One Light Still Shines: My Life Beyond the Shadow of the Amish Schoolhouse Shooting

by Marie Monville

While Charlie was still learning to drive the truck, we moved from Lititz back to my hometown of Georgetown, wanting to be closer to our families — and knowing that Charlie would start driving for my grandfather when he had his CDL license. My grandparents had offered to let us put a home on the lot adjacent to their property, the very place I had mowed while healing from the grief of losing Elise. We decided that once Abigail was born, we’d buy a modular house to be placed on the property, and in the meantime, just before Abigail’s due date, we moved into a small makeshift apartment above my grandfather’s truck garage, across the parking lot from Grandpa’s house.

  God’s story for our lives had seemingly been reversed! What had seemed months before to be a tragic story of loss, we now saw as the love story of a family. Not only was I going to be a mother and Charlie a dad, but Charlie was now a driver, and I had gone from milkman’s daughter to milkman’s wife. And my daughter too would be the daughter of the milkman!

  Then came the scare. The pregnancy went well until midsummer, when I started experiencing preterm labor. With my history, the doctors weren’t taking any chances, so they put me on medication to stop the contractions and gave strict orders for bed rest from then on. Charlie and I were both frightened, but this time I had a deeper awareness of God’s presence. I sensed him reassuring me to be at peace, all would be well. I kept returning to God’s promise: I was going to have my Abigail and hold her in my arms.

  The medication they prescribed worked. I had no further issues with preterm labor, though I was still confined to bed rest for the duration of the pregnancy. We were showered with frequent visits and love by our family, something that would not have been possible when we lived farther away in Lititz.

  September 2, 1999, Abigail’s due date: Right on schedule, Abigail began pushing herself into the world that had been waiting for her so long. At 7:30 a.m., Charlie gently walked me to our Ford Explorer and buckled my seat belt for me. If he could have, I think he would have backed the car right into the bedroom so I wouldn’t have to walk. Giddy, we made the thirty-minute drive, laughing and celebrating that we’d made it full term.

  Once we arrived at the hospital and were safely in the birthing room with our midwife, Charlie encouraged me to have an epidural. “I just don’t want you to be in any pain,” he said.

  “Charlie, I’ve waited forever to give birth to our little girl. I don’t want to miss a moment of it. I’d much rather feel her entering this world than have a needle in my spine!”

  What could he say? As most dads have learned — never argue with a wife in labor. So he gave me sips of water and held my hand until she arrived a few hours later.

  The midwife, as agreed, handed him the scissors to cut the umbilical cord. Charlie looked at Abigail, then me, then nervously at the midwife. “I’m not going to hurt her, am I?” he said.

  “She won’t feel a thing,” said the midwife.

  In a flash, the deed was done.

  As I held my baby girl in my arms, I experienced a completely new kind of love, along with heavenly contentment. I breathed deep, savoring the moment I’d waited so long to enjoy.

  Charlie gently took Abigail into his arms, and I was filled with the sweetness of love shared between Charlie and me for this precious gift of life God had given. We marveled at her beautiful pale skin, like a porcelain doll, her vibrant blue eyes and feathery lashes, her delicate fingers and tiny toes. I wondered if she might play the piano. Would those sweet hands dance across ivory keys?

  There was completeness to our family now, wholeness. The pain we’d experienced in the delivery room nearly two years before with Elise was overcome by a surge of rich joy. Having Abigail, I thought, would never fill the void left by Elise, but it brought love unimaginable so that loss was now overshadowed by anticipation of a future together and God’s merciful redemption.

  Our son Bryce was born twenty-two months later. He came tumbling into our world filled with laughter and energy, an inquisitive mind, and enough noise to fill every corner of our house. Abigail was fascinated with her little brother — maybe almost as much as her dad and I. Charlie loved being a father and beamed with pride when we’d take the children to church or to visit family.

  Carson eased into our lives in April 2005, laid-back and happy. His sister was now five and a half years old, his brother four, and he seemed to know instinctively that his role was to make them laugh. Our home was a place of giggles and tickles, stories and songs, tumbles and spills, and everything else that a young couple and three young children bring with them.

  Yet why did those pleasant memories now make me squirm with discomfort? Our prayers had been answered not only with Abigail, but then with Bryce and Carson. Charlie’s dream job had been just what he’d hoped — he’d loved it. Why, so many years after the loss of Elise and Isabella, good years in which we’d lived our dreams, did Charlie’s hidden grief boil over into a murderous rampage? I couldn’t imagine what secret pain had so twisted his heart. I only knew that, to me, it made no sense!

  Careful not to wake Abigail or Bryce, I wiggled my way to a sitting position and propped myself up with a few of Linda’s fluffy down pillows, my arms crossed, my brow furrowed, my frustration intense.

  Our lives had felt beautiful. By October 2006, I had been married almost ten years and loved my role as a wife to Charlie and mom to our three precious children, by then ages seven, five, and eighteen months. Charlie loved and enjoyed our kids and loved his job. Though life wasn’t always easy, we were living our dream.

  Then came the morning of October 2, 2006.

  A call came that shattered that dream into a million fragments.

  The police came with facts too gruesome to speak.

  Questions came without answers.

  But now you must hear the rest: how God came with me into my darkness and lit it with brilliance beyond comprehension.

  After all, this is a love story.

  10

  wall of grace

  The morning of the funeral dawned peacefully. There was a stillness in the neighborhood, as if nature itself was holding back, not wanting to touch the reality of this day. I rose early, knowing that the knot in my stomach would remain a tangled mess until it was all over and we returned, as a family of four, to the sanctuary of my aunt’s home for one last night.

  Even time seemed to stand still. I glanced at the clock often, willing the hands to move faster. It stared back at me in stubborn defiance. My aunt’s home held a flurry of inactivity. We were all trying to find something to do to fill the dragging seconds before leaving for the 10:00 a.m. service. My heart could scarcely hold the truth of this morning. I am going back to the church where we were married almost ten years ago for the funeral ceremony for the only man I ever loved. My children will look upon the casket containing the empty body of their father. How will we endure the next few hours?

  I lifted my heart heavenward, thirsty for the sense of expectancy I’d found on Thursday night and Friday. It did not come that morning. I felt only numbing emptiness.

  We were adorned in our new funeral clothes — outfits that would only be worn this day, then never see the light of day again. They would be buried in the back of a closet somewhere, unworn because of the emotion irrevocably tied to them. All three of the children were quiet and solemn, taking their cues from the unnatural heaviness that seemed to fill the house.

  I slid Charlie’s wedding band upon my finger behind my own rings so it wouldn’t slip off. The phrase Our Promise etched inside now rang hollow. This ring symbolized bonds of love. At our wedding ceremony, we had proclaimed they could never be broken. The idealistic, romantic girl I used to be had thought this to be true. My circumstances now told me otherwise.

  My car had been parked in a neighbor’s garage all week, protecting the secret of my whereabouts. Strange — it was now Saturday, and I hadn’t driven myself anywhere since arriving Monday night.

  I remembered listening to the radio on my way to and from my Bible study on
Monday morning. I’d been a naive twenty-eight-year-old Christian wife and mom whose entire sheltered life had been lived in idyllic Amish country. Would I ever feel like that again? Ordinary? Normal? So much of my life before last Monday morning had been spent assuming that the blessings surrounding us, the gifts placed within our lives, would continue for my lifetime. If we truly realized the treasure we behold each morning as the sun kisses a new day, our lives would be lived differently. I must live differently from this day forward, I promised myself.

  Finally, the time came to leave for the church. I shivered in the cool, breezy air; the clear blue skies of a few days ago were now partly obscured by clouds. I buckled the kids into their car seats and climbed behind the steering wheel. Dad once again took his place of support next to me. How do you thank a father for simply knowing what you need? I asked him if he was going to put on his seat belt. At least some things never change! It felt good to feel a tiny smile tug at the corners of my mouth for an instant.

  As we neared the church, I realized that the trip there had taken less time than I’d expected, and being early didn’t seem like a good idea. I decided to go through the car wash. That would’ve made Charlie happy. He made it a priority to take good care of his belongings. Our cars and his eighteen-wheeler were always spotless.

  An odd thought occurred to me: I had no idea what widows were supposed to do after the day of the funeral. Should I wear black for a while? What do I do with all of his stuff? Those questions and others swirled through my head as foam and spray pelted us in the car wash.

  We pulled into the parking lot at High View Church of God, a place full of memories. I was relieved to see no media trucks. As I approached the glass double doors with Abigail clinging tightly to my right hand and Carson on my left hip, I was hit by the image of Charlie carrying Elise’s tiny coffin out those same front doors. In about an hour, it would be Charlie’s coffin crossing that threshold. Dad’s presence by my side holding Bryce’s hand kept me steady.

  I searched for a happy memory to cling to as I stepped inside. In this building, for six years, I had sung words of praise, helped in the nursery, taught Sunday school, worshiped with Charlie, and pledged the vows of marriage. In more recent years, since becoming part of this church’s launch of Living Faith Church of God, we had returned here with our children for Easter egg hunts and vacation Bible school programs. But those wonderful family memories served only to emphasize the stark reality of the devastation of the Amish families … and my own.

  Many family members and friends had already arrived. My children and I took our seats in the front row, directly in front of Charlie’s closed casket, my parents by our side. My brother and sister sat directly behind us, and Charlie’s parents sat in the front row across the aisle from us. The seating arrangements seemed much like our wedding — Charlie’s family on one side of the aisle, mine on the other. I felt the eyes of the congregation on me but sensed no judgment — only love, compassion, and the reassuring knowledge that their prayers were covering me. I was safe here. My children, their bodies pressed against me, were still and silent, their eyes, like mine, on the coffin.

  More than a third of my twenty-eight years of life had been spent as Charlie’s wife. Yet only now was I able to see something I’d never realized before — not in the aftermath of the shooting, not while talking with my parents, the detectives, or even the counselors: In all honesty, the emotional health of our marriage had been dying for several years. As Charlie had increasingly kept to himself his thoughts and feelings about God and about his sorrow over Elise and Isabella, he had also withdrawn from expressing his heart to me. I realized that I had actually been grieving the loss of emotional closeness for some time. It wasn’t that he had stopped loving me — I never felt that — but in retrospect I could see how the pain within Charlie had overshadowed everything else. He must have fought that battle every day and poured the love he could express upon our children. That was fitting; I would always have wanted them to be the ones who got the most. They deserved it.

  What was said at the brief funeral ceremony eludes my memory. Though I was present in body, my mind was elsewhere. The sounds of Scripture verses being read, music being played, and Pastor Dwight speaking became nothing more than a distant backdrop for the memories of the past twelve years that flooded my mind during the service. Our first date, the day he taught me how to drive a stick shift, long walks together, his picnic proposal, our engagement party, planning for our wedding, pregnancies lost, newborn babies, the joy of children, playing in the sand at the beach on summer vacations. A video of a million memories played back in minutes. How could love and commitment be sown and this tragedy reaped? How could this be my life? Where was the surety of promises made over our children?

  Our youngest sat on my lap and the other two children on either side. I covered them with my arms and embraced them with my heart. I was now all they had — two reduced to one. My efforts would now have to be concentrated and multiplied to fill the hole within their lives. God help me!

  My mind jolted back to the present as the song “All I Want” started playing — my anthem of the past week, a proclamation over our future. My hands lifted as my tears fell. I didn’t try to wipe them; there were too many. I felt God near me; I felt him hold my hands — he was reaching down as I reached up. I succumbed to the compassion and tenderness of Christ and let it wash over me. Gone was the numb emptiness of the morning. In poured the warm presence of the Lord. But I couldn’t allow myself to totally collapse into his arms. I wanted to, but I held in check the urge to let all my emotions surface and flow. I didn’t know what would happen if I did that. I needed the perception of being in control, or my emotions would take over, something I did not want to let happen. My children needed a steady mother, and I needed to retain my composure so that I could greet those who’d come to the service and endure the graveside ceremony.

  The service ended, and we filed out into the church lobby where those in attendance expressed their heartfelt sympathy and concern for our family. Warm embraces reassured me and the children, and tears flowed freely, but I found myself at a loss for words in response. The number of loved ones surrounding us overwhelmed me. Though I knew everyone there cared for us, I felt an impulse that made me feel ashamed: I wanted to gather my children and run from the building. But I couldn’t — there was no way out. So while I appeared calm and collected, a vision of strength and endurance, everything within me quaked.

  We moved to the parking lot in preparation for the fifteen-minute drive to the cemetery. Charlie was to be buried at the little church cemetery in Georgetown, just three houses up the street from our home. Our daughter was also buried there. Charlie would lie next to Elise.

  I wanted to ride in my car to the burial as I had that morning, but I met fierce opposition. My dad and our pastor’s wife, Heather, tried to convince me to ride in the back of a car provided by the funeral home, which would lead the processional. If I rode in the funeral home’s car, I would be riding separately from my kids, and I didn’t want anything to do with that. I finally gave in when I saw that my dad wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  Heather rode with me in the funeral home’s sedan, just behind the hearse. My parents drove my car with my children just behind us, and Charlie’s family followed them. The partly cloudy skies had now clouded over completely; it was dark, cold, and windy. We didn’t take the most direct route to the graveyard, and as we meandered back roads I wondered if this route had been chosen to keep a low profile.

  As we topped the small rise in the road, I expected to see the little white church and cemetery on our right. Instead, I gasped in horror and instantly understood all the steps taken to protect me. Along the grass on our left, across the street from the cemetery, crowded a group of reporters and photographers who held cameras that looked like telescopes. I was mortified. All week my family had been explaining that the media had invaded our town, but I’d not fully grasped what they meant until this mom
ent. The detectives had told me that the police would block off the road, so I hadn’t expected any media here. But I could see now that the reporters and cameramen had parked their trucks beyond the security checkpoint and walked some distance to this spot on the roadside from which they could view the cemetery. Every camera was focused on us. How thankful I was for those dark tinted windows.

  But how would we stay out of the spotlight at the graveside? For the entire week, I’d worked so hard to keep our faces from being strewn across newspaper front pages and television reports. I’d declined interviews and hidden my family from public view. But now what could we do? We had no way to take cover. How would I shield my children?

  I was devastated. Here I was on one of the hardest days of my life, and this intrusion into our privacy only added to the agony. I didn’t want the world to see my heart breaking all over again. I wanted to shout, Let my children weep by the grave of their father in private!

  Slowly our procession turned right into the narrow driveway alongside the church and inched our way toward the small stone parking lot and cemetery tucked behind the church.

  Straight ahead as far as the eye could see were rolling fields of cornstalk stubble dotted with white silos. To our right was the small square cemetery, no more than five car lengths across in either direction. To our left, on my grandfather’s acreage, stood his long green truck garage, easily twice as long as the cemetery.

  Behind us were the reporters, their telephoto lenses fully extended and their cameras clicking. I could almost feel them boring into the back of my head.

  While we were still on the driveway, before we’d even pulled into the little parking lot, a movement caught my eye ahead on the left, behind the corner of my grandfather’s garage. A quick blur of black and blue. I focused on the spot, afraid that some photographers had snuck onto my grandfather’s property to get even closer shots.

  I spotted the rim of a black hat first, clearly Amish. He’d been hidden behind the garage, undoubtedly to avoid being within view of the cameras.