Finding Eliza

by Stephanie Pitcher Fishman

  Ephesians 4:31-32 says, “Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.” I haven’t forgiven. The man who did this isn’t with us any longer. He’s facing his judgment from a far more fair and merciful judge than I would be. I can’t keep blaming his son. He suffered as I have suffered. He carries the weight. It is up to me to forgive and lift his burden.

  My Lord, please extend the grace that You have showed to me to the transgressors of Eliza’s pain and suffering. It has gone on too long.

  Alston closed the diary. He wanted his final entry to be one of forgiveness. “This should have ended years ago.”

  The anger and fear had lived under the surface of his life for decades. Old now, he was no longer able to carry that weight. His wife had passed years ago but his daughter had remained to be the bright shining spot in his life. Her son and daughter-in-law had recently married. His life was good, and he recognized that.

  Walking into the church building, Alston saw Thomas Abernathy. He had prayed in the same pew at the same time every day for decades. Alston slipped into the second pew without interrupting his prayers. Alston glanced up at the stained glass window to the right of him. It was the story of the prodigal son. It was a story of forgiveness and acceptance. It was a story of grace.

  Alston let his hand fall softly on the shoulder of the man in front of him before he spoke.

  “Thomas, son, why do you come here each day to pray?” Alston asked.

  With tears in his eyes, Thomas turned to look at the man behind him. He knew who it was at the sound of his voice. He grew up with the elderly man always in his eyesight and his thoughts.

  “Sir, I pray for forgiveness for what I have done.”

  “And, what’s that, son?”

  “Sir, it’s my fault that your family has suffered. This church is where I destroyed your sister. I’m so sorry.” Resting his elbows on his knees, Thomas bent and leaned into his hands.

  “I shouldn’t have taken this long to reach out to you. Thomas, I forgive you. Do you hear? It has taken me far too long to acknowledge it. I thought that I was just struggling with my own fears and anger. In my old age, I’ve come to realize that you, too, have suffered. You have suffered by your father’s hand and are a victim just like Eliza and Eldridge. I often suspected that you were involved, but I no longer hold you responsible. You were just a child. You didn’t know what you were doing.”

  “But if I hadn’t told my father, sir, your sister and her friend would have stayed living.” Thomas became emotional and overwhelmed.

  Alston moved to stand at the end of the pew next to the weeping man. Alston held out his hand. “Please, Thomas, you have to forgive yourself. God loves you, and so do I. It just took me a while to realize that I had to give you the same grace that I receive. You are hurting, and God wants to heal that hurt.”

  “I don’t know if that’s possible.” Thomas took the elderly man’s hand and cried.

  ***

  Reaching for her Bible, Lizzie looked up the verse that her great-grandfather referenced in his diary.

  “Great, you’re preaching forgiveness, too. That must be where Gran gets it,” Lizzie said into the air as she lay against the headboard of the bed. She had to get out of the house. Her legs needed to stretch, and she needed to rest somewhere where others weren’t. The sun hadn’t quite set, so she still had a little bit of time. She grabbed her purse and jacket, and then headed downstairs.

  As she hit the last step on the staircase she saw that the gals had moved into the sitting room.

  “Sweetie, are you going to the hospital?” Gertrude asked her granddaughter.

  “I’m going to the park. I need to think. You’re welcome to stay as long as you want. I just need to be alone. You can let yourself out.”

  Lizzie was out the back door with nothing more than a wave. She hopped into her Suburban and turned around in the side yard. Gertrude stood watching her through the open curtains as she drove away.

  “I hope you find the peace you need,” Gertrude prayed as she watched her granddaughter turn into a cloud of dust down the dirt road.

  ***

  Lizzie stopped the vehicle in front of her favorite entrance to the park. She left the Suburban parked on the street rather than driving around to the side lot. Even though it wasn’t a dangerous area, with the sun setting Lizzie felt safer with her vehicle close by in case she needed to leave. Unlike the other times she came here to pray, Lizzie felt determined and forceful, not soft and seeking.

  As she walked toward her favorite park bench, Lizzie noticed a white rose that had dropped onto the walking path. It could have been left behind by a wedding procession as they made their way to the park for photos. Perhaps it was a lonely rose that had broken from the bush when children played too close to the flower beds. She stooped to pick it up.

  White for forgiveness, she thought.

  Lizzie sat down on the bench underneath the large tree. She leaned back into the wooden slats and looked up at the stars. The church building across the street was open in the evenings for those who wanted to pray, but she needed to be in the open air where she could see the sky in all its glory. She felt like she could look through the stars tonight and speak directly to God. Lizzie had been through Sunday School for enough years as a child to know that she could pray anywhere. For her, the combination of nature and family connections to the park made her feel safe when things were tough.

  She sighed and began to think. Looking around to confirm that she was alone, she began talking out loud.

  “Lord, I don’t know what you are expecting me to do with this. I know that with You all things are possible. Yet, this feels like a load that I can no longer carry. I am so weary, Father. So angry. I feel as though it’s been one trial after another. First it was my parents, and now I’m facing this situation with Mr. Thomas. I understand You want us to give forgiveness and grace, but in a situation where there is a murder it seems so wrong.”

  Pulling out her cell phone, Lizzie started searching her Bible app for the word forgiveness. Shocked, she saw page after page returned in the search results.

  “Psalm 102:3: He forgives all your iniquities. He heals all your infirmities.” Lizzie clicked on another search result. “Matthew 6:14-15: For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

  Without warning, Lizzie burst into tears.

  “You’ll forget me? You’ll stop forgiving me if I can’t forgive the murder of two young teenagers? I need you Lord. You’ve taken so much from me. You took my parents and now you’re taking Mr. Thomas. You’ll take Yourself from me, too?”

  Instead of anger, Lizzie felt true despair. She tapped the screen on her app to find another reference in scripture. She needed to find something that justified her anger toward Thomas. No matter what she read, Lizzie found the command to forgive others. Verse after verse confirmed to Lizzie that she had to ask for forgiveness to live out her faith in full.

  She began to pray again and soon she found herself confessing her own sins as Thomas had confessed his. She cried out for forgiveness for her role in her parents’ car accident. Lizzie had prayed for forgiveness in the past, but this time she felt an overwhelming peace as she said the words. She felt a peace that erased the guilt that had held her captive for the last twenty years.

  Opening her eyes, she looked toward the church across the street. Her eyes landed on the stained glass window that her great-grandfather had always mentioned in his diary. In bright colors she saw The Parable of the Prodigal Son. Lizzie knew exactly what she had to do.

  She had to accept the grace that the Lord had given her, and she had to extend the same grace to Thomas.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Lizzie walked through the hospital’s
front doors. She stood inside the large, glass rotunda that housed the welcome desk and admission cubicles. She looked around the space for signs pointing toward the Emergency wing when she spotted Jack near the elevator with his cell phone in his hand.

  “I was just trying to call you,” Jack said as he reached for his wife. He pulled her close by the sleeve of her shirt and gave her a tight hug that melted the stress away. “Are you okay? Your grandmother said that you left a few hours ago. I was getting worried since it was getting dark.”

  “I’m fine. I needed to be completely alone for a while before I could sort out what I needed to do.”

  “Did it work?” Jack looked at his wife before he led her to a bank of chairs against the wall of windows that overlooked the parking lot.

  “It did. I think that I’ve finally figured it out. I know that I’ve been difficult to live with, Jack. I do. It’s been all coming to a head as Gran says. I think I’ve finally made sense of it. Sitting alone in the park, I had my moment with God.”

  “Your moment?” Jack asked. He had the confused look on his face that Lizzie loved so much. It caused his nose to wrinkle and his laugh lines by his eyes to dance back and forth. It never ceased to amaze her how wrinkles looked good on this man.

  “I learned about forgiveness, Jack. I need to give myself forgiveness and grace. Scripture was jumping out at me left and right tonight. I had to let it go, Jack. I can’t move forward unless I realize that I can’t hold onto all the heaviness of that night.” Lizzie leaned back into the chair and tilted her head to look outside toward the stars that she loved so much.

  “This is all about Mr. Thomas and what happened tonight?”

  “No, in fact, it went beyond that. I finally forgave myself. I know that I didn’t cause my parents’ accident. I get it now.”

  Jack grabbed his wife in a hug that seemed to melt away any stress remaining between the couple.

  “I knew you’d get there,” he said with a smile. “What made the difference this time?”

  “I understand now that the anger is just going to eat me up. Alston taught me that. He taught me that God will give us the grace and forgiveness we need to make peace with ourselves. To do that, we need to forgive others first. I can’t keep going in circles, Jack. It’s going to eat me up if I do.”

  “You have no idea how good that is to hear coming from you.”

  Lizzie held her husband’s hand. “I can’t explain it, but I feel lighter. I feel happier. Isn’t that strange?”

  “Not at all. It sounds like you’ve finally found peace. In finding what happened to Eliza, you found what you needed yourself.”

  Lizzie hadn’t thought of it that way, but her husband was right. She thought that the journey through the diary was about finding out what happened to Eliza. She had never been so wrong.

  “What do you want to do about Mr. Thomas?”

  “I want to see him, Jack. I have to make sure he knows I forgive him before it’s too late.”

  “Then, let’s go.” Jack took his wife by the hand and led her to the elevator that led to the cardiac unit. The short ride gave him just enough time to fill Lizzie in on the latest updates.

  As soon as they stepped out of the elevator, Avery’s stomach dropped.

  “Avery, how’s your grandfather?” Lizzie asked while she gave him a hug.

  “The doctors think that they caught it in time. It was a heart attack, but it wasn’t massive. They expect him to head home before the end of the week. I didn’t expect to see you here. Are you all right?” Avery’s face showed the effects of stress and worry.

  “I’m not here to hold a grudge, Avery. I’ve made my peace with the situation. I hope that you can, too. We can’t carry around the sins of our past, especially when what happened was out of our control. The choices your great-grandfather made that night were his and his alone. Your grandfather was just a child. Children can’t hold onto the guilt of the bad things that happen in life. It’s taken me a lifetime to figure that out.”

  Avery sat down in the nearest chair. He looked shocked, and like the weight of the world had been lifted from his shoulders.

  “Lizzie, thank you. Do you think that you could tell Gramps that? He’s so worried that he’ll lose the special relationship that he has with you.”

  “That’s why I came here. I need him to know that I understand.”

  “Let’s go see him then. He’s resting but awake,” said Avery as he led her down the hall to Thomas’ room.

  Lizzie peeked around the corner and saw Thomas. To her, he looked like he had aged a decade in a few hours. His head was leaning back on a stack of several pillows. Eyes closed, his breathing was a little more labored than usual. Lizzie wasn’t sure if it was his health or the stress of the situation, but she was glad that she came when she did. She eased herself onto the edge of his bed and took his hand into hers.

  “Mr. Thomas?” she whispered.

  “Lizzie. I’m so glad to see you. I wanted to apologize, honey. I am so sorry for what I did.” The elderly man started crying softly as he turned his face away from her.

  “Now, now, Mr. Thomas. Please don’t cry. I understand. I do. You were a child. You didn’t do anything wrong.” Lizzie leaned over to give her old friend a hug. “I want you to know something. My Grandpa Alston forgave you, too. He never blamed you once for what happened. The sins of our fathers are not our own. We have God’s grace, Mr. Thomas, and we have to share that grace with each other.”

  Thomas wiped his eyes with a handkerchief that Avery handed him. “Are you sure about your great-grandfather? He told me that he forgave me, but I was never really sure that he truly felt that way. He loved his sister so much. That’s not something you can live through without harboring blame.”

  “No, sir. My great-grandfather didn’t live that way. There was no grudge against you. It’s time to forgive yourself like he forgave you.” Lizzie reached into her bag for her great-grandfather’s diary. “Here, I’ll show you.”

  Lizzie spent the next few minutes going through the diary with Thomas and Avery. With each entry she could see the stress and fear roll off not only Thomas’ face but off Avery’s as well. As she read the final entry, Thomas reached for her hand.

  “Thank you, sweetheart.” He brought Lizzie’s hand to his parched lips and gave her a kiss. “You’ve done this old man a load of good tonight. I’ve been carrying that burden for years. I have been scared of you finding out for so long.”

  “You don’t have to be scared anymore, Gramps,” said Avery.

  Lizzie placed the diary back into her bag and returned to sit on the foot of the bed. “If you’d like to do something for me you can tell me about my Aunt Eliza. I don’t mean the details of this ordeal. I want to focus on her life, not her death. Did you know her?”

  “Lizzie, dear, I adored your aunt. She was a good few years older but she always took the time to spend a moment with me at church or as we were walking to school. She was a gentle soul.” Thomas shifted to sit up higher in bed. “Everyone loved her.”

  “It sounds like they did. I would have liked to meet her.”

  “I wish you could have. It doesn’t surprise me that she never recovered from what happened though. Her spirit was so loving that she didn’t understand the pain and anger in the world. The world lost a brilliant light when she died.”

  Lizzie smiled at the picture that he painted of Eliza.

  “Gramps, how did you avoid becoming involved in the activities of the Klan with your father?” Avery stood against the wall across the room with his arms crossed over his chest. “That must have been hard for you to deal with as a child.”

  “I was always a disappointment to my father. I wasn’t able to handle the same types of things that my brother could. I wasn’t able to slaughter the animals on the farm during killing times. I never was able to reconcile what they did to Eldridge and Eliza. I think he had given up on me.”

  “Lucky for you,” said Jack. He had been so quiet t
hat Lizzie had almost forgotten he was in the room.

  “I don’t know that my mother would have let him if he tried. I remember the night that he took me to watch what they were doing. She was screaming and begging him to leave me alone. She didn’t stand a chance. My father was a rough man who didn’t mind taking a hand to her any more than he did to me or my brother. I think my mother was beat worse that day than I was for running away.”

  “What do you mean?” Avery lowered himself into the chair next to his grandfather’s bed. “I don’t understand.”

  “I told you that I was behind the tree that night. It scared me beyond anything that I had ever seen. I wasn’t expecting the screams. The look on their faces as the men hooted and hollered around them was a fear that I can’t wipe from my mind. I ran. I waited for a time when my father wasn’t looking, and I ran. I ran till I couldn’t stop. I didn’t have a neighbor to turn to or other family that wasn’t involved so I didn’t know where to go. My mother was damaged after the beating she took, so I couldn’t expect her to protect me. I hid in the barn for the night. It took him until the next afternoon to find me. I thought I wasn’t going to live after that beating.”

  Lizzie sat listening in disbelief. Her grandmother had told her of Greer’s cruelness, but she didn’t expect to hear that he unleashed it upon his own family.

  “Mr. Thomas, I’m so sorry you had to go through that,” said Lizzie.

  “Gramps, your life had to be difficult. I never knew. Mama didn’t talk about it much.”

  “I wouldn’t expect that she would. She wanted to be out of reach from the world my father created. He was a cruel man.”

  “Gramps, you need to talk to her about this. She doesn’t know much about this period in our family, and I think you could clear up a lot of her questions. She needs the chance to heal, too.”