They had been young and full of pain and combat,
and now all this was dead in them; they smiled
mildly, feebly, gently…spoke in thin voices…
looked at one another with eyes dead to desire,
hostility, and passion…

—Thomas Wolfe
_____________

He passed away quietly that Friday morning, a few hours before sunrise. His health had deteriorated in the last few years. He had not been able to get around very well for some time, and used a walker. But still, his final demise was unexpected and abrupt. He suddenly took a turn for the worse and weakened quickly. And by that Friday morning he was gone.

I didn’t know Uncle Virgil Stoll that well. Sure, I knew who he was. The man who married my mother’s older sister Mary, way back when. A quiet man, from all I’d ever seen. And from all I’d ever heard about him. A quiet man, content in the background. Never raising his voice, never inserting himself. Just minding his own business. In quietness and confidence was his strength.

I knew him when I saw him. But I didn’t really know him or his family, if that makes any sense. Who they really were. What they really were. Their children, my first cousins, might as well be strangers from another planet.

The same is true of host of other relatives in Daviess, mostly on my mother’s side. A host of first cousins. I wouldn’t know them if I met them on the street. It’s always been so. But after Uncle Virgil’s passing, I got to thinking. And brooding about the reasons why.

My mother’s parents, John and Mattie Yoder, were solid Daviess County stock. Old blood. Their home farm, where Mom was raised, is just a mile or two north and east of Montgomery. I’ve never been on the place. Parts of the house still exist, where she was born. I want to stop by sometime, and check it out. Take a tour.

She had a bunch of siblings. Brothers and sisters. Rachel. Leah. William. Mary. Sarah. Joe. Ben. Anna. Except for Leah, who died as a young girl, all of them remained in Daviess after my parents moved out many decades ago.

It’s strange and tragic, really, when you think about it. Strange, how a few stark decisions made more than sixty years ago still affect my family and our connections to my mother’s side. And tragic, how they always will.

I want to be careful here. Not to come across too harshly. It’s not like anything can be done about the distant past. And it’s not that we were all somehow irreparably traumatized. We really weren’t. But still, when one looks back over the years, and examines the reasons why things were done as they were, one can perhaps expose the empty futility of strident religious dogma. Relentless and arbitrary, borne of absolute conviction of right and wrong. And the harsh words and deeds that followed.

And one can reflect honestly, without rancor. At least, one can try.

My father returned from his service as a Conscientious Objector after WWII. Returned to Daviess, rejoined my mother and they purchased a little farm not far from her parents’ place. The farm was along the main drag on Montgomery Road, about four miles from town. They lived there for a few uneasy years, but Dad was restless. And not entirely content with the way things were going in Daviess. Which was fine. That’s how it was, and who he was.

He never got along all that well with Mom’s family. The Yoders were pretty laid back, not as driven or hard core Amish. Not like Dad. And that’s not unusual, either. Or necessarily bad. Personality conflicts often mar in-law relationships.

But things got worse after the Mt. Zion Amish Mennonite Church, also known as the Block Church, was founded. A car church. Most of Mom’s family, including her parents, abandoned the Amish and joined the Blocks. I’m not sure if that happened after my parents had already left Daviess. But after they defected, Dad made a fateful decision. He was determined that his children would have as little exposure as possible to Mom’s family.

In 1950, my parents moved to a little fledgling community in Piketon, Ohio. From that date to the present, Mom was pretty much separated, walled off from her family in Daviess. As were her children, at least until they reached adulthood.

Dad was right, in his mind. I don’t begrudge him that, or question his resolve. But still, from where I am today, I really wonder what the man was thinking. How could he believe that his children would not one day grow up and realize what he had done? That we would not one day ask why? How could he not see that, back then? A very intelligent man, he must have been caught up in the frenzied righteousness of his cause. He did have a reputation to protect. As a writer and all, especially after moving to Aylmer. Editor and founder of Family Life. Author of dozens of didactic little stories. Where everything always worked out, and the Amish way was always portrayed as right and true.

Maybe he was just shortsighted. Whatever his motives, he was certainly all too human.

Eleven children. That’s how many were in my family. Six sons and five daughters. We grew up, mostly in Aylmer, in a world devoid of any real knowledge of our back- ground or our Yoder heritage. By decree, we were raised as pure Waglers. But the Yoder blood still pulsed within us, and always would.

To their enormous credit, Mom’s siblings made the pilgrimage to Aylmer to see her, since she was rarely allowed to return to Daviess. Even when my parents traveled back to visit, Dad mostly kept her at his relatives’ homes, while she silently pined to see her family. So they showed up at our home, her siblings, usually during the summer about every two years, and stayed for a day or two. Even then, it was always a strained and joyless thing. While they were there, dark thunderclouds hovered, and pure tension rippled through our house. You could have cut it with a knife. I marvel that they ever came again, after the first few times. It couldn’t have been easy, to return. But they did, because they loved their sister.

They had families, most of her siblings. Children our age. We rarely, if ever, saw them. Our first cousins. We grew up in different worlds, and our connection by blood simply could not span the borders of those worlds.

And so we were “protected” from our non-Amish cousins, from our uncles and aunts. Allowed to associate only with the Amish relatives. We didn’t know enough to realize what was going on, or if we did, we could not grasp the senseless cruelty of it all.

And the years flowed on. And on. To the present day. Of the eleven children in our family, only three remain Old Order Amish. That’s not a good percentage, by any standard. It was all in vain. All that “protection,” all those arbitrary walls erected to keep us from our non-Amish kin. My father’s strategy worked flawlessly in only one respect. We never really got to know them and we probably never will. Not like we would have. Not like we should have.

I’m sure if my father had it all to do over again, things would be different. Vastly different, by his own admission. And therein lies perhaps the deepest tragedy in this narrative. He was a gifted man, a visionary with myriad talents who stubbornly pursued his dreams, sailing boldly where no one had sailed before. A giant among his people, a man who influenced tens of thousands, a man who reached the pinnacle of fame and honor within the boundaries of his culture, a man now approaching the sunset of a long and productive life.

And here, at this point, at the journey’s end, he is realizing too late the utter futility of the strident, hard core Amish polemics that defined so much of who he was. Realizing too late that so much of what was so important to him a lifetime ago has crumpled to dust and ashes at his feet.

Much of what truly mattered in life passed him by, because of his choices. And as he has discovered, we rarely get second chances at things like that.

Sometimes there is a second chance, if one is young enough to change. Or decides to change at any age. In either case, it’s rare. But it can happen. That’s one reason, maybe the main reason I’m writing this, for those who might yet pull back from the brink while they still can. While there is still life left to live.

Family is family and blood is blood. And there is no more to say.

Uncle Virgil and Aunt Mary stayed with the Daviess Amish church. Raised a family. And then, in the late 1970s, they left too. Joined the Block church, I suppose, or some similar “car church.” Now Mom was the only one who remained Amish, in all her family. I can’t say for sure whether my father admonished Virgil about the matter, when he had a chance. I can’t imagine any other scenario. Virgil probably smiled serenely and remained silent.

In 1997, Mary was struck with Alzheimers. She sank rapidly into that twilight existence where her body remained healthy after her mind had fled. The same place in which my mother resides today. Virgil faithfully and quietly remained with his wife and cared for her. For ten years. He didn’t get out much. Just stayed with her, the woman he loved from his youth.

In 2007, after a decade of suffering, she was mercifully released. I remember hearing the news with barely a twinge. She was a stranger to me. I don’t know if any in my family attended the funeral. I suppose a few may have, but I don’t know that. I hope someone did.

And then he was alone. He stayed with his daughters and their families. Reveled in his grandchildren.

I had not seen him in years, I don’t even remember the last time. And then, in late July, I made a rare one-day trip to Daviess. A gathering of sorts, that I wanted to attend. Virgil showed up, accompanied by his son or son-in-law. He hobbled slowly with the help of a walker. Sat there on a bench. I saw him from across the yard, and eventually went and sat beside him. We visited. He knew who I was. I should have had a picture taken of the two of us. But I didn’t. Never even crossed my mind. That’s my loss.

A few weeks later he was gone. He passed away in the early hours of Friday, August 13, 2010. I don’t know when his family realized the end was imminent. Probably at some point during the previous evening. The children came to be with him. As the night hours passed, he slipped in and out of consciousness.

He stirred now and then. And twice, he looked off into the distance and called his wife’s name. “Mary!”

They may have sensed her presence, the others in the room, but their eyes could not behold her.

“Do you see her? Do you see Mom?” They asked. His sunken face lit up. He smiled and nodded. Yes.

And by the time the sun came up, he had quietly slipped away to join her.

This earth, this life, that is…that we have seen and known…
that has broken our hearts, maddened our brains, and torn
the sinews of our lives asunder….

Quick are the mouths of earth, and quick the teeth
that fed upon this loveliness. You, who were made
for music, will hear music no more: In your dark
house, the winds are silent…

—Thomas Wolfe
_____________

I don’t know the family, or the particular characters involved. But from the second I heard it weeks ago, the tragic drama of the story deeply moved me. With a keen sense of awe and horror and disbelief. I’d never heard anything quite like it before, and couldn’t shake it off. That’s why I took the time to write a “real” blog this week.

Tragedies unfold around us every day. People die unexpectedly. Sometimes violently. From accidents on the road, in cars and on motorcycles. And countless other fluky ways. Each time, we read about it, hear about it, and other than normal reactions of sympathy, shrug it off. If we don’t know the victims involved, at least, that’s what we do. And that’s fine. We can’t be walking around, burdened by every tragedy. Wouldn’t be healthy, the continuous mental strain.

Some few of you who read this will recognize the details and know the names. But it’s really not that important, who they are. Ordinary people, living their lives as best they can in accordance with the dictates of their faith. I know of them, near kin to a few of my closest friends in Lancaster County. And from my friends I heard the story.

The family used to live here, in Lancaster County. Solid Amish stock. Then, some years ago, they moved to upstate New York. Some plain community, Beachy or Charity or some such ubiquitous group. Anymore, from my perspective, those groups all seem pretty much the same. The family adapted well, both to the new area and the new lifestyle.

There were children. Eight daughters and two sons. A large family, by any standards other than the Amish. In time, the older children grew into adulthood.

They lived on a farm in their new community. Scrabbled a living from the tough rocky upstate New York soil. The father also had an outside business of some sort. Overall, the family prospered. And the children grew.

The back of their farm borders the Susquehanna River. The children liked to swim and wade the river during hot summer days. Over the years, they got to know the stretch of water that bordered their farm. They spent many happy hours there, splashing and swimming.

This year, the early summer drought took its toll on their farm and crops. Stifling heat, day after day, and no rain for weeks. One hot afternoon in early July, some of the children decided to head down to the river for a swim. Three or four of the girls. And the younger of the two sons, probably around 18 or 20 years old.

They walked to the back end of the farm to the river banks. The water was low, from the drought. On the normal stretch they knew, no spot was deep enough in which to swim. So they waded in, cooling down. Splashed about. And the story could have ended there.

Then the brother and one of the sisters, who was 16 years old, decided to go down the river, to unfamiliar territory, in search of deeper waters. They wanted to swim, not wade. And in that heat, who can blame them?

They told the others of their plan and set out. Around the bend they splashed, disappearing from the view of their siblings.

They waded on, the water was still shallow. Up ahead, another bend, and some large rocks. Maybe the water would be deeper there, so they could swim. They approached the rocks.

The actual details as told to me were sparse and sketchy. And even most of those are not that important. What happened as the two young people approached the bend and the rocks is the story that haunts the mind.

Blithely wading along, they suddenly, with no warning, plunged into an 8 ft. drop-off in the river bed. At the bend, around the rocks, the waters swirled in a vicious vortex. Sucking them both down into the depths.

They could swim. Not that well, but they could. As the waters closed around them and drew them down, down, they fought to resurface. Somehow, they both got back up, into the air. He struggled, closer to the shore. She was right behind him. Almost, he could drag himself out. But the hungry waters pulled at him. She flailed and struggled.

I don’t know if it all happened in silence, or if they had the breath and strength to speak to each other or shout for help. I don’t know if either of them panicked as they struggled in the water.

He would make it out. Just barely. And then she grabbed hold of him, her hands clamping on him like a vise. In utter desperation, she hung on. To her older brother. He would save her.

Mere seconds had passed. Exhausted and stunned, he hung on, either to the grass or maybe a branch by the bank. Still she held on to him. Don’t let go. Don’t let go.

And he felt his grip slipping; she was pulling him back in. If he let go, he would not have the strength to fight the water anymore.

At that instant, with absolute clarity, he knew he had to make a choice. Try to save himself and his younger sister. And drown if he slipped back in. Or save himself. But only if he shook her off, broke free of her deadly grip on him.

I don’t know what thoughts flashed through his mind, and don’t really care to know. But at some point in that frozen moment, he knew that unless he shook her off, they would both die. He did not have the strength to pull both of them out of the water’s vicious unrelenting grasp.

So he made the only choice he had. He shook her off and broke free. The churning, pitiless waters instantly swallowed her, pulled her under. She disappeared and did not resurface.

His little sister, who had tagged along with him all her life. His sister, of his blood and bone and flesh. His sister, whom he loved. Gone, below the waters.

He dragged himself onto the bank. Lay there for a brief moment, in total shock. Then he stumbled to his feet and staggered back to his other sisters who had stayed in the shallow waters back around the bend.

He gasped out his tale, and they rushed back to the farm for help. He knew it was a futile thing, that no help existed anywhere that could do any good now.

And he was right. It was too late. There was no hope. None. Their sister was dead. Later that afternoon, the rescue workers retrieved her limp body from where it rested at the bottom of the hole in the river. Sixteen years old. Gone.

The family reeled from the shock and grief. Four days later, on a Saturday morning, they buried her in the graveyard by their little church. Their relatives and friends, including many Amish from Lancaster County, attended the funeral. And deeply mourned their loss of one so young and innocent.

Even from a safe emotional distance, it is a hard and bitter thing to contemplate. The loss of a vibrant young life. Of a beautiful girl of sixteen, on the threshold of adulthood, who had everything before her. Family. Friends. Eventually, in the natural course of things, a husband and children of her own. Now snuffed out. All her tomorrows, all her dreams, all she would have been in the course of a long and fruitful life. All cut short in one brief and terrifying instant.

We are told to mourn with those who mourn. And in this case, it is not hard to do. We can, even now, pause and reflect on the family’s loss and say a prayer for their well being.

But to me the true drama, the real story resides in the cruel choice. It simply defies comprehension. The choice her brother was forced to make in the span of a few fleeting seconds. It is very rare, for any human to be confronted with such a stark decision in such brutal circumstances. With such tragic consequences. But it does happen, as it did here. A choice of life or death. Your own or another’s.

He made the right call. The right choice. Had he done otherwise, the family would have mourned the deaths of two of their children at a double funeral. And that day would have been far more tragic than it was.

But that truth is probably cold comfort to him. I don’t know him, but my heart goes out to him. The utter devastation in the desolate fields of his mind. Drained of tears, wracked by waves of guilt and grief. The bitter pain of loss increased a thousandfold.

How will he ever get past that? How will he deal with it, and go on to live a productive life? How will he even go on at all? His future forever tinged, his dreams incessantly haunted by vivid nightmares of memories from that day.

It seems impossible, to those of us viewing from a distance. Impossible that a young man could ever heal from the searing memories, the scars, the brutal shock of such unfathomable emotional trauma.

But it’s not impossible.

From my own experiences in the not-so-distant past, I know that the Lord extends grace to those of His children who are passing through the fires of unimaginable shock and loss. It seems like such a trite and clichéd thing to say. It’s the kind of stuff people always spout. Often by rote, with no real concept of what they’re saying.

But it’s true. Simple specific grace. That’s what got me through a few years back. And continues to.

Not that I would consider my experiences as even remotely comparable to these events. But still, the grace was there. I could feel it. Even though I didn’t think to ask for it, particularly. I could feel it, as I huddled helpless in the eye of the savage storm. Enveloping me. Not those who weren’t involved, those who stood in sympathy on the sidelines and wondered how I could take it. Just me. It was enough. More than enough.

And the Lord will pour out the necessary grace for this family, too. Especially for the brother. Not that he won’t have to deal with the guilt and grief and upheaval, again and again. And the flashbacks. For a long time. He will. And not that he shouldn’t get some serious heavy counseling. He should.

Life is a gift for the living. All the living. Including the wounded. And the deeply traumatized. A gift to receive. To live. To heal. To move forward into the future. To walk in awareness. To acknowledge and accept the past, however difficult or painful. To live, in time, in settled contentment. And joy, too, can and will return with a new dawn.

Ultimately, our choices define who we are and how we live. It’s all there for the taking. It can all come in time. Even in the aftermath of harrowing, heartbreaking loss.

Even in circumstances such as these.

******************************
As I post this, they are assembling. From points all across the nation. From the east to the west. From Pennsylvania to Montana. Well over a hundred people, by all accounts. Maybe as many as two hundred.

It’s the first ever ex-Amish reunion held in Bloomfield, Iowa. The brainchild of Ed Yoder and my nephew John Wagler, among others. This weekend at a park close to town. It will be an interesting and exciting time.

Any ex-Amish person who ever lived in Bloomfield is invited. That would include a lot of people I wouldn’t know, because I left back in the late 80s. More than twenty years ago. Some ex-Amish who attend might not even have been born then. But it still would be a huge blast to attend. Meet old friends and acquaintances, and make new friends.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t make it. Well, I could have, but it would not have been a responsible thing to do. Not with deadlines looming like Judgment Day, and so much yet to write. As I explained to Ed Yoder, the only thing that could possibly keep me away is the thing that is keeping me away. So I’m home, plugging away, wishing I were there.

The Bloomfield church fathers, it seems, are not at all amused about the whole thing. They are quite grim, in fact. A week or so ago, Bloomfield’s most powerful Bishop even stood in church and sternly forbade any church member to attend. Ah, well. Bearish as ever, they are. Some things never change.

I hope this event is so successful that there will be another reunion before too long. Maybe in a few years. Next time, I will make every effort, including procrastinating on then-current deadlines, to attend.