by Kerri Rawson
After a long day of driving, we arrived the second night at a roadside motel in Flagstaff that was set alongside railroad tracks. Not long after we’d all fallen asleep, a train went barreling by. I sat straight up in bed and screamed, waking up the boys, who were in sleeping bags on the floor. I looked over and saw my dad’s maps and a current National Geographic magazine laid out on a small table near the window, illuminated by a hazy yellow streetlight.
Though my mom was the one who usually calmed me down at night, Dad was able to put me at ease, saying, “Kerri, it’s okay—just a train, nothing to be scared of. They are going to be running all night—hear the rattles and rumbles on the tracks? It’s a good sound to sleep by.”
The next morning, we drove to the canyon and set up our tents in a campground surrounded by towering pines near the South Rim. The boys and I tossed a football under the aromatic trees, needles crunching as I hurried to catch their throws. A good climbing tree was in our camp, and each of us kids tried it during the week.
We spent the next four days exploring, covering a good expanse of the rim trail and hiking down the Bright Angel and Kaibab trails. The canyon was a daytime oasis of warmth and color, showing signs of the coming summer. The rim was awash in early spring coolness, still hanging on to winter. At night, I tucked myself into my sleeping bag and rolled up against my dad, trying to stay warm in our forest-green, two-man tent. Our breath froze overnight, crystallizing on the blankets we’d thrown over ourselves.
Ice pelleted our ponchos one evening as Dad and I walked down to the pay phone to call and check in with Mom. We’d been quite cold, freezing in the desert, but even with the rougher conditions for camping, we’d caught the hiking bug. The last trail we went down was Hermit. While eating lunch in Waldron Basin, a mile and a half below the rim, the vastness of the canyon called to us. Majestic expanses, rising high, were just out of our reach for a day trip. We vowed to each other then: we would return.
When I got back home, I quit track. I was suffering from shin splints, and the steep trails in the canyon had aggravated them. Leaving track meant I could go straight home from school and crash on the couch before tackling homework. I expected a lecture for quitting, worried Dad would be disappointed in me, but he just shrugged and said, “That’s all right, kiddo. Your studies are more important.”
Not long after we got back, Dad started planning our next trip, researching camping overnight below the rim. And then a whole heck of a lot of life—the hard, unexpected kind—happened. Back then, I figured, I was going through the worst days I would ever see.
CHAPTER 7
Allow Yourself to Grieve
AUGUST 1996
WICHITA
On a Wednesday afternoon in August 1996, I was working one of my last days at Snacks when I felt a sudden, sharp stab in my chest. Pressing down on the pain with my hand, I turned toward my mom, who was sitting feet away in her tiny office, and said, “Mama, my heart hurts—something’s wrong.”
Grandma Eileen’s heart had taken on a similar ailing, and late that evening she called to tell us Aunt Sharon’s family had been in an accident out in Colorado, where they were vacationing. Mom and I, concerned, hurried down the street to her parents’ house where we found Grandma Eileen and Granddad Palmer in the dining room, waiting for a phone call.
Grandma sat with her fingers interlaced around a cup of coffee. Her cloudy blue eyes, tucked behind light-brown frames, searched into the space around us, landing on our worried faces.
Granddad, who still had a head full of hair I thought made him look boyish even though it was silver gray, was sitting ramrod straight in a sleeveless white undershirt. It was hard to see him quiet, pained; he often joshed around, full of life.
I curled up on the floor next to my mom and pressed my head into her side when the phone rang.
Mom answered, speaking to Andrea.
I caught it in Mom’s voice, breaking, high: “What, honey?”
Michelle had died.
I crumbled over, screeching out in pain.
Andrea, age twenty-two, told us they were jeeping when a rain-soaked, narrow road gave way under their jeep, which rolled down into a deep ravine. Andrea, injured, climbed out and hiked for help along the road.
They were in such a remote location that it took hours for rescue crews to reach them. Uncle Bob, also injured, did what he could for twenty-year-old Michelle, whose injuries were fatal, and for Aunt Sharon, who’d been airlifted to a nearby hospital and was fighting for her life.
Grandma turned pale, her hands shaking as she grasped my mom’s arm. Granddad hunched over, putting his hands on his knees, anguished by the loss of his granddaughter, fearful for the life of his daughter.
When Dad came through the front door, I got to my feet and rounded the hallway corner. Standing in my grandparents’ living room, Dad’s eyes shrouded in gray, his face darkened, and his countenance broke. I rushed into his arms, so grieved I could barely stand.
I’d never seen the men I loved ever look that way, and I didn’t know what to do about it. My heart bottomed out.
The night we lost Michelle was one of the worst nights of my life. Michelle died in an accident, but after my father’s arrest, after I learned about his murders, I grieved the sudden, irreplaceable losses that seven families had to go through because of my father.
That night, Dad had walked down to my grandparents’—right by Mrs. Hedge’s old house. It’s still not fully possible for me to reckon these two sides of the same man.
Back home, I found Michelle’s high school senior photo from two years before. She was grinning, her bright blue eyes twinkling, her long, light-brown hair streaked with sun. An abundance of yellow poppies surrounded her under a piercing blue Kansas sky. I ran my thumb across the photo and placed it in a small light-blue frame, setting it on my desk.
I dug around in my desk drawer for a small inspirational book given to me at graduation. It had several Bible verses in it, and flipping through them offered the first small piece of solace. I set it next to Michelle’s picture, along with a small wooden angel with twisted metal wings.
Mom came in and sat on the corner of my bed, gently brushing my hair away from my face. We talked softly late into the night, sharing stories about the girl we loved till I fell asleep.
The next morning, there were a few seconds when I didn’t remember what had happened. Then the pain came rushing back to my chest, and I cried out.
Coming to my side, Mom stroked my hair again as the dark waves hit. She told me the doctors were able to save my aunt’s badly fractured leg and foot in a complicated surgery, and she was now recovering in the ICU from several injuries. It would be some time before she was well enough to travel home to Wichita, so my grandparents were packing to drive out to Colorado to help.
Later that morning, I sat on the couch with my knees tucked under me while Pastor Sally, from our church, tried to offer comfort. I was wearing an old T-shirt and baggy pants I’d slept in and picking at a lemon poppy-seed muffin.
I felt my anger rising. I was having none of it. I didn’t want platitudes. I didn’t want to hear about God. Michelle was gone.
My faith began to wane in September 1992, a month into my freshman year, when two boys died after their pickup rolled a block from school. That fall, I sat down with Pastor Sally, whom I’d taken confirmation classes with. I told her I couldn’t reconcile what happened down the street with God, who I wasn’t even sure existed.
My heart was hardening but Mom ignored it, insisting I wear a white dress and take an oath of confirmation. In November 1992, I stood up in front of my family and congregation, appearing obedient, hiding a growing defiance in my soul. No one seemed fazed by my choice of scripture to read: “‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts.’”1
Even conversations with my family about the Bible were frowned upon. One Sunday, while turning out of the church parking lot, I brought up the sermon, but straitlaced Dad quickly shut it down, decl
aring curtly, “We don’t talk about religion, sex, or politics.”
In April 1995 two men blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, a few hours south of Wichita, killing 168 people, including 19 children. For the next several days, my family and I watched national news coverage of the recovery efforts. Where was God then?
Where is God now?
After the pastor left, the phone kept ringing. It echoed from the kitchen and my parents’ bedroom, followed by Mom’s voice catching.
I told her, “I’ve had enough,” and headed to my best friend Rita’s house. We had grown close over the past few years in high school, surviving advanced placement classes during the week and catching the latest blockbusters at the movie theater on the weekend. She greeted me at her door with a big hug, her normally bright blue eyes darkened with concern.
I hid out at her home the rest of the day, watching movies and talking about leaving for Kansas State University soon; we were going to be roommates. I was fighting to numb the sorrow that kept catching in my throat; I’d be able to go a stretch without crying—then the stinging pain would come back and I’d weep again. I was embarrassed by my swollen red eyes and face at dinner that night with her family, but thankful to be included. I didn’t want to leave the warmth around their dining table and go back to my house tight with grief.
Four days after the accident, I unfolded our thick Sunday Eagle and saw an article about it on the front page. It was surreal to read about those I loved in peril in the mountains. Later I carefully folded the paper and tucked it away to keep.
I spent the next week packing for college in a blur, and on a Friday morning, after Dad and Brian stacked the back of my grandpa’s Suburban full, my family set off on a two-hour drive to Manhattan, Kansas. We stood in line at the old Kansas State gymnasium to finish my registration, where my first student loan check was handed to me.
Rita and I were living in Boyd Hall, an all-girls residence beautifully crafted out of limestone in 1951. Our dorm room was in a sizable corner, with a lofted ceiling. It had a good view of Quinlan Natural Area, which sat across a circle drive.
On Sunday, standing in my doorway, my mom was in tears as she said goodbye. She and I’d been at odds that morning and now we were parting ways roughly. I was likely being difficult because it was easier to push her away than be sad over her leaving me. It didn’t strike me till later how hard it must have been for her to let me go.
I was on the pre-vet track, hoping to make it into veterinary school in two years. Scrambling between the massive limestone buildings on campus, collecting a pile of syllabi, I began to wonder how I’d keep up with my sixteen-hour credit load. It had seemed like a reasonable number of courses when I enrolled a few months before, after sitting down with my adviser for a few minutes. She’d said, “You seem very capable,” as she signed off on my slip, a long line of students waiting behind me.
The first week of college passed by quickly, as I spent time hanging out with old friends and making new ones. On Friday afternoon, I loaded up a basket of laundry, textbooks, black shoes, and dress clothes, and headed home for the long Labor Day weekend. We were having Michelle’s memorial on Monday; I knew I needed to be there and wanted to be with my family, but I was dreading facing it too.
For dinner Friday evening, Mom made cheese manicotti, a favorite of our family, putting in a good deal of effort after working all day. I was glad to be home, but when the four of us sat down, tensions from the past weeks boiled over, landing us in an argument. Someone pounded on our old, rickety brown table, one of the metal legs popped out, and the table and all its dishes crashed down.
My dad, red-faced, wound tight, leaped up from his chair, full of rage. Standing in the middle of broken plates, tomato sauce, and noodles, he lunged at my brother. Facing him, putting his hands around his neck, Dad began to choke him.
Dad’s eyes and face were blazing, close to manic. My brother, terrified, turned white. Yelling, Mom and I pushed at Dad and were able to break it up.
Dad stepped back and shook his head, and as his eyes began to clear, his shoulders slumped. With his head down, he said, “Ah heck, let’s get this mess cleaned up.”
With a flash of anger in her eyes and firmness in her voice, Mom said, “We’ll handle it. You go outside.”
While helping Mom pick up broken pieces of plates and glasses, I glanced at her with uncertainty, my face questioning what had just happened. As she cleaned the floor, she had tears in her eyes. With weariness in her voice, she said, “You haven’t been here this past week. It’s been a lot. You’ve been gone.”
Dad’s temper was unpredictable. He’d threatened us kids before but had never physically hurt us, let alone tried to strangle one of us.
All families get into arguments, but what my father did was inexcusable. Yet, at the time, we dismissed it. It’d been that way as long as I could recall: Dad is under a lot of stress. He just lost control. He didn’t mean it. He will apologize soon.
On the exterior, our family looked like the American dream, and I’d grown up believing that very thing. I tucked away, deep within me, this outburst of my father’s, telling no one till he was arrested. What would have happened if we had called the police that night? Would they have done anything? Would they have questioned him enough to find decades-long terror hiding behind his rage? These questions still haunt me.
CHAPTER 8
Attempt to Outrun What Haunts You
SEPTEMBER 1996
Three days later, my family dressed up and quietly drove to Michelle’s memorial. It was held downtown at the Wichita Boathouse, where Michelle had taught kids to row that past summer along the banks of the Arkansas River.
My heart lifted when I saw my grandparents arrive in the family room before the service. I was glad to stand close to Grandma Dorothea, her warm brown eyes looking into mine with concern while holding my hands between hers. It was good to give Grandpa Bill, taller than any of us at six foot one, a big hug—to have his kind, reassuring presence there.
Grandpa’s battle with leukemia had taken his hair, but not his inner fortitude. A man of steady faith, I’d never heard him complain once about what he was enduring. Just by being there, he was telling us we’d get through.
How could we have known my high school graduation party, three months ago, would be the last time we would all be together? We had a houseful gathered around folding tables set up in our living room, just as we always did. There was a heap of food, and dessert was Mom’s chocolate sheet cake with homemade ice cream churned out on the patio by Dad.
We six cousins on Mom’s side, including A. D.’s older brother, Jason, had our picture taken in my family’s front yard that day. We were full of smiles, standing shoulder to shoulder in front of our tall pine tree and swaying pampas grass.
The memorial service was held in a large open room, packed with people who knew our family. Granddad Palmer kept patting us kids on the shoulders, and Grandma Eileen kept taking our hands. Both of their faces were shadowed with heartbreak.
As sunlight poured in from the tall windows that surrounded us, Michelle’s testimony was shared. She was a Christian; she had accepted Jesus as her Savior in college the year before. Verses from John were read: “My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”1
I’d heard about God and Jesus for eighteen years at our church. But I didn’t know them. Not the way Michelle did.
Three weeks before she passed away, I stayed a few days with her while her folks were away on a short trip. She slept upstairs and gave me her bedroom downstairs. Her Bible and other books on faith were stacked next to her bed, with prayer notes and bookmarks sticking out.
I didn’t even know where my Bible was.
Late on a Sunday morning, I crawled out of bed and walked into her den. Miche
lle was sitting cross-legged on the floor in her pink PJs with a bowl of cereal, her hair up in a loose ponytail. The funny papers were spread out next to her, her two schnauzers were lying close by, and the Atlanta Olympics were on in the background. She looked right with the world, and I should have asked then about her stack of books and her Bible.
But I hadn’t.
Instead I joined her with my own bowl of cereal, and we watched rowing, talking about what it might take to get to the 2000 Olympics.
That weekend was the last time I saw her.
If I’d only known, I would have stayed several more days and asked her about Jesus.
After the service, I hugged Andrea for a long time, her forest-green eyes full of heartache. The two of us looked hard into each other’s faces—trying to reassure the other we were going to be okay.
Aunt Sharon, blonde and petite like Andrea, sat in a wheelchair holding a basket of flowers in her lap. Her face was weary, but her sea-green eyes were determined; she was going to get all of us through this. Uncle Bob, slim, near my height, with brown hair and blue eyes that matched Michelle’s, was standing quietly behind the wheelchair, holding on to the handles. He’d steadily reply, “We’re hanging in there, doing all right,” as folks offered condolences and hugs, trying to reassure others they’d be all right too.
On that bright, last summer holiday, the five remaining cousins walked to a nearby bridge and tossed daisies into the river below. On a cool spring day the year before, I’d stood on a bridge a few miles north of there in Riverside, cheering for the girl who’d flown down the river with her college crew. Running across the bridge as they rowed under it, I was able to yell from both sides.
Now that girl was gone, and I watched white flowers float slowly south till I couldn’t see them anymore.
That evening, Rita and I rode back to college with A. D. and Jason’s mom, Aunt Donna. While heading north on Route 77, a two-lane highway that dips and rises above the western edges of the Flint Hills, I tried to catch a glimpse of the stars through my passenger window. George Strait was singing “Love Without End, Amen” through the tape deck as I placed my head against the cool pane of glass. Would life ever hurt this much again?
