Nickel Mines, 5 Years Later

[P.O.]

Nickel Mines, 5 Years Later: A daily walk for Amish on path of grief
and forgiveness


When someone asks the Nickel Mines families where they are from, they
sometimes say Georgetown. Or maybe Bart Township.

That's because people recognize the name of their small village and
remember "the happening" — as the families call it — that occurred
there five years ago today.

Sometimes these families don't want to talk to a curious stranger
about the grief of learning their small daughter had been shot to
death on a beautiful October morning.

Sometimes they don't want to describe the anxious worry of watching a
daughter still struggling with the physical or emotional scars of that
day.

On Oct. 2, 2006, the world's eyes turned to a one-room schoolhouse
where a troubled truck driver named Charlie Roberts shot 10 Amish
girls, killing five and wounding five others, before turning the gun
on himself.

A father of two of those girls — one who died and one who survived —
says the mountains of grief aren't as steep, and the valleys aren't as
dark and deep as they were immediately following the shooting.

Gunshot wounds have healed for some of the survivors, who were 6 to 13
years old at the time of the shootings. They are growing up, some
working as hired girls for other families, others immersed in the
"running around" phase of an Amish teen's life with its busy schedule
of volleyball games and other gatherings.

The families of the girls also have welcomed nine new children into
the world.

Faith, family and friends, and a caring world, have eased the pain of
that day.

But not erased it.

"I don't think it will ever completely go away," says one father, who
lost two daughters, one 7 and the other 8.

"No," his wife says quietly, looking across the room at him, "I don't
think it will."

Their world, 5 years later
A few outward things have changed in Nickel Mines in the past five
years, years that brought tsunamis and hurricanes, a new president to
the U.S. and new freedoms to the Arab world, bedbugs infestations and
WikiLeaks, the swine flu and the final Harry Potter book to the rest
of the globe.

Here in this quiet valley, the yellow West Nickel Mines School
building has vanished, torn down shortly after the shootings. The site
now is an ordinary green pasture.

The New Hope School was built a short distance away, not far from the
homes of some of the families who lost daughters that day.

Children still walk across farm fields to the school every morning. At
recess, they pour out of its doors to pick up sides for baseball or
other games in the play yard, now removed from the main road.

But the families and community have been forever changed by what
happened.

Seven families lost or had daughters injured that day. Two of those
families suffered both hardships.

Lost were: Naomi Rose Ebersol, 7; Lena, 7, and Mary Liz Miller, 8;
Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12; and Marian Fisher, 13.

Naomi, Anna Mae and Marian are buried in a row in a simple Amish
cemetery. The Miller sisters are in the same cemetery, buried next to
an uncle.

Three of the five surviving girls have recovered completely from the
physical effects of the shootings, bearing only small scars.

Sarah Ann Stoltzfus, now 13, was shot in the back of the head, the
bullet exiting her right temple, where it left a 3-inch hole. She lost
5 percent to 10 percent of her brain tissue due to the shooting and
its aftermath, her parents say. The parents, like other family members
of the girls, asked that their names not be used.

Remarkably, she now has only a small scar under her hairline and is an
"A" student at New Hope.

She is the only girl from the shootings who is still a New Hope
"scholar," as Amish families call students. Overall, there is a
noticeable shortage of girls of a certain age in the community.

Rachel Stoltzfus, also 13, was shot in the arm and the jaw. She had
bone grafting done in her jaw, but also has only a small scar.

She still needs some dental work, but otherwise is physically
recovered. She works as a hired girl for a neighboring family, her
parents say.

Esther King, now 18, was shot in the back but also recovered. She now
helps out at the New Hope School.

Two of the girls still have physical problems from the shootings. And
when they hurt, the whole community hurts, families say.

Barbie Fisher, who is 16, has had several surgeries and still has some
problems with her shoulder. She also is working as a hired girl.

The most severely injured girl is the youngest survivor. Now 11,
Rosanna King is in a wheelchair and does not walk or talk. She is
awaiting treatment for a hip problem.

This little girl, who attends a special-needs school for Amish
children, uses a specialized computer mounted on the front of her
wheelchair.

Two cameras in the computer track her eyes and, with them, she can
move a cursor. If she stares at an image for a fixed time, she can
activate links that take her to photos of family and friends, a box
that plays a recording that says "Thank you," or a recording of her
brothers singing.

She also can use the cursor to go to a keyboard and spell out
messages. She recently spelled "Hi Leroy," to one of her brothers.

Her father says, "We have lots of reason to believe she knows
everything that goes on."

She sits at the dinner table with her family, watching when her
brothers act up or say something funny.

"She's very apt to be the first one laughing," her father says.

One of the babies born to a Nickel Mines family — a family who lost
two daughters — was born the day before Rosanna's Sept. 11 birthday,
about one year ago. The family named the baby after Rosanna.

"She gave us hope," says the mother. "She was sent home to die and did
not. There was hope there."

There is one other girl, who was not killed or injured by Roberts, but
was affected by the shootings.

Emma Fisher was the only girl to escape the schoolhouse that day. She
said she heard a voice, which some believe was heaven-sent, urging her
to slip out quietly, saying, "If you go out, don't run."

Though she was not injured, one of her sisters, Marian, died and the
other, Barbie, was hurt. The girl's parents say Emma struggled with
her feelings after the shootings, wrestling with survivor's guilt.

Today, her dad says, "She's a normal 14-year-old girl."

Her family, like the others, does not avoid talking about the
shootings. But neither does it dominate every conversation or every
day of their lives.

Life goes on, they say. It has to.

Her mother says, "You worry, are you going to forget this stuff? You
really don't want to forget it. But it's still nice to be normal."

"We want," her husband adds, "to be normal people."

Lingering pain
In interviews at their homes, the families spoke frankly about how the
passage of time affects the scars they carry.

A father who lost two daughters says he thinks about the girls at
harvest time. He imagines the elder girl driving a team of horses in
the fields.

His wife watches her children walk down the farm lane on the way to
school, and has a momentary halting fear she might not see them
return.

She also has pangs when she sees her daughters' friends, and imagines
her own girls being the same age now.

"We still watch the girls that are her age," admits another father,
who also lost a daughter. But he is quick to add there is also a
measure of peace with such thoughts.

"We feel she's well taken care of. She's taken a shortcut through this
life."

Almost all the Nickel Mines families speak of "stabs of pain" that
linger, and likely will never go away.

One father talks of meeting a dad who speaks of a son lost 20 years
ago, and still the tears of grief flow. The Nickel Mines father
wonders if he will still be so wounded, 15 years from now.

Some days are harder than others.

"We could often have gone off the deep end if we didn't keep ourselves
in check," one father says. "We still have to be careful, or we'll
fall off."

Sometimes, sadness is triggered by a particular event: a birthday, a
baptism, the birth of a new brother or sister.

And those who survived also struggle, wondering why they lived and
their friends or sisters did not.

Some parents wonder if the families whose daughters were injured
suffer more than those whose girls died.

Some of the boys who were in the schoolhouse that day also have
struggled with survivor's guilt. Roberts allowed them to leave with
their teacher and some adults who were visiting. Some of the boys had
sisters who remained behind.

The families agree that time has helped to heal, but not to erase,
emotional wounds.

"I would say we think about it every day, but not with the deep pain
that we did at first," says a father whose 7-year-old daughter was
killed. "At first, you woke up every morning and the truth hit you
again, and what had happened."

A father who lost a daughter says, "I'm at peace with her death, but
that doesn't mean I don't have periods of pain. It's just not as sharp
as it was the first year. It's just more of an aching longing to still
have her here than the sharp pain of loss."

Some of the families say they faced the "Why us?" question. But, their
reply is surprisingly straightforward: "Why not us?"

"The best answer is bad things happen to a lot of people, and nobody
is exempt from the bad things that do happen in this world," says one
father.

Adds a mother, "We wouldn't have wished it on anybody else, either."

The passage of time helps, family members say.

So does their faith.

Says a father, "I probably would have fallen off the cliff, if it
wouldn't be for my faith in God."

Giving back
In no small measure, the support and compassion of people from around
the globe also helped families to cope and heal.

The families remain simply amazed at the outpouring of letters of
condolence, advice and money from strangers.

"We got over 3,000 cards and, more than one-third, we have no idea of
who they are," says a mother.

The grandfather of one of the victims recalls a letter that came from
an older woman from New York. She apologized for only sending $5,
saying she wanted to give more but simply didn't have it.

"I said the whole world was praying for us," he says. "You could feel
the support."

Adds a father, "As far as the community, I think it made us all
realize — Amish, Mennonite, English — we're a lot more alike than we
thought we were."

In recent years, the families have made it their mission to get in
touch with other families who have lost loved ones. They try to help
by sharing their experiences with pain, healing and forgiveness.

It's why some of the families have counseled a family who lost a son
in the Virginia Tech shootings. Some have talked with a recovery group
for a woman shot in Vermont. One grandmother of a Nickel Mines girl
regularly corresponds with a mother who lost a daughter in the 1999
Columbine High School shootings.

Some have even consoled grieving parents who have found their way to
their doorstep.

Most of the families have attended an annual Amish event known as the
Sudden Death Reunion.

Held in a different Amish community each year for those who have lost
loved ones, mostly children, the event draws hundreds. It mixes hymn
singing with formal and informal collective sharing of experiences.

"We just know that there's more people who are going through the same
thing ... and we're all in the same boat," says a mother who lost two
daughters in the Nickel Mines shootings.

Everyone benefits from being together.

"Sharing your grief with others helps with the healing," says one
mother.

"That's huge, sharing the grief," agrees her husband. "I have to think
of a saying, 'A burden shared is a burden divided, and a joy shared is
a joy multiplied.'

"I really feel bad for the people in your world who lose a child and
don't have the connection with other people with similar experiences."

A grandfather considers the grief counseling by the families a way to
give back.

"The support of the whole world helped us through five years ago. And
now we can help them. It comes back, helping those people."

Also helping families to heal are the new children they have had,
without hesitation.

"We wanted to have more, but we desperately wanted to have a girl,"
says one mother, who lost her only daughter.

"It's been a blessing — mainly to have that girlishness, giggles and
little frills and dresses and dolls and all the girlish things that go
with it."

Memory corners
There is a conscious effort in each of the four families who lost
girls to keep the memories of their daughters alive. All keep mementos
and some of the girls' personal belongings on display in their homes.

Most have dedicated "memory corners," visible touchstones for siblings
and parents alike.

In the corner of one family's living room, there is a glass case with
shelves of now-cherished knickknacks, including rose petals from the
young girl's funeral, her favorite dolls, a report card, the shoes she
wore to school on the day of the shootings and the cooler lunch box
she carried.

The family also has about a dozen scrapbooks filled with memories and
condolences written by relatives, neighbors and strangers.

On one page, a lock of the girl's hair, clipped after her death. On
another, this from the girl's schoolteacher: "You're in my heart to
stay."

People magazine also gave the families hardback books containing more
than 1,000 condolences that readers posted on its website after the
shootings.

Many of the families also have framed prints of a painting of the
former school. "The Dawning of a New Day" was painted by State Trooper
Glenn E. Blue, who was one of the first officers on the scene and
continues to have a special relationship with the families.

The painting shows the school as it once was. Five white doves, flying
heavenward, represent the five girls who died. Five other doves,
perched on the roof, symbolize the five girls who were shot and
survived.


A changed world
The Amish community, and its neighbors, had their eyes opened to the
dangers of the outside world after Oct. 2, 2006.

After the shootings, the county emergency management agency developed
a list of Amish schoolhouses, along with contact information, and
assigned each of them a street address. Municipal officials identified
nearby landing sites for medical helicopters, should they be needed.

Today, more of those schools keep their gates closed during the day.

And parents of scholars might turn their head and notice a strange
vehicle driving past, more than they did before the shootings.

But they do not live in fear. They say they rely on a higher power.

"Some parents send their children to school with a prayer," one father
says, "more now that this happened."

The community has more connections with the outside world, due to "the
happening." Unusual friendships have developed.

One family gets a visitor every year, an English woman who is a friend
of a friend, who brings them a meal around the anniversary. The
families have remained close to some of the state troopers who came to
the schoolhouse that day.

And one very strong friendship rose from the horrible tragedy.

The Amish community developed a close bond with Chuck and Terri
Roberts, the parents of Charlie Roberts.

Every week, Mrs. Roberts travels to Rosanna King's home, to help care
for the little girl for several hours, singing to her and reading
Bible stories and books such as "Anne of Green Gables."

"Her and Rosanna have a pretty good relationship," Rosanna's father
says, chuckling at how Mrs. Roberts uses a ton of expression and
enthusiasm when she reads.

On the anniversary of the shootings, the families who had children in
the school that day always gather.

This year, the families planned to get together with some of the
rescue personnel who were at the schoolhouse.

Over the years, the families have found that memories are changeable
and can be unpredictable.

Last year at the gathering, the girls started talking with each other,
in front of their parents, about the day.

Each one remembered it a little differently — who was where, what
happened when.

The families' own feelings have changed, in a way they also might not
have predicted.

One father says, "I'm to the point where it's something I don't want
to forget.

"When we talk about the happening, yes, it hurts. But there are some
special feelings that come with it. There are some precious memories.
It's a good feeling to talk about those memories."





















































































































































































































































































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