Chapter 10
“Look at this!” Marissa said as she held up the gingerbread man that she just decorated. For nine years old, Amy thought she had done a great job. Probably better than Amy could do since she had absolutely no artistic ability at all.
Jones, on the other hand, had decorated three different gingerbread men, one with a suit and tie, one dressed as an astronaut, of all things, and one who looked like a typical gingerbread man.
Robert seemed to be doing the best, and Marissa was enjoying it, although she had times of sadness and once had broken out in tears.
Lucas was quiet, pensive, and didn’t join in a lot of their conversations, but he had helped make the batter, roll it out, and cut out the gingerbread men, and now he was mixing up the molasses cookies with Amy.
“You can crack those eggs, and we’re ready to put them in now. Make sure you don’t get any shells in them,” she said.
“Aunt Amy, aren’t you going to decorate a gingerbread man?” Marissa asked, looking up from the one that she sat in front of.
“My gingerbread men look hideous. They look like ballerinas or something,” she said, trying to figure what in the world could be the most hideous thing a gingerbread person could possibly look like.
“That’s a good idea!” Marissa said. “This one’s going to be a ballerina. ”
Well, the church kids were going to be shocked when they showed up at their house handing out gingerbread men ballerinas.
Hopefully that wouldn’t affect the taste, so maybe it would be okay.
Jones met her eyes over the heads of the kids, and they shared a little smile.
He knew how she felt about her ability to decorate, and that’s why he had taken the lead there. She could mix things up and cook them to perfection, and if she had had a choice, they would have made just regular cookies. But they thought that the kids would enjoy the decorations, and they’d been right.
She hadn’t heard anything out of her mom and Gilbert, and she hoped everything was going well.
“When I was a kid, my parents didn’t cook with me like this, so it’s good that you have an aunt who takes the time to do that,” Jones said as he picked up another gingerbread man and started squeezing some icing from the tube on him.
“Aunt Amy’s always done it. But you’ve always been there too,” Marissa said, and then she looked up, thoughtful. “Are you going to be our parents now?”
Her lips trembled, and her eyes filled with tears.
Amy wasn’t far from her, so she nodded at Lucas who was pouring the eggs in and took a step to put her arm around Marissa.
“Your dad will still be your parent, honey.” She couldn’t promise everything would be the same, because it wouldn’t be.
“I just want Mom to come back,” she said, her tears spilling down her cheeks until she buried her head against Amy, like she had the night before.
Amy knew that today was probably going to be hard for everyone, and the cookies were just a Band-Aid.
It would take them a while to work through their grief. Although, she felt like with the right, positive direction, they would be able to have a good frame around which to put their thoughts. The idea that God was good might be a little bit hard to swallow, and she was a little concerned for the children.
She didn’t want them to be angry at Him, so she hesitated to bring Him up at all.
“Me too!” Robert said, dropping his icing and running over to put his arms around Amy.
Jones stood. She knew that this was not something he was comfortable with. That he would rather be far, far away, but he came over to where she stood with the two kids.
“You might as well join the group hug, Lucas,” Jones said, wrapping his arms around Marissa and Robert.
“I don’t like crying,” he said, but he put the spoon in the batter and came over.
“I think maybe your siblings just need you to be here right now. You don’t have to cry,” Jones said.
“I don’t think it’s fair. Why does it have to be us to lose our mom? Why can’t it be...someone else.”
So different than the boy he was even a week ago, two weeks ago, when he volunteered to use the leaf blower with Judd.
But that was how quickly things could turn in a person’s mind. Of course, there was a lot of changes since then, and his mom was no longer with them. At the time, no one had realized that she had less than two weeks to live.
“God gives us all trials we have to get through,” Amy started, not sure where she was going with that.
“And our trials make us stronger. The harder the trials, the stronger we can get, but we have to lean on the Lord and realize that whatever He does, He’s got a plan, and it’s for our good.”
“This doesn’t feel good. How can death be good?”
“What makes you think it’s bad?” Jones said.
“Because my mom isn’t here anymore?” Lucas said, like it was obvious .
“But she’s in heaven. That’s better than here. And when you get to heaven, she’ll be right there waiting to greet you. You’ve got someone waiting for you in heaven right now, and you don’t have to worry about dying, like...sometimes you’re scared, right? At least I am, of dying,” she said. “But after my dad died, I started thinking that he did it, why can’t I? And if he did it, and he’s a Christian and he’s in heaven, he’s waiting on me. So, there’s Jesus, too, but when I was little, I worried that I wouldn’t recognize him.”
“But I think we will recognize him. I think we just automatically will,” Jones said.
“I think you might be right. But when I was little, I was scared I wouldn’t. But after Dad died, I wasn’t afraid to die anymore, because I knew I would have someone I knew in heaven. So I can just run right to my dad, and he’ll take me to his house, he’ll introduce me to all his friends, and we’ll just hang out there and wait for the rest of the family to get there.”
“But what about me? I’m still here?”
“That’s right. And so, you keep your mom’s memory in mind, and you remember the things that she taught you, and you do your best to grow up to be the man that she wanted you to be. Didn’t she tell you that you needed to love Jesus?”
“Yeah.”
“What else did she tell you you need to do?”
“She told me I was supposed to take care of Dad and my siblings. But I’m only twelve!”
“Some of us grow up early,” Jones said. “But I’m sure she didn’t mean that you are supposed to get a job and provide for them. She just meant, don’t fight with them. Be nice to them, learn to get along with them, because she loves them, she loves you, and she wanted you all to get along.”
Amy had not signed up for this counseling of children with grief, and she wasn’t sure that she was saying anything right. She hoped she was saying something that would help not hinder, but she felt entirely inadequate for the situation.
But she looked over Lucas’s head at Jones, he smiled at her, and it made her feel like maybe she wasn’t doing such a terrible job.
“I just want her to come back.”
“She’s not coming back to you, but you can go to her, when it’s your turn to go. It’s like I told Lucas, she’ll be there waiting for you, but there’s no rush to get there. You need to be here and grow up. Live your life.”
“She doesn’t get to see it! What’s the point?” Lucas said.
“How do you know she doesn’t see it?” Amy said. Although she believed in spirits, she didn’t believe that spirits people could see were from the Lord. She did, however, believe that a person’s life would eventually be on display for anyone to see, since the Bible said that all the hidden things would be revealed. She was certainly willing to say that she could be wrong about that, since she didn’t exactly know how they would be revealed, but it stood to reason that God wouldn’t deprive a mother of being able to see her children grow up.
There was always the idea, though, that once a person got to heaven, they didn’t really care anymore about what went on on earth. Because they would be so interested in seeing and praising Jesus.
“I guess I don’t,” Marissa said, seeming thoughtful.
“I don’t know whether she can or not, but I guess, I would live my life like she could, just in case. After all, if you get to heaven and find out she couldn’t, you’ve lived a good life. But if you get to heaven and find out she could, and you didn’t live like it, then you’ve probably got some problems, because your mom’s not going to be very happy with you.”
Lucas actually almost smiled, his lips trembled anyway, and Marissa seemed to be drying her tears.
“Can I go back and decorate my gingerbread man?” she asked .
“You sure can.”
“We were going to take these and give them to the kids who ride in the wagon with us to church. You guys are welcome to come. Or if you don’t want to, one of us can stay home, and only one of us will go.” Jones looked at Amy, with his brows raised, as if asking if that was okay.
She nodded. Of course it was. She wasn’t going to quibble over details. And she also figured that some of the kids might want to go, and maybe not all the kids would want to go.
“You’re going to go visiting?” Robert asked tentatively.
“We sure are,” Jones said, ruffling his hair before he walked back around the bar and sat back down in front of his gingerbread man.
“We can go?” Marissa said.
“If you want to,” Amy said, walking over and watching as Lucas stirred the cookies.
“I want to go. I want to be able to tell them that I did it.”
“You certainly can. You’ve done the lion’s share of the work.”
“I want to, too!” Marissa said.
“Me too!” Robert added.
“You guys have all been a great help. It’s only right that you get to go deliver them and tell people that you made them if you want to. You can even decorate certain cookies for certain people, although you have to be nice about it,” Jones said, adding that last bit just in case the kids got any ideas about being funny.
They seemed interested, and they talked about who they were decorating their cookies for, while Lucas finished mixing up the molasses cookies and they started baking them.
The kids were struggling, sure, but it was to be expected, since they lost their mom the day before. Hopefully, doing all this would get their mind off things.
“And after we go visiting, we’ll be doing your horseback riding therapy, which you’ve done for two weeks,” she said, knowing that the kids loved it .
“Both today!” Robert said, jumping up. “Yay! I hope I get to ride Boomer. He was the best horse she had.”
“No. My horse was the best horse,” Lucas said, turning around to stick his tongue out at his brother.
Amy was tempted to tell him that she didn’t think that was what his mother meant when she told him to take care of his siblings, but she didn’t want to put too much pressure on his young shoulders, so she clamped her mouth closed. He would probably be hearing that a good bit over his lifetime, and she didn’t need to start the chorus today.
“My horse, Princess Buttercup, was the best horse. She’s the best because she’s a princess,” Marissa said, stating it like it was a fact.
“She’s not a princess,” Lucas said.
“Yes, she is. It’s in her name. And on her papers. They told me she was registered as Princess Buttercup.”
Jones and Amy exchanged glances again.
This time, there was still sadness in their eyes as they looked at each other, but there was a smile there too.
“What do you think about taking Mocha on the wagon on Sunday?” Amy said, the idea coming to her on the spur of the moment.
She watched Jones’s face.
The kids all cheered, because they loved Mocha, although she hadn’t brought her today since they were baking cookies.
“That may be a good way to get her adopted, if you have her on the wagon where everyone can see her.”
“I was thinking that, but mostly I was just thinking that she would love it, and the kids might enjoy it as well.”
“We can dress her like a reindeer!” Marissa said excitedly.
Amy didn’t do too much of that kind of stuff for Christmas, especially at church, because she wanted to be sure that they were celebrating Christmas and not mixing secularism in with what should have been the holiest day of the year. Other than possibly Easter .
“We can do that,” she said, not wanting to split hairs with something that got Marissa so happy. She supposed there would be time enough to be clear about what Christmas was about and what it wasn’t.
Although, over the years, Christmas would probably be hard, after losing their mom right around the holidays.
“Can I hold her?” Marissa asked.
“Sure. She’d probably really like that.”
They talked a little more about the kids in the wagon and how they were going to be delivering cookies later, when Amy’s phone buzzed.
She met Jones’s eyes, touched her pocket where it was, and then walked out of the kitchen.
She pulled it out of her pocket and swiped on.
“Hello?” she said, standing in the hall, tempted to walk into the bathroom.
“Amy, how are the kids?” Her mom’s voice came over the phone.
“They’re doing fine. They had a couple of times where they’ve cried, but right now, they’re talking about taking Mocha on the wagon when we pick the kids up for church, and they’re pretty excited about that.”
“And the cookies?”
“I think they’re going to go with us later to deliver them. They were excited that they could decorate certain cookies for certain kids, although it might make visitation last twice as long as what it usually does.” She could just imagine each kid going, “where is the cookie that I decorated for you,” and going through every one of them trying to remember. It had the makings of a nightmare, but it would keep the kids thinking about something else while time did its work. And God healed their hearts.
“I’m glad to hear it. Gilbert is...doing fine. I guess. He’s kind of unemotional. And that worries me as much as if he were inconsolable. ”
“He’s a man.” She knew men cried. It wasn’t a secret or anything, but they tried harder than women not to. Although, she figured if someone lost their wife, they should be given a pass on the whole not crying thing.
“I know. Well, we’ve made the arrangements for the funeral, we talked to the pastor, and we checked the weather. We thought we’d better wait until after the storm passes, so the funeral is going to be Friday. We knew that both Terry and Jones have Friday off. I know it’s going to be the Friday before Christmas, but... It is what it is.”
“That’s fine. That’s probably best.”
“All right. I wanted to let you know. We’re on our way home. I suppose the kids can decide at that point whether they want to go with you, or whether they want to stay home.”
“That’s fine. We told them they could choose, and if you guys weren’t back, one of us was going to stay.”
“All right.”
“Also, don’t forget about their horse therapy at two.”
“Oh. I had forgotten. I’ll remind Gilbert.”
“All right. Mom, I put a casserole in the fridge, so you don’t have to worry about it, and then three different ladies from church showed up with food, so there’s plenty to eat here. Just to let you know.”
“Thank you. I don’t think either one of us are hungry, but I have yet to see Gilbert where he truly couldn’t eat, so that’s good to know.”
“Yeah. I just wanted to let you know you didn’t have to worry about cooking anything.”
“Thanks. And I know he really appreciates you and Jones taking care of the kids.”
“Not a problem. Terry said Judd had some things he had to do, but she was happy to stop in, so she’s available too.”
“I really appreciate the way you all are pitching in. It’s nice to have a family.”
“It sure is.”