Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
—1 Thessalonians 5:16–18
When Charlie started school, academics did not come easy for him. Even as a young child, he loved making things with his hands. Building blocks, then Lincoln Logs, then Legos became his favorite toys. Any time he could go to Pop Pop’s house to work with his grandfather on a carpentry project was a treat. Charlie loved animals as well. He, more than any of his brothers, would bond with each new dog that became the family pet.
But Charlie struggled with schoolwork. Today he would be diagnosed as having a serious learning disability. At that time I became accustomed to calls from his teachers at Saint Leo’s Catholic School, where he attended kindergarten through second grade, concerned that he was not applying himself or falling behind in his homework.
I was just as frustrated as his teachers were. Charlie was a quiet child, well-behaved, always loving and helpful with his younger brothers. In fact, I can remember only one serious disciplinary episode in his entire childhood. At the time, Charlie was six years old, and his brother Joshua was three. We were returning home from a shopping trip to Two Guys, a local department store, when I heard a buzzing sound from the backseat. Glancing back, I asked what the noise was.
“It’s nothing,” Charlie replied.
I insisted the boys show me what they were playing with. Reluctantly, the boys each held up a Tommie Toy. These were small figures about an inch and a half tall with little windup knobs. When the knob was wound, the figure’s little legs would scoot along, creating the buzzing noise I heard.
“Where did you get them?” I asked.
“From the store,” Charlie spoke up quickly.
“Did you pay for them?” I demanded.
The two boys’ eyes widened as they stared at me, then slowly shook their heads. Looking at them sternly, I asked, “What do you think we should do? Do Mommy and Daddy pay for the things they buy?”
Both boys nodded “yes.” By this time we were turning into our own driveway. After Chuck and I talked it over, we decided to call the store and ask if the security guard could talk to the boys about their offense. The guard agreed. The boys counted out money from their piggy banks to pay for the stolen merchandise, and we returned to the store. After the security guard explained to the boys the consequences of theft, they handed over the money. Their punishment was that they would pay for the items but not be allowed to keep them. We never had an issue with theft again.
When I sat down with the school counselor to discuss Charlie’s learning difficulties, she began asking about our home life, and then turned her questions to my husband. Her conclusion was that my husband’s profession as a police officer kept him from being involved enough in his son’s life, which was causing Charlie to act out by not studying. It was a frustrating experience: I was there to get counsel for our son, and the counselor suggested all he needed was a more interactive father.
It was true my husband was quiet, while I was the extrovert of the family. Chuck’s more stoic German heritage and his military training did not encourage the open expression of feelings. As a police officer, he did not consider it appropriate to bring home business or talk about the difficult or dangerous aspects of his profession. But he also loved his family dearly and made every effort to spend time with his wife and sons.
That same year my husband and I were invited to participate in a Christian couples’ retreat sponsored by a program called Marriage Encounter. Part of the retreat program was writing letters to each other as a couple. I wrote reams to my husband, pouring out my heart and feelings. Chuck in return wrote sentences to me. By the end of the retreat, I recognized that Chuck and I were very different people. I came away from the weekend with some tears, recognizing that this retreat had not miraculously turned my husband into the more expressive, social-oriented person that was my illusion of what he should be.
But as I prayed and sought God’s will in all this, I came to recognize that I could walk away from our marriage because my husband didn’t write reams of romantic prose or communicate as much as I might like. Or I could choose to appreciate all the countless good qualities that he did have. I could choose to love my husband just as he was: my protector, my provider, the man who loved me with all his heart. I could accept that life is not always—or ever will be—exactly what we want it to be, but we are still called to move forward, not walk away.
That day I chose to love my husband. Again and again in the years ahead, above all when faced with tragedy, I would learn the importance of making right choices: choosing love instead of resentment, forgiveness instead of hate, surrender instead of bitterness.
And I would witness the awful consequences of making the wrong choices.
By the end of second grade, Charlie’s misery and the frustration of his teachers had reached a high enough level that we decided to pull him out and try home education. At the time, homeschooling was a new movement, and I knew little about it. But my younger sister, Jean, and her husband, Randy Hildebrand, were homeschooling their growing family, eventually eight children. Close friends of theirs, Chuck and Cathy Powers, were also homeschooling. My parents volunteered to keep Charlie at their house during the school week, where my mother would teach him. Cathy Powers volunteered to work with him one day a week on some of the more challenging subjects.
Charlie was excited at the prospect. As the oldest grandson, he had a special bond with his grandparents, Pop Pop and Baba, as the grandkids called them. It was Charlie who’d first come up with the nickname for my mother while still in his crib. How we laughed when we discovered that “Baba,” as he insisted on calling her, meant “old woman” in Russian or “grandma” in Polish.
Even better, Pop Pop and Baba’s house was out in the country with lots of woods and fields to explore and a ridge to climb, unlike our suburban home with no basement and three bedrooms. Charlie homeschooled with his grandmother for third and fourth grade, coming home on weekends. Of course, we also saw him often during the week since my parents lived only a few miles away. With individualized attention and studying at his own pace, he soon caught up and began to enjoy school again.
But it was also at Pop Pop and Baba’s that trauma again entered Charlie’s life. Charlie had always loved animals, and he developed a special bond with Pop Pop and Baba’s Siberian husky, Suzie. Suzie reciprocated that affection, providing Charlie a companion and friend into whose long, furry ear he could pour out his thoughts and feelings during the school week when he was away from his brothers and parents.
But Suzie had a fault—wanderlust. Periodically she would break the chain that tethered her in the yard at night and run off with a pack of dogs, eventually returning home unapologetically pleased with herself. But after one escape, Suzie didn’t return home. For several days, the entire family turned out to look for Suzie, up and down the country lanes, into the fields and woods, calling her name. But there was no response—and no Suzie.
Then one night several days after Suzie’s disappearance, Charlie woke up. He was certain he’d heard Suzie’s distinctive bark somewhere nearby. Running to his grandparents’ room, he woke them up. “I hear Suzie. She’s out there!”
Pop Pop and Baba listened, but if a dog had been barking, nothing could be heard now. “It was probably some neighbor’s dog,” Pop Pop said at last. “Or you were dreaming.”
“But I know it was Suzie,” Charlie insisted. “I recognize her bark!”
“It can’t be. We’ve already looked around here,” Pop Pop assured Charlie. “Now go back to bed.”
Disconsolately, Charlie returned to his bedroom. He’d been so sure, but maybe he had been mistaken. Or maybe he truly had been dreaming. Charlie never heard the barking again, and Suzie never returned home. But weeks later when the corn crop was being harvested, Suzie’s body was found in a nearby field. The broken chain still attached to her collar had tangled around the cornstalks so she couldn’t free herself. Eventually she had died of thirst and starvation.
Charlie blamed himself. He’d heard Suzie’s plea for help, but he’d done nothing. If only he’d gone out that very night to track the barking. If only he’d tried harder to make Pop Pop look for her. But Charlie said little about the tragedy to us or to his grandparents. Instead he buried his anguish deep inside and went on quietly with his life.
Did he continue brooding over Suzie’s death? Did he continue blaming himself? I don’t know because he never brought up his loss. Only now, looking back over our son’s life, can I see the beginnings of a pattern that buried pain and loss, self-blame and bitterness deep within his heart and mind instead of sharing it with others—and perhaps finding his way to forgiveness and acceptance.