American Wife (24 page)

The answer that keeps coming to me is as hard to accept as it is simple: God didn't stop it because He has a plan. It's difficult sometimes to remain optimistic about that plan, but in the end, that is what faith means: trust in the plan.

I think God knows what's in our hearts. He has given us free will and the ability to do right and wrong. I don't know at what point God knows for certain what will happen, but I think we do have choices and we are responsible for our actions. We may suffer because of others, but He will take care of us no matter what. We will never be alone.

Whatever questions I have about faith, I know for certain that Chris himself is in a place where he's happy. I deeply believe that. It's the people he has left behind who suffer, not him.

And I know that life goes by in the blink of an eye. I have no doubt that we'll see him soon.

I do have anger, great anger. I get mad that someone could murder two men who were trying to help him. I get mad that Chris had to fall on his face. That he was caught off guard, shot from the side and back. That in his last moments, he couldn't do what he lived his life to do, protect someone dear to him.

I get mad at all of those things and many others—but that is not the same thing as getting mad at God, or even doubting His plan.

So many people were changed by Chris's life. Many others were changed by his death. I saw much good and charity from others as a result. So if it's true that there is great evil in the world, and that evil was responsible for Chris's murder, then I have to recognize that there is great good as well, and that I witnessed it even in the darkest depths. That doesn't excuse the evil, much less make up for it. But it does mean that evil need not prevail, and will not prevail, as long as we can perceive the good even at the worst times.

I struggle to be at peace with the fact that it hurts like hell to lose my husband. It hurts like hell for our kids. But ultimately, God's plan is not about me, or even them. It's about the deeper mission of our lives.

Many people say they've changed the direction of their lives because of Chris's example—Team guys, servicemen, people who read the book and heard about his death. It is of great comfort to know that their reactions are part of God's plan. I see beauty rising from ashes.

And there is this other thing I keep coming back to. My faith tells me that I will see Chris again. I cling to that. If I didn't think I could touch him again, hold him in his perfection, and my perfection, in the glory of the afterlife—then truly I would despair.

What was remarkable to me in retrospect was the kids' attitude toward God.

As far as I could tell from their prayers, they weren't angry with Him that their father died. Instead, they told God they were thankful that He had given them Chris to be their father.

They said it without crying, without anger, and without prompting.

The faith of innocents is truly a blessed faith.

COINCIDENCES?

Do we know the future somehow, even before it happens? Are things just coincidences, or unconscious expressions from some sort of pre-knowledge of what will happen to us?

I mentioned earlier that Chris had been thinking about getting rid of his truck; the truck turned out to be somehow related to the crazed motive for the crime, at least according to what the murderer told his sister. I mentioned Chris saying, out of the blue, that he thought Chad would take a bullet for him. He thought about giving up dipping, as if feeling that he should do something to keep his life going longer.

Those can certainly be explained as coincidences, as can other things: The day before he was killed, Chad had lunch with his parents, something that he did rarely. When he was leaving, he walked down to his vehicle, then suddenly turned back and gave them another big, heartfelt hug: their lasting memory of him, I would guess.

Maybe they aren't coincidences; maybe God grants us some moments of pre-knowledge. I don't know. Maybe God puts things on our hearts and gives us a little push. Or it's possible those of us left behind simply remember what we want to be significant when we experience loss.

I do know I am glad Chris and I had that Christmas. I'm comforted by the weeks right before he died where our marriage reached a state of near perfection. And I'm glad that I have so many good moments from our days to remember.

My world had stopped, but the outside one kept going. On Saturday, one week after the murder, Bubba had a basketball game. He wanted to go. I wanted him to go, too.

And if he went, I was going, too. Even though I hadn't been out of the house except to go to the funeral home.

A friend picked Bubba up early so he could get there for the pregame warm-up. When it came time to leave to watch the game, I decided to run rather than drive. It was five minutes by car, and I thought it wouldn't take long to trot over.

I was wrong about that.

Four or five of the men at the house accompanied me, including my brother-in-law Jeff, who had just gone through an operation and was still recovering. I'm sure his rehab plan didn't include running alongside a half-crazy woman, but he did anyway, without a complaint or even a “Hey, slow down.”

We got to the church gym just in time for the game. I felt such pure joy watching Bubba play. It was one of the very few times that whole month that I was able to completely forget my grief and feel fully myself. They were fleeting moments, but they loom large now in my memory, little islands of relief in a sea of dread.

We all walked home. The men tossed a ball back and forth with Bubba. They couldn't replace Chris, but they provided an enormous, unstated reassurance to Bubba that he would never be alone.

Just as my path through grief was varied and unpredictable, at least to me, so too were the paths that others took. Some people reacted in very odd ways. A few were even destructive.

No one, of course, blamed me for Chris's death. But at times they felt I was interfering with their memory of him. They wanted to be the ones preserving his memory, or what they thought his memory should be.

I've heard from others who have lost loved ones that there can be bad feelings among people who were close to them, pseudo-competitions for the dead person's love. Family members get jealous; it's easy to misinterpret statements in the heat of emotion. Anything might mean a person loved the dead man less; any odd gesture might indicate they could have done more to save him.

Another thing I noticed—far more benign—was that everyone's memory of Chris came from not only a different place but a different time. He knew so many people, but only a very few knew him in every phase of his life. He changed over the years, as we all do. Some of the things that changed him were big: marriage, war, fame, fatherhood. Others were just the course corrections we all experience as we bump and bruise along. But each one of us claimed the Chris we knew as being the “true” Chris.

When I stand back and look at things objectively, I know even I didn't know the
entire
Chris. Sometimes, I wonder if even he did.

CLOTHES

Melanie Luttrell pulled me aside one day and asked if I had something to wear to the services that were being planned for Chris and Chad.

“I don't know,” I told her. Clothes were the furthest thing from my mind. “I'm sure I have something. There's no way I'm going shopping.”

“Of course you're not going shopping,” she said. “Tell me what you'd like and we'll get it here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you have any idea of what you might like?” she asked. “We'll have clothes delivered to the house.”

“You can do that?”

“There's a service that will do it at the mall in Dallas.”

I didn't even know these kind of things existed. More importantly, I did not quite understand why I needed a new dress at a time like this.

Melanie explained that I needed a proper
black
dress for the funeral—I didn't have one.

Oh. Of course. Widows wear black. And I'm a widow.

A store had contacted some of my friends and offered to supply one. As we talked, Melanie sensed my restlessness and suggested that I get out of the house for a while—I could go to the mall with my mom or a friend and pick out something.

“Okay,” I told her finally. “Will you come with me?”

“Don't you want your mom or sister or—”

“If you don't mind, I'd like you to be the one with me. You're so calm and decisive, and that's what I need.”

“Okay.”

The owner of the mall met us in an underground parking area I hadn't even known existed. He gave me a package of gift cards from stores in the mall. I was floored by the generosity and kindness. We went to a clothing store, and they took us into a private back room to show me some dresses. They even gave me a little wine.

While we were waiting for them to bring the clothes in, I started going through the playlist on my phone, thinking of what I wanted played during the ceremony.

“This is one of my all-time favorite songs,” I said to Melanie, showing her a Randy Travis song. “It's not for the memorial, but it's one of my all-time favorite songs.”

It was “Whisper My Name.”

I played it and started bawling. The song perfectly captured who Chris was for me.

“You think we could get Randy to sing it?” I asked Melanie.

“We'll definitely reach out to him,” she said.

They did. And before I knew it, Randy was going to perform.

Meanwhile, the store attendants brought some beautiful clothes in. They were all wonderful—and expensive.

“Are you kidding me?” I said when I saw some of the price tags.

“Stop,” answered Melanie. “They've all been donated.”

“Donated?”

“Yes.”

Wow. To this day the generosity floors me. I chose an elegant black jacket and skirt, very tailored and formal yet feminine at the same time. Unfortunately, it needed a few alterations to fit. I hesitated, thinking it would take weeks to get it ready.

“Take it,” said Melanie. “The alterations will be done and delivered tomorrow. Don't worry.”

“Tomorrow?”

In my world, alterations take forever, even if you're not the one doing them. Appointments, measuring, fitting, refitting . . . This was a whole different experience.

“They don't even know my size,” I protested.

“I sent them a picture. They know your size.”

And they did. The outfit came as promised, and it fit perfectly.

The woman at the boutique gave me a beautiful necklace, an angel's wing with pearls. I can't even describe how her kindness, and the kindness of so many strangers who helped me in those days, still touches my heart.

It wasn't only my clothes I had to pick out. I had to choose Chris's.

I didn't really want to have an open casket, but the Team guys who were at my house said that an important part of closure involved seeing the body. I realized as I listened to them that an open casket would help everyone pay their respects.

I won't go into the details of the injuries or what the morticians had to do to make Chris look presentable. I will say simply that Chris looked at peace.

But what should he wear?

I thought about having him laid to rest in his uniform. But the truth is he hated wearing it. He really needed to be dressed in something he was comfortable in.

And that wasn't going to be in a suit, either: he hated being in a jacket and tie even more than in a uniform.

Tie?
Ha!

I got a pair of his best pressed jeans. They had a nice crease in the pants leg, just like he liked. I found one of his plaid button-down shirts, another favorite.

Kryptek, which produces tactical gear and apparel and was one of Chris's favorite companies, had presented him with a big silver belt buckle that he loved. It was very cowboy, and in that way very much who Chris was.

“You think I can pull this off?” he'd asked, showing me how it looked right after he got it.

“Hell, yeah,” I told him.

I made sure that was with him as well.

But if there was any item of clothing that really touched deep into Chris's soul, it was his cowboy boots. They were a reminder of who he was when he was young, and they were part of who he'd been since getting out of the military.

He had a really nice pair of new boots that had been custom made. He hadn't had a chance to wear them much, and I couldn't decide whether to bury him in those or another pair that were well worn and very comfortable.

I asked the funeral director for his opinion.

“We usually don't do shoes,” he said. It can be very difficult to get them onto the body. “But if it's important to you, we can do it.”

I thought about it. Was the idea of burying them with Chris irrational? The symbolism seemed important. But that could work the other way, too—they would surely be important to Bubba someday. Maybe I should save them for him.

In the end, I decided to set them near Chris's casket when his body was on view, then collect them later for our son.

But Chris had the last word. Through a miscommunication—or maybe something else—they were put in the casket when he was laid to rest. So obviously that was the way it should have been.

I thought about putting some tobacco dip in his casket. It had been a big part of his life. But since he'd decided to give up dipping a few weeks before . . . tobacco was out.

There was a part of me that wanted the mortician to arrange his fingers so he was flipping people the bird. Chris would have
loved
that. And many of the people who knew him would have roared at the joke—it was very Chris, a last practical joke.

But I'm sure some of the older family members wouldn't have seen the humor. Discretion won out.

Still, I couldn't send him off without
some
sort of off-color humor. Profanity and pranking were just
too
Chris to be ignored. So I went into his closet and found a gag T-shirt, the one that read,
DO
I
LOOK
LIKE
A
@
#$#$!
@
PEOPLE
PERSON
?