at the camera, dressed in formal military attire, his lovely young wife sitting next to him and holding their son on her lap.

  Bobby took the faded paper from Jenny’s hand and said, “This is a sniper that Reuben killed one day when we were on patrol. He took this picture from the man’s dead body. He showed it to me once. He said he carried it to remind him that taking human life is wrong. He mourned the fact that a man he killed would never return to his wife and son. He also used it to remind himself how much of a blessing Jerusha and his daughters were to him.”

  “My papa was a good man, wasn’t he, Uncle Bobby?”

  “He was the finest man I ever met. He truly understood what semper fidelis meant.”

  “Semper fidelis?”

  “Yes, Jenny. It’s the Marine Corps motto. It means ‘always faithful.’ ”

  “Always faithful. Yes, that was my papa.”

  “And your mother was like a sister to me. She and Reuben…” Bobby paused, unable to go on.

  “Will you come in to the reception when you take me home, Uncle Bobby?”

  “Probably not, Jenny. I’ve had a full day already, and I have a lot to think about. I’ll come see you in a few days.”

  Jenny looked around. It was a beautiful day. The sun shone down on them, and the sweet smell of the Ohio fields filled the air. Soft clouds drifted by in an azure sky. Birds sang in the trees around the cemetery, and everywhere the grass was green and verdant.

  Jenny sighed. “I was expecting a gray day today—I guess because I felt gray inside. But I think my mama would want us to remember them this way—with God’s beauty alive all around us.”

  She took Bobby’s hand and said, “Well, I will expect you to come soon and spend time with us, Uncle Bobby. Remember what m
y mama said to you.”

  Bobby exhaled as he squeezed Jenny’s hand. “Okay, Jenny. I’ll come.”

  They looked down at the grave one more time, each one with memories of these two beloved people alive in their hearts. She didn’t really know why, but Jenny lifted her hand and waved.

  “Goodbye, Mama. Goodbye, Papa. The Lord be with you.”

  Bobby and Jenny turned and walked from the grave.

  Jenny was alone in the empty house. Rachel was asleep, and all the visitors were gone. The dishes had been cleaned up and the food put away. Now she sat with a beautiful quilt spread across her lap. A cool evening breeze swept in through the open windows, and Jenny pulled the quilt around her shoulders.

  It was a beautiful piece. Iridescent royal blue silk made a dark backdrop to the beautiful deep red rose-shaped pattern in the center of the quilt. The rose had hundreds of parts, all cut into the flowing shapes of petals instead of the traditional square or diamond-shaped patterns of Amish quilts. The setting sun cast its fading light on the rose, and it glowed with a fragile luminescence. Deep red…like the blood of Christ.

  The quilting pattern was the most complicated her mother had ever done. It was all set on a cream-colored backing and filled with a double layer of batting. Jerusha had carefully basted the layers together on her hands and knees, starting from the center and working out to the edges. Delicate tracks of quilting stitches made their trails through the surface of the quilt, and to Jenny it was a true memorial to her mama’s life. A quilt for Jenna…a quilt for Jenny…a quilt for Jerusha.

  “My Mama’s Quilt”

  from the journals of Jenny Hershberger

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The Dream Slips Away

  IN THE DAYS THAT FOLLOWED her parents’ funeral, Jenny disengaged from life in Apple Creek. The loss of her husband and her parents within two years was a weight that seemed to grow heavier with each passing day. She tried to involve herself in the running of the farm, but the joy had gone out of the daily routines. Bisschop Troyer and the men of her church stepped in to help, and soon things were fairly normal as far as taking care of the livestock and caring for the fields, but for Jenny it seemed that she was detached from all of it and standing a great distance away—a stranger watching other strangers do things she cared nothing for.

  Jenny tried inviting some of the women over to the house. Elizabeth Troyer had become an especially great help to her, and Jenny wanted to cultivate her friendship, but the afternoons she spent with the Amish ladies seemed pale compared to the deep connection she had shared with Jerusha. After she put Rachel to bed each evening, Jenny often sat at the kitchen table until late in the night, listless and at loose ends with herself. She tried writing, but the fountain of words that once bubbled from her spirit seemed to have dried up. She would set her pen to paper and an hour later stare down at a page full of doodles or a few words strung together like birds sitting on a telephone wire.

  The only bright spots in her life were Rachel and Bobby. Bobby kept his word and visited as much as he could. They sat quietly on the porch after having something to eat, not saying much—each one lost in memories—and then after awhile Bobby would bid her good night and leave. Still, it was comforting to have him there. And Rachel! Rachel was such a resilient soul, and though she grieved for Grossdaadi and Grossmudder, she seemed to have an innate understanding of the realities of life and death that somehow escaped Jenny. Where Jenny found it hard to accept what had happened, sometimes expecting Jerusha to come home from the market or her daed to walk in the back door, his clothes dirty from working in the fields, Rachel came to grips with the tragedy sooner. At least it appeared that way. Then one day when they were walking by the creek, Rachel asked a question that caused Jenny to think perhaps Rachel was grieving more than she let on.

  “Is death forever, Mama?”

  Jenny was taken aback by the unexpected query and hesitated for a moment before answering.

  “It is forever, as far as being gone from this life, Rachel. But for those who know Jesus as their Savior, death is only a doorway into the next life.”

  “What is the next life like, Mama? Do we turn into angels?”

  “No, darling. We stay as people, but we have bodies that never grow old.”

  Rachel hesitated for a moment and then asked the question that had been troubling her. “Is death a bad thing that comes and gets you and makes you die?”

  “Who told you that, Rachel?”

  “My friend at schule said that death is a ghost that comes in the night. So sometimes I’m afraid to go to sleep.”

  Jenny paused. She realized she had become so absorbed in her own grief that she hadn’t considered Rachel’s grief. Rachel’s silence after the funeral made Jenny assume that her dochter was dealing with the tragedy. But the little girl’s questions showed Jenny that Rachel was seriously thinking about the subject of death.

  “What else did your friend tell you, Rachel?”

  “She said that you have to be careful when someone dies so that you don’t catch it and die too. Did Grossdaadi und Grossmudder catch it from Papa?”

  “No, Rachel. What happened to my papa and mama had nothing to do with your papa. They didn’t catch dying from him.”

  Jenny led Rachel to a place under the willow tree that grew close by the creek. The small brook burbled its way through the farm on its way down to its junction with Apple Creek not far from where they were sitting. Soft grass lined the banks, and the smell of wildflowers filled the air. Jenny sat for a few minutes, thinking about what to say to her daughter. Then she took Rachel’s hand.

  “Are you worried about anything, Rachel?”

  Rachel stared at her mama for a long moment, and then she burst into tears. “I…I don’t want you to die too, Mama! Everybody has died, and I’m scared!”

  Jenny pulled Rachel close to her side and put her arm around her. She waited until her sobs quieted. Then she took Rachel’s face in her hands and kissed away the tears.

  “I know this has been a very hard time for you, Rachel. We lost Papa, and now we lost Grossdaadi und Grossmudder. It’s been ein sehr hartes Ding, a very hard thing. But we have to put our faith in God and—”

  Rachel pulled away and crossed her arms. “How do I know there is a God, Mama! I can’t see Him or hear Him. And why would He let everyone I love die? I just don’t understand. Why should I believe in Him?”

  Jenny sat for a long moment. And then she realized that she didn’t understand either. She took Rachel’s hand and drew the little girl back to her side.

  “I don’t have the answer to that, Rachel. What I do know is that believing in something is different from having faith in something. Belief is when you think something that someone else told you is right, but faith is knowing that something is true without having proof. Does that make sense?”

  “Kind of, Mama.”

  “Well, for instance, your friend told you that death is a ghost, and you believed her because she told you. You didn’t really know that death is a ghost, right?”

  “Well…no I didn’t, but she seemed so sure.”

  “Yes, but she was just saying something that wasn’t true at all. Death is not a ghost that comes in the night. But still you believed her. Now let me ask you this—what season is going to come after summer?”

  “Fall.”

  “And after the fall?”

  “Winter.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Rachel thought for a moment. “I don’t know, I just know it.”

  “So you know that winter will come this year even though right now it is summer, and you don’t know how you know that it will.”

  “Yes, I know that winter will come because it always has.”

  “But there is no way you can prove that to me, so you must have faith that it will come, see? And the only proof you will have will be when it really comes.”

  “So…faith is knowing something is true without being able to prove it?” />
  “Yes, dearest. Only when winter is here will you have the evidence that your faith that winter would come is real. And that is how Gott is. We know He is real because He is real. I can’t prove it to you by showing Him to you, but the evidence that He is real is all around us.”

  “Where, Mama? Where is the evidence?”

  Jenny reached down and picked a wildflower. It was a beautiful lavender color, and each petal was perfect in form. A delicious fragrance came from it as Jenny held it under Rachel’s nose.

  “Look at this flower. It is so beautiful. The color is wonderful, and what about the smell?”

  “It smells gut, Mama.”

  “Yes, it’s perfect. Now I want you to make me one just like it.”

  “I can’t make a flower! That would be too hard.”

  “So if you took some dirt and some paint and some grass and piled them up and stirred them, it wouldn’t make a flower?”

  “No, Mama. It would just be a mess.”

  “But someone made it, Rachel. It’s so perfect and beautiful. There is a plan and a design in this flower. It couldn’t just make itself, could it?”

  Rachel’s eyes widened. “Did Gott make it?”

  “Yes, Rachel. Gott made it. And He also made you—beautiful on the outside and full of questions on the inside.”

  “Is it bad to ask questions, Mama?”

  “No, dearest. Questions are good. And as you get older and keep asking questions—as you live life and experience these things for yourself—the answers will make more sense to you.”

  “Will they, Mama?”

  “Yes, Rachel. And though I don’t understand everything, I do know this—Gott knows exactly how long each one of us will live because He made us and He has a plan for each of us. No one knows how long that might be, but we do know that while we’re alive we must love each other as much as we possibly can and trust that Gott only wants the best for us.”

  Rachel snuggled up close and Jenny held her tight. “All right, Mama, I believe you…I mean, I have faith that Gott is real.”

  Jenny looked down at her daughter.

  I wish it were as easy for me!