Homefires (27 page)

How could I have let down my guard?
I didn’t even know the Beauregards lived near the railroad.
Dear Jesus....

I stumbled to the bedroom and with trembling hands, tore off the loose robe I’d earlier donned to type and cook in and somehow managed to hurriedly dress in slacks and pullover. Kirk and I dashed out the door and into the car to speed the two miles to the Beauregard home where our girls had been visiting.

Kirk drove, his knuckles white against the steering wheel, moaning, “Not our little Krissie...Oh, Neecy, how did it happen?”

His words fed a sunless atmosphere, eluding me.

Woodenly, I turned my head to gaze at him. He was crying. Kirk, who rarely cried.

Why wasn’t I crying? Why did I feel so – dead? Slowly, I began to realize that my body registered no sensation whatsoever, like I’d guzzled novocaine, went swimming in it. Kirk and I had always met each crisis head-on.

I stared at him. He was dealing with
it
, the phantasmal thing that evaded me. I clung to the detachment. Dry-eyed. I experienced a sense of shrinking, shriveling within myself.
Diminishing.

Our VW whipped onto the Beauregard’s property that bordered the railroad, near a deserted old depot building. Today, paralyzed railway cars littered the horizon and blocked our view of the trestle, a half-mile, straight shot distance from the Beauregard’s front lawn. Pulling as close to the bridge as possible, Kirk bounded from the car and commenced running toward the hidden scene of the accident.

I climbed heavily from the car and began to wander, in no particular direction...away from people, from the horrible train, from
me.
My legs and feet grew more leaden with each laborious step. The phrase “
something has happened”
kept knocking around
in my brain, trying to get a foothold. I desperately embraced the compartmentalization that now isolated me from a drama that grew and burgeoned on my dark periphery.

My shock-blurred gaze combed the endless trainload of piggybacked trucks that hid from me the thing trying to swamp me – to
destroy me.

Words bleeped through my bleak numbness only to gel, unheeded, then dissolve into the nothingness surrounding me. A sense of helplessness began to steal into my nebulous consciousness... heavy and thick and smothery.

Faces invaded my space as I floated there, suspended, unaware of earth’s floor beneath me or her atmosphere or sound beyond, cocooned in merciful oblivion. Arms embraced me, words drifted around me. Eyes conveyed pity, horror and compassion – emotions that bounced off my shield of nonpresence. I tried to speak, but my tongue would not react, nor would my limbs carry me away from them. My arms would not lift to return embraces.

I wished them away.

Vaguely, like the roof’s
drip, drip, drip
after a heavy rain,
“something has happened”
imprinted itself, against my will, forcing my awareness that this tragedy was, somehow,
mine.
Again, zombie-like, I rebelled, somehow turning away, distancing myself further from those who
knew.
From the words hovering there, waiting to obliterate me.

Yet, an overriding certainty emerged. I faced an agonizing decision. I stood with my back to them – to
it,
when unexpectedly, Dale Evan’s words pierced my darkness: “
God took my hand and led me into that funeral home – me who’d always had an aversion to death – and He helped me...helped me...that beautiful mangled flesh was only a shell of my Debbie. She’d already gone to be with the Lord.”

“Oh, Dale,” I moaned. “I didn’t realize – ” Was it only four days earlier that I’d sat on that blanket and listened with my ears but not my heart?
Now, I stand where you stood. One of my children is – I can’t even acknowledge which one, can’t put a face to ‘it.’

Never, before or since, have I felt such humility as at that moment. Self-sufficiency crumbled, shriveled away. Mortality seemed imminent, so complete was the chastening. I would
have, at that precise heartbeat, welcomed it. I stood beyond selfloathing, teetering between cataclysm and the dizzying black void clutching at me.

I took a deep breath. Blew it out.
Hang in there
coaxed my survival instinct.

How can I?
flesh and blood groaned. Death’s black chasm yawned, pulling, pulling me toward its edge. Then I realized, I
wanted
to die.
How could I have let it happen?

Lean on me,
whispered the presence I’d listened to all through the years.
You didn’t know that formulas don’t always work.

Then realization struck me like a thunderbolt.
You prepared me for this moment four days ago, didn’t you? You knew.

I took a deep, shuddering breath.
Oh, Lord – it will be so hard.

I then uttered the most difficult petition of my life: “Help me to realize what’s happened, God... and to accept it. And Lord,” I set my eyes toward Heaven, “give me strength. And courage. Especially
courage.”

Then a force within pushed me slowly, ever so slowly back to that hazy intangible thing called reality. That day, as I turned to leave the scene of tragedy, God heard my cry of surrender.
It
took form. A face emerged, precious and indescribably sweet. From deep within, grief gushed forth, riding the essence that was my Krissie.

Tears came. Painfully. Slowly at first, then copiously. But just as the well sprang forth, as pain engulfed me, I saw Krissie, smiling, enfolded ever so gently in Jesus’ strong arms, ascending upward until they disappeared into frothy white clouds.

Kirk returned, anguish ravaging his features. My darling, who’d held out hope until the last moment, embraced me. “She’s with the Lord,” he sobbed.

“I know.” Over his shoulder, I glimpsed the ambulance departing, with the small covered form visible through the window. Again, reality hit like a sheet of lightning.

As if hearing me, Kirk lifted his head and gazed into my eyes, revealing his tortured soul. “At least, you were spared,” he said hoarsely, “seeing her lying on the cold ground – alone. Oh
God!” He threw back his head and screamed in anguish. “She died all
alone on that cold ground.”

On the ground.

My knees buckled and he caught hold, helping me to stand. “You mean – ” I whispered, “she wasn’t – ”

“No, she wasn’t on the tracks.” He shook his head as tears dripped from his cheeks. “Thank God, she wasn’t mutilated. They found her lying on the sand bar, where she fell from the ramp. There were no injuries except the blow to her head. Near her ear. You can’t even tell – ” He broke down again for long moments, then lifted his tear-streaked face, his watery eyes tortured. “She was only a few steps from safety.”

“Oh God....”
Why, Krissie? You, who wouldn’t even close the bathroom door completely for fear of getting trapped inside. How did it happen?

“
Zach?” I croaked.

Kirk shook his head, then fought for control. “He’s under the train.” Zach’s body wouldn’t be retrieved until the train – steel wheels now brake-flattened on one side – was moved. A difficult task because of the wobbly movement on the steel trestle structure, a thing, we later learned that had caused the train crew some tense, terrified moments before everything jerked to a final halt.

We embraced again, sharing sorrow uncoveted.

My perfect world, as I knew it, would never again be.

Heather slipped her hand in mine and we walked together to the Beauregard dwelling. Clancy Beauregard, Zach’s father, sat on the front steps of the big wraparound porch weeping inconsolably. His wife Norene stood on the porch with members of the Beauregard clan encircling her, all familiar faces from church. Clancy arose as I approached and I embraced him.

“Aww,
Law,
Mrs. Crenshaw,” he said brokenly, “I’m so sorry. I feel responsible. Your children visiting our home and something like this happening.”

My heart wrenched. “Please don’t feel this way. I don’t blame anybody. If your children had been visiting
us
, something could have happened.”

I sat down beside Clancy and felt Heather lower herself next to me. Kirk now spoke with Norene, whose Cherokee
Indian stoicism held her erect and dry-eyed, only ashen features betraying her suffering. Her black eyes met mine and without a sound, we communicated maternal torment.

My mind began to formulate snatches of coherent thoughts, like a distorted kaleidoscope.
...Krissie’s gone! Oh, dear God, it can’t be....I’ve got to call Daddy and Anne...How did it happen?... Trish. I want to see Trish...Krissie – my sweet little girl. How can it be? You’ve always been the cautious one...I’ve failed you...I should have kept you under my wing. Why, oh, why didn’t I realize something like this could happen?...I don’t deserve to live.

I kept pushing it away – the guilt, knowing I couldn’t cope, knowing I had to survive for the sake of Kirk and the children.

In my weakest time, I was called upon to be my strongest.

On the silent drive home, my heart continued to break into a billion tiny pieces, like an atom, splitting and dividing, on and on. Several cars already lined the parsonage drive when we arrived. Kaye Tessner met me at the door and embraced me, speaking gently to me, her gray eyes deep pools of teary compassion, but I comprehended nothing of what she said.

Other familiar faces encouraged us as Kirk and I made our way to the privacy of Krissie’s room. There, we shut the door behind us. Kirk dropped to his knees beside her bed and great sounds of grief erupted from him, loud unrestrained mourning as I’ve never heard before nor since. I sat on the other side of her mattress, weeping softly, holding her pillow to my face, inhaling her scent, disappointed that well-meaning friends had already cleaned her room and were now laundering her last worn garments. They meant well, but I felt deprived that her existence was not allowed to continue for a bit longer.

Kirk’s weeping finally subsided and he raised his head to look at me, tears dripping from his face. “Neecy – I can’t go on. I can’t live with this.”

The plea in his voice smote me as he buried his face in her chenille spread and began to weep again. I closed my eyes and groped for strength. Krissie’s face appeared before me and in her eyes was a message:
Trust.
She’d always leaned on me and believed I could do anything
.

I shoved away the guilt and clung to
her
image of me. I would be what she expected and I would preserve her memory with dignity and fortitude. This was my last gift to her. For the
first time, something from which to
give
sparked to life inside me, splitting off from the raw, bleeding me and filled my mouth with soothing words.

“We’ll get through this, Kirk. I loved Krissie as much as a mother can love a child. I carried her in my womb for nine months, nursed her at my breast and cared for her. She was my little companion, so much like me we didn’t even have to speak to communicate. “But, honey, we have two other children who need us. And God will guide us, one minute at a time...a day at a time. We’ll take it just like that – one day at a time. Don’t look backward or ahead right now, honey. We’ll just have to accept God’s help for right now – this minute.”

Kirk wiped his eyes, embraced me and hand-in-hand, we walked through the door together to face friends who’d taken time to come and share in our sorrow.

The next week still blurs in my memory...
Zach’s funeral held the following day because, due to the condition of his body, he could not be embalmed
...
Dad and Anne
beside me, Dad crying with me in the wee hours, holding me, murmuring “I wish I could take this pain for you, honey”...
Trish,
upon arrival embracing me and whispering, “When I got the news, I dropped to my knees. I
saw
Krissie – going up into the clouds and
Jesus was holding her!”
and I said “
me, too”
and we gazed through tears at each other in joyful wonder and
her husband Gene
, inconsolable at first, raising his wet face, saying “
I should be comforting you instead of you comforting me”
and my reply,
“you are comforting us, by sharing our grief
...
Toby’s
quiet detachment from everything...Kirk wanting to conduct the funeral and my gentle insistence that
he himself
needed ministering, adding, “
Heather, Toby and I need you beside us”...
Mrs. Carter, Krissie’s teacher’s words to me “
You are so brave, Mrs. Crenshaw”
and me thinking “
you just don’t know what I’m feeling inside”...