Growing Up Amish - Ira Wagler [58]
And now she stood heartbroken, in a frenzy of dread and fear and grief, and watched her youngest child walk away again. Not to school, from whence he would return that afternoon. But away from her, from our home, away into a cold and fearful world she had never known. A world in which she could not protect him, care for him, or watch over him while he slept. Her little boy, her baby.
And this time he did not turn and wave.
“Nathan, Nathan,” she cried, sobbing. “Don’t go. Come back. Come back home. Nathan! Oh, Nathan!”
He hesitated only slightly but did not break his stride. Head low, he walked on. Not looking back.
As the distance separated them, her voice faltered, but still she called. Sobbing almost uncontrollably, she stood there. Calling and calling his name. Calling for him to return.
And that’s why most Amish youth leave at night, the ones who go, with only a note under the pillow to announce their absence. Because they don’t have the strength to walk that brutal road as Nathan did. Because they could not endure the mental trauma or live with the searing memories that could haunt a man for life.
In the house, Dad stormed about aimlessly, fuming. In the yard, my mother stood there, still sobbing softly, watching the receding figure of her son.
He reached the road and got into his friend’s waiting car. They disappeared to the south in a cloud of dust.
I approached my mother. Stood there silently. And then, for the first and only time in my life, I held her in my arms.
“You have to let him go,” I said, my voice breaking. “You have to let him go.”
She tensed in my arms, trembling, looking into the distance to the south, focused entirely on what she had just lost. Then she pushed me away and walked blindly back into the house.
23
At home, we settled into postaccident life, life with the “new” Titus. Titus was extraordinarily brave. Or perhaps just resolute in the face of the new reality that was his world. And we were brave too, all of us. We stoically accepted the tragedy. I don’t remember even once seeing any of us breaking down or weeping aloud. We kept everything, the shock and horror of it, firmly locked inside. Dealt with it—except we never really did. In time, a dull sense of resignation seeped through us, followed by acceptance, and we proceeded forward from that point to the present day.
The months crept by. Day followed day, and week followed week. I plodded through the motions of farming that year. Tilled the earth. Planted corn. Milked the cows by hand. Rhoda was right there, by my side. Helping where and as she could, even in the fields. And when she wasn’t with me, she was inside, comforting Titus and helping Mom as best she could.
She was strong and resilient, my younger sister. Always of good cheer, even when there was little cheer to be found. But she prevailed and, over time, helped sustain us all with her inner will and her strength.
From what we heard, Nathan was surviving well, working hard in the vast wastelands of the sand hills of Valentine. His experience was quite different, though, from mine. I was part of a group of buddies. He was alone. And that, I think, is one reason that he returned within a few months of leaving. He would lurk about silently at home for about a year before finally leaving for good.
Having tasted the outside world more than once now, I instinctively held on to what remnants I could of that world, most notably making and maintaining friendships with surrounding English people. And Chuck’s Café in West Grove was the natural site for that, the best place