by Linda Byler
Then Matthew and Rose appeared, dressed in the traditional black. Rose’s hair gleamed blonde beneath the propane lamps, and Matthew stood tall and dark and attentive behind her, his face already so tanned by the May sun.
And here I am wrinkled and tired and sweaty, holding this fussy baby. And here he comes, of course.
She received Rose’s hug graciously, their tears mingling. Sarah was truly in awe of her sweet, beautiful friend. When Matthew gripped her hand, she looked down at his vest and refused to meet his eyes.
The contact with his hand meant nothing at all. It was merely a handshake, same as everyone else. Then why did her eyes follow him as he moved across the room, the yearning in them unknown to him? She could tell herself anything she wanted, but her yearning was there, always.
She longed to get away alone, sink into a soft bed, and sleep for a whole long night and part of the following day. She longed to get away from here, this community, these people. Somewhere far away. Away from Matthew and the river of hopelessness. Maybe, just maybe after the funeral, she would.
The day of the funeral service dawned a perfect day, the kind where the humidity has been lifted by the force of a storm, the air so clear it intensifies the green of trees, hills, and crops to a heartbreaking hue. Now it reminded Sarah so intensely of heaven. Purple and lavender irises took on a brilliant new color, the light of the sun coaxing all of God’s majesty from them. The late tulips waved their red and yellow banners of comfort and encouragement to the mourners who attended the services.
The driveway and surrounding areas were covered with gray and black buggies, horses of black and brown obeying their drivers, stopping when asked, and moving on when it was time. Young men from David Beiler’s church district moved among the teams, numbering the sides of relatives’ buggies with a piece of white chalk.
It would all be done in order, the parents riding in the first buggy behind the specially built carriage that would carry the plain wooden coffin. The remaining family members would follow in buggies marked with the number 2, then 3, and so on, until the cousins, uncles, and grandparents were all in line, moving slowly to the graveyard.
But first, hundreds of people gathered in the clean implement shed, squares of carpeting laid on top of the stained concrete, the glossy benches in neat, parallel rows. The mourners were directed to their allotted spaces by the kindly fore-gayer.
In the house, a close relative led a special service for the immediate family. It was an hour spent grieving together, the coffin in their midst, before the actual service.
After that, they filed solemnly behind the pallbearers into the large shed containing hundreds of their friends and relatives, all dressed in black except for the men’s white shirts and the women’s white coverings. The clothing was an outward sign of inner peace and love, the weaving of lives in a simple black and white bond of unity. They were all there together, all believing in the same God, their souls redeemed by the same Jesus, their views and values not always identical but always tempered by the fires of surrendering to one another, bending to each other, acquiring a level of unity by love.
The sea of black and white spoke to Sarah’s heart, the tremendous impact of generations of a people who strove to live together. They believed firmly in holding their neighbors in high esteem, in loving their neighbors as they loved themselves. This love was built on the foundation of Jesus Christ.
Oh, it wasn’t perfect, she knew. Views and values were often solitary, each individual deciding what was right and wrong for them, shifting like sand. The winds of change and self-will constantly worked against this solid foundation. But the ordnung provided a guideline, a coming together, a rope on life’s pathway to heaven.
When Isaac Stoltzfus, an uncle to the family and a minister, stood up, the funeral became starkly real. Sarah bowed her head. Isaac spoke of heaven’s joy at receiving a small child who was innocent and had not yet trod life’s sin-cluttered path. In her mind, Sarah saw Mervin with a small white robe around his heavenly body and wings of sparkling gossamer. He would have lovely blue eyes, his open mouth smiling, singing, his hair as gold, as heavenly as anyone could imagine. Happiness was all about him, a giant bubble of perfect love that no one on earth could begin to fathom.
Sarah cried. It was the parting, the agony of his death, the way he had died, the murky brown water entering his nose and mouth. How terrified he must have been. How alone. That was the hard part.
A second minister spoke of God’s love, the love He had for Mervin, and how much further along he was now. Meanwhile, those left behind battled on, courageously meeting Satan and his allies on life’s road to heaven.
When the service was over, each person filed past the open coffin. Many shed discreet tears, then left the family to view the beloved face of its youngest member before the lid of the small wooden coffin was closed.
Sarah looked at Mervin one last time and etched his features in her heart. She lifted the soaked Kleenexes to her nose one more time, her head bent, and told him goodbye.
In the buggy that was marked by a 7, there was a plastic bottle of water and two sandwiches in a Ziploc bag. She rode with her cousin, Melvin, with Priscilla and Suzie in the back seat, the youngest in the family, riding behind their parents and older brothers and sisters and their wives and husbands.
Melvin took up the reins, and thanked Dan, the young husband of her friend, Anna, who had tended the horses. Melvin looked at Sarah, grinned, and asked if she trusted him to drive.
“Of course,” Sarah said, grinning back.
Bending, she retrieved the bottled water and the sandwiches. She asked her sisters if they were hungry, then handed them a sandwich to share.
Melvin watched out of the corner of his eye. Sarah handed the remaining sandwich to him.
“You take half.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“It’ll be really late, Sarah.”
“That’s okay. You eat it.”
“You sure?”
Sarah nodded.
Appreciatively, Melvin ate half of the diagonally cut sandwich in two bites. He reached for the other half before noticing the line of buggies was moving.
“Oops. Better mind my business.”
He stuffed the remaining bread into his mouth, his cheeks bulging. Unable to cluck, his mouth filled with bread the way it was, he took up the reins and shook them.
Melvin was already twenty-five years old, a member of the church, his hair sort of cut in the ordnung. But he was a bit of a rebel, a free thinker who did things by his own standards. When he could get away with his antics, he would.
He was Mam’s oldest brother’s son, tall, powerfully built, a hard worker who was a foreman on his older brother’s roofing crew. He had a pleasant, if not handsome face, brown eyes that could be as sincere as a puppy’s and sparkle with his own ribald humor or flash with anger.
Mam said he was sadly spoiled, but Sarah always said if spoiling did that to a person, then she hoped all of her children would be spoiled. Melvin was by far her favorite cousin. He never failed to lift her spirits and encourage her.
The sandwiches were a special favor from the fore-gayer, a kindness for the burial and return trip to tide them over till the actual meal was served after the services.
Swallowing, Melvin clucked now, his horse still waiting for that certain sound before stepping out. It pulled impatiently on the bit and bumped into the back of the buggy ahead of them.
“Boy, this is going to be a real pain,” he muttered.
“Why?”
“Oh, this crazy Buster.”
“Well, maybe if you didn’t name your horse Buster, he’d behave,” Priscilla said from the back seat, where she was watching the line of teams snake slowly up the road.
“What’s wrong with Buster?”
“It’s a dog’s name.”
“Nah.”
Sarah loved Melvin, watching his profile now—the way his nose looked as if he’d banged it against a wall,
and it had stayed that way ever after. She loved him more as he launched into an entertaining account of a dog’s name, the one he’d given his German shepherd, which certainly did not look like a Buster. His horse resembled a Buster. Sarah smiled.
When they neared the graveyard, the white fence gleamed in the sun around the plain gray gravestones that dotted the well-manicured lawn inside it. The mound of fresh earth beside the rectangular hole in the ground, surrounded by the trees and fields of Lancaster County in springtime, brought the onslaught of unaccustomed grief once more.
Would they actually lower poor, drowned little Mervin into that gaping hole?
Melvin said it didn’t seem real. His brown eyes filled with tears as he ran a forefinger beneath his crooked nose.
He leaned over in Sarah’s direction, pulled out a white Sunday handkerchief, and honked his nose loudly.
“He’ll make a real cute angel,” he said, sniffing.
Sarah wanted to hug him, hard, but she knew it would only embarrass him, so she didn’t.
They opened the coffin at the graveyard, giving them all one last opportunity to view little Mervin, his face so waxen in the sun, his hair so white blond. When they closed the lid that last time, Mam seemed to shrink into herself, the black bonnet on her head hiding the intense sadness of the moment.
The young men worked hard to fill the opening, their shovels scooping the soil over the small coffin after it was lowered. As they worked, a resignation, a softening, moved across Dat’s features. He knew and accepted that one of his own was safely at Home, and in this he rejoiced, the spiritual side of him winning as always.
Back at the farm, everyone sat at the long tables, where the thinly sliced roast beef was layered on platters, accompanied by Longhorn and Colby Jack cheese. Bowls of mashed potatoes, thick brown gravy, and coleslaw completed the funeral meal. Dessert was simple canned fruit and platters of cake with coffee. It was good, sustaining the entire family in a tradition kept for generations.
The kindly folks stayed until everything was spotlessly cleaned and put back in order, the leftover food fer-sarked, benches and carpeting hauled away, and the milking done. They gave their final condolences, and the family was alone.
“Alone, but not alone,” Dat said. God was right there with them, and He would stay in the days and weeks ahead.
They had weathered the fire, hadn’t they? They’d come through this together as well.
Chapter 11
SUZIE WENT BACK TO SCHOOL all by herself and cried her heartache to Priscilla when she got home.
Company began to arrive, the living room filled with well-wishers every evening and every Sunday. It was another tradition, a gesture of love and caring, a kindness that even Mam finally admitted was a bit overwhelming.
Her garden was becoming overgrown with weeds, and no one was weeding it. The yard looked hairy, she said. The radishes and onions needed to be pulled. The things that had been damaged by the hail and rain needed to be replanted. But always, there was company, and Mam sat politely, said the right thing, and cried quietly while her eyes darted longingly to the garden or to the sewing machine as she tried not to think of the piles of fabric that needed to be cut and sewn.
They went to Mervin’s room and packed his clothes in boxes and then carried them reverently to the guest room and the cedar chest, where moths wouldn’t enter and the heat of the attic would not fade the colors. Mam cried when she found a pair of underwear and two filthy socks in his drawer. He would change clothes fast and furiously, the clothes hamper against the wall completely forgotten as he dashed down the stairs again. He was not allowed to chuck the dirty clothes under his bed, so throwing them back in a drawer was not really disobeying.
They found a blue jay feather, two rocks, some fishing line, a red and white bobber, three birthday cards, and five dimes in the little chest on top of his dresser. Bits of paper, scotch tape, and markers sat on his desk. A picture of Jesus stuck on his mirror beside one of Donald Duck and Goofy, cut from a birthday card.
So typical of a six-year-old boy. So Mervin. And so final.
Time moved on. The Beiler family accepted and did not question, courageously going about their lives in the traditional Amish fashion. There were moments when the memory of the storm, the disappearance, the horror overtook them, sinking its claws of discouragement deeply into their shoulders. But with time, the despair became less and less.
Among her people, Sarah knew accepting death was another way of accepting what God had wrought. To question it, to become bitter, to fight or rail against His will was wrong. They believed death was His will, no matter how hard it was to understand. And so the healing process began, the wonder of each new day emerging once more.
It was in August, the month when everything in the garden seemed to ripen at once, that Sarah noticed a change in Levi. He lacked his usual good humor and often displayed fits of temper. It was surprising because he had been perfectly manageable at the time of Mervin’s death, the funeral service, and the weeks after.
Sarah was in the garden with a plastic bucket of ripe tomatoes half full at her side. She bent over to grasp another sun-ripened red orb, wondering if they wouldn’t have an entire bushel basket full today. The sun was already hot, the intense heat warm against her back, as she picked tomatoes.
Glancing at the lima beans, she noticed the heavy pods bulging where the ripened beans pushed against the sides. She straightened her back and sighed. So much for asking Mam if she was allowed to get a job. As long as there was Levi to look after, cows to milk, and the large farmhouse, garden, and lawn to care for, she’d be here.
She was increasingly restless and unsure if that Levi wasn’t terribly spoiled. She wondered if she would ever get over Matthew. She was completely sick of going to Saturday night volleyball games and Sunday suppers and hymn sings when always—always, like a gigantic fly buzzing on her shoulder—his presence agitated her.
She knew when he arrived with the beautiful Rose, and when they left. She knew where he stood on the volleyball team. She knew when he filled his plate, where he stood in line, and where he sat at the singing table.
She knew when he was happy, hilarious, or quiet. She watched the features on his face like the captain of an ocean liner follows his computer—carefully watching the display to chart her own happiness.
If he appeared moody, her spirits rose. Yes! There was a chance that he wasn’t happy and wanted to break up with Rose. Perhaps, oh, just perhaps, please God, let it be, he was becoming bored with her perfect beauty, her immaculate ways.
If he was bubbling over with smiles, his face lit with an inner happiness, her spirits plummeted to the depths, hope quenched, the “ztt” of a tiny flame plunged into water.
Every Monday morning, she showed Mam her plastic mask of untruth, happily talking of Rose and her other friends, Lydiann and Rebecca, and Josh and Abram. She told Mam all about them having had a good weekend.
She had no idea Mam knew. Mam saw the strained smile and the increasing despair, but she decided to let Sarah busily weave her web of unhappiness until she was ready to talk.
As Sarah suspected, there was more than a bushel of tomatoes to pick. The lima beans were ready, and the peach peddler had come the day before with a bargain Mam could not turn down: twenty-two dollars a bushel. My. Oh, my, she said.
Abner’s wife, Rachel, was not well, so Sarah left her a message and offered to do a few bushels for her. That was why the kesslehaus floor was covered in newspaper, piled with ripening peaches. Sarah quartered tomatoes, digging out the green tops with a vengeance. Her mood was as black as the dresses flapping tiredly in the tepid breeze with the rest of the day’s laundry hanging on the wheel line.
“Sarah!” Levi’s loud, whining voice sent an arrow of impatience straight through her.
“What do you want?”
“I want pretzels and Swiss cheese.”
Sarah looked at the clock.
9:37.
It was time for h
is snack, but he’d eaten three eggs for breakfast.
“No.”
“You’re being mean, Sarah.”
“You’re too fat.”
When Levi began to cry, Mam scolded her, drops of sweat beading her upper lip, her face red from the heat.
“You sure are not yourself these days, Sarah. Why would you talk like that to Levi? Bless his heart,” she chided quietly.
“He is too fat.”
“Sarah, he’s always been that way. What is wrong with you?”
“Nothing.”
Dutifully, she laid down her knife, went to the refrigerator, and searched for the cheese. Taking up a block of the fine cheese made in Ohio, she shaved off a few thin slices, put it on a napkin, and added a small mound of Tom Sturgis pretzels.
“He’ll need a drink,” Mam instructed.
Woodenly, her anger just below the surface, she yanked out a two-liter bottle of Diet Pepsi, poured a glassful, added three ice cubes, and took it over to his card table, where another puzzle was half finished.
“You have to help shell lima beans later this afternoon,” she informed him curtly.
Levi looked up at Sarah, his beady, brown eyes as sharp as a hawk’s. “You old grouch.”
Sarah smiled in spite of herself. Her lips widened into a genuine laugh, and she clapped a hand on his shoulder.
“You’re the one who’s a grouch.”
“You know why? I don’t feel good. My stomach hurts. You’re a grouch because you can’t marry Matthew. He likes Rose, and you can’t hardly stand it.”
“Now watch it, Levi,” Mam said. She was not smiling.
As the tomatoes bubbled on the stove, sending their aroma throughout the house, Sarah got down the Victoria strainer and prepared to attach it. She adjusted the part that clamped onto the countertop and held the bowl. She attached the roller and handle, checking to make sure it was properly fastened. Then she turned to her mother and said, “Mam, why can’t I get a job the way the other girls do?”
“Oh, Sarah.”
It seemed as if that statement alone punctured Mam’s sense of well-being as efficiently as a pin stuck in a balloon.
