A Rose Revealed (26 page)

Chapter 14

S
aturday morning was a crystal clear day with temperatures much more in keeping with late November than those of earlier in the week. When I climbed out of the van at the cemetery, my breath vaporized into a small cloud. I walked around the vehicle to wait for Jake to emerge, pushing my hands into my gloves and pulling my collar up against the sneaky breeze that wrapped itself about my neck.

I was nervous about what to expect in the next hour. I’d never been to a baby’s burial before.

My pastor, Adam Trempler, climbed out of his car parked in front of us. Becky had said that she didn’t know what to do about a service. She and Sam were believers, but they didn’t have a church. I talked to Pastor Adam, and he was more than willing to be Becky and Sam’s pastor. He met with them and prayed with them and cried with them. I knew that next week he would marry them.

A white rental car pulled behind us on the narrow road that wound through the cemetery, and Davy and Lauren Stoltzfus got out. Davy was a lean, powerful man with snapping brown eyes and a Stetson. Lauren was about my height and had a charming smile, which she poured on us as she introduced herself. I immediately liked her.

“I feel like I already know you,” she said to Jake. “I’ve heard so many stories about you from Davy.”

“And they’re all true,” Davy said as he opened the back door of the car and helped Annie out.

Another van slowed and parked behind Davy. The back door slid open and John climbed out. He turned and helped Mary down. Esther and Elam followed. Esther’s eyes were already red from tears.

We walked in a cluster toward the grave site, a pile of raw dirt covered with a green tarp showing us the way.

“How was Becky this morning?” I asked Annie as we walked. I really wanted to ask where the rest of Becky’s family was, but I didn’t. Though I found it hard to believe that Rachel and Emmett wouldn’t come to help bury their grandson, even if the baby’s father was
meidung
, I knew it was none of my business what their choices were.

“Becky seemed fine,” Annie said. “It was Rachel who was upset.”

“Was she?” I felt relieved. The woman had normal emotional responses after all.

“She was so torn. She wanted to be here for Becky’s sake, she wanted to honor Samuel’s shunning for the church’s sake, and she wanted to go home and forget it all. She’s not sure what to do because she feels caught in the middle. She doesn’t want to lose her daughter, but her whole life is her community.” Annie smiled wanly. “Believe me,
iss
not a
gut
place to be.”

I nodded and glanced at Davy. Annie knew what she was talking about.

Annie shook her head. “Emmett decided they would go home. They had bought return tickets for today when they came for Nate. He said it would be simpler if they just followed their original plan.”

“I don’t want to upset you,” I said honestly, “but I don’t understand. Aren’t some things more important than others? Aren’t daughters and grandsons more important than rules?”

“Don’t feel bad,” Annie said. “Becky understands. So does Samuel. And Emmett made the best choice for Rachel. She will cry, but she won’t feel torn.”

I nodded, but I still couldn’t think in patterns so foreign to me. It should be people first, regulations second, when a choice had to be made. I glanced at Jake and realized with a start that others would find my pattern equally hard-nosed if I held to my decision not to become any more involved with him due to his unbelief. I sighed as I understood that it was always the other person’s patterns that were so foolish.

Lord, why does life have to be so difficult?

A dark green sedan pulled through the gate into the cemetery. It drove slowly along the narrow road and came to a stop behind the white van. We all turned to watch.

A man I had never seen before climbed out of the front. He walked to the back and opened the door. He reached in and helped Becky out, then Sam.

I walked over to Jake, needing to be near him. My eyes filled with tears as I watched the young couple struggling with such sorrow.

The man walked to the trunk of the car and Becky and Sam followed. They stood quietly while he raised the lid. He reached inside and emerged with a small coffin in his arms. He began walking toward us, bearing his little burden. Becky and Sam, hands linked, followed.

When I saw the man lift the little coffin from the trunk, my heart stopped mid-beat. I gasped at the unexpected sight, my breath catching in my throat and becoming a sob. So small. So very small! The man could carry the coffin by himself!

Jake clasped my hand, and I hung on as the burial party approached. I could hear Esther’s sobs and saw Elam standing shoulder to shoulder with her, offering his comfort.

Becky and Sam took the two folding chairs set beside the grave. The man bent and laid Trevor on the straps suspended over what I now saw was a very small opening. The man backed away and stood quietly to the side.

Everything was quiet for a few minutes. I gazed at Trevor and his parents through a haze of tears. I kept hearing Becky’s words: “He was my baby, mine and Samuel’s. It didn’t matter when or how he was conceived. He was mine, ours. I talked to him and prayed for him. I gave him to
Herr
Gott…And if I ever start to get mad at
Herr Gott
for letting Trevor die, I will remember that He let His Son die, too.”

Sam stood, his hand still linked to Becky’s, and turned to face all of us.

“It was difficult for us to know how to plan a service for Trevor,” he said, strain and sorrow evident on his face. “Pastor Adam has helped us, and he will say some words and pray, but I’ve got to say something too.”

He swallowed convulsively and looked at Becky. She turned her tear-stained face to him, and I could hear her say softly, encouragingly, “Go on, Samuel. You can do it.”

He took a deep breath and looked back at all of us.

“We are so thankful to God for our son. Becky got to enjoy him for two wonderful months. I only knew him one day.” His voice wobbled on the last two words. He stopped and took a deep breath before he could continue. “How I thank God I met him and held him and loved him.”

I put my hand to my trembling lips in an unconscious gesture. Maybe to contain my sobs?

“Becky and I know we were wrong to sleep together before we were married. We confess that to you as we’ve confessed it to God. But like Pastor Adam told us, our God is a redeeming God. He took that bad situation and used it to bring Becky and me to Him. We’ve committed our lives to God. We love Him, and we’re going to honor Him. That’s Trevor’s legacy. He made his mother and father realize that rebelling isn’t the answer. Believing in Jesus is.”

With a sound halfway between a sigh of relief and a sob, Sam took his seat and slumped forward, his head in his hands. Becky immediately slid her arm around his shoulders and leaned in to speak to him. Her words were soft, private, unheard by the rest of us. He listened, nodded his head, and sat up straight. She lowered her arm and wound it around his. Their fingers threaded.

Pastor Adam stepped forward. “What more can anyone ask of his life than that he turn hearts toward God?” he asked quietly. “Trevor did exactly that. We must thank God for this little boy, this redeeming child.”

Soft sobs and sniffles mingled with the gentle rustling of clothes as people searched for tissues to mop cheeks and blow noses. Pastor Adam led in singing “Jesus Loves Me,” and I was only able to sing half the words because my throat kept closing.

Suddenly John began praying in High German, his voice sonorous and urgent. I had no idea what he was saying, but I was blessed by the fact that he had chosen to participate in this unique service with its unusual band of mourners.

When he finished, there was a time of silence. Then Pastor Adam said, “And all God’s children said—”

And we supplied, “Amen.”

Becky and Sam were the last to leave the grave.

Davy and Lauren Stoltzfus came to visit Jake after they took Annie home from the funeral. At Becky’s request there had been no funeral meal. “Too awkward,” she said.

We sat in Jake’s living room, Davy and Lauren on the sofa, me in the glider/rocker, and Jake in his chair. It took a while for the melancholy of the funeral to dissipate, but soon Lauren and I were listening to old war stories as the men recounted tales of growing up Amish. We rolled our eyes as they relived tomato wars, the beheading of chickens and the fun of watching them run around headless, the bounty of the groaning tables at church socials, the raising of a new barn for Big Joe Lapp when lightning burned his to the ground. We even listened tolerantly to their tales of courting in buggies.

“Then I discovered cars and you discovered motorcycles,” Davy said. “And the troubles began.”

“How old were you?” I asked.

“Seventeen or eighteen.” Davy said. “Old enough to drive. Old enough to rent garages for our vehicles. My father didn’t catch on for three years.”

“I wonder what would have happened if we hadn’t gone through our
rumspringa
together,” Jake said. “All we ever did was dare each other to try some new outrage. Would we have become such reprobates alone?”

“Hey,” Davy said. “I’m not a reprobate. I’m a married man.” He grinned at Lauren.

“You may not be a reprobate now, but you certainly were when I met you,” she said. “You had a chip on your shoulder big enough to weigh down the whole state of Texas.” She grinned at her husband. “I still thought you were the cutest guy I’d ever seen.”

“What happened to the chip?” I asked with interest. It was obvious that it had somehow disappeared, unlike the chip of someone else I could mention.

“Now there’s a story,” Lauren said.

“Well, tell us,” I said.

Jake groaned.

Davy started. “I met Lauren when she was working her way through college as a waitress at a restaurant I often went to. I kept asking her out, but she wouldn’t go anywhere with me but church.”

Jake laughed. “I bet you loved that! I know your tolerance level for anything religious was zero after the shunning fiasco.”

Davy nodded. “But look at her.”

Jake and I did, and we saw a lovely woman about my height with brown curly hair and a wonderful smile.

“Isn’t she worth going to church for?”

“Us Texas girls have standards,” Lauren said. “Especially us Southern Baptist ones. And if you could have seen him, Rose, you’d have known he was one dangerous man to a virtuous little girl like me.”

“So after six months—” Davy began.

“Six months!” Jake looked incredulous. “She stood you off for six months? You, Mr. Ladies Man?”

I studied Davy’s fair hair, strong jaw, and devastating smile. I could imagine a younger version wowing the girls right and left, especially in his Stetson.

“Six months,” Davy repeated, smiling wryly. “Finally I bit the bullet and went to church with her. Scared me to death!”

“We sang in English and at fast tempos and with guitars and drums.” Lauren grinned at Davy. “Talk about culture shock.”

“And the pastor preached grace and forgiveness, not law and judgment. Let me tell you, Jake, it threw me for a loop. Here I was, this rebellious little Amish boy pining for this Texas lady who believed in a very personal God and a personal Jesus. I didn’t know what to do.”

He shook his head and reached for Lauren’s hand. Their affection was real and mutual, and I ached for the same thing.

“Since church was the only place she’d go with me, I kept going. Next thing I knew, I was in Mexico on a missions trip with about seventy singles in their early twenties who all were as enthusiastic about Jesus as Lauren.”

“He didn’t know it at the time,” Lauren said, “but everybody on the trip met regularly in small groups to pray for him. I’m sure the groups I wasn’t in prayed for me too because it was obvious that I loved him, sinner that he was.” She gave his hand an affectionate squeeze.

“Basically they loved me to Jesus,” Davy said. “Life has never been the same.”

“And you think God forgave you for all those secret sins I know about?” Jake asked. “The ones you haven’t told Lauren about?” There was an edge to his voice that indicated he was spoiling for a fight. The last thing he wanted to hear was that his fellow rebel was now a Jesus follower.

Davy nodded. “I do think that, and for two reasons. One, the Bible says He forgives us and does so freely when we believe. Secondly, I’m free. The bitterness is gone, Jake. So’s the anger.”

Jake’s face wore a look of disgust. “I’m surrounded.” He glowered at me like it was all my fault.

“He is,” I said cheerfully. “There’s me. There’s his brother Andy. There’s Sam and Becky. And now there’s you.”

“And you all think I’m going to believe it’s all free?” He looked at the three of us with a fierce scowl. “You all think I’m going to fall on my knees and repent?”

Davy grinned at him. “I know just how you feel,” he said. “But it’s not us you have to wrestle with, guy. It’s God. He’s the one who made the decision that forgiveness and salvation are free.”

“At least free to us,” Lauren said “Very costly to Jesus.”

We were all silent for a minute. Then Jake said, “When do you two go home?”

“Now there’s a subtle topic change if I ever heard one.” Davy laughed.

“We’re not sure. Sometime next week.” Lauren shifted her position, tucking her legs under her and leaning her shoulder against Davy’s. “We want to stay for Becky and Sam’s wedding.”

“We’ll probably be the only immediate family there.” Davy shook his head. “Poor kids. At least people came to the funeral.”

“Mom’d come to the wedding if she could,” Lauren said. “She loves Becky, and I think she likes Sam in spite of him being
meidung
.”

Davy grinned. “She’s a wonderful lady is my ma.”

“She likes you in spite, too,” Lauren said, patting Davy’s knee.

“She loves me in spite,” Davy corrected.

“I like Annie,” I said. “She gave Becky a decent room.”

The three of them looked at me to explain my non sequitur. I just held up my hand and shook my head. I couldn’t explain without making Davy’s father look the hard man he had been.