Young Writers Society

Leaves shuffled across the simple looking wooden coffins; whispering and rustling like the pages of an old book, breaking the solemn silence and interrupting the quiet sobs. They made their exodus slowly across the small graveyard of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. Heralds to passing life, vessels sailing on the wind. Each coffin they brushed was under five feet tall and deathly cold. As cold as the silent gray men and women gathered around the five boxes, clutching unopened umbrellas or their spouses hand under the lead October sky. They were crying. Long and hard. But not over the sound of the leaves. This was no place for loud noises or wailing. It was an old place; a place of quiet suffering and honor and death. And death was never a loud affair.

Jonathan Mathis, a reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer, watched the funeral service of the five Amish girls as quietly as everybody else, notebook at his side, his ballpoint pen remaining unopened. It was an emotional experience watching the small Amish community pay their respects to the bullet-ridden bodies of their children. Then again, funerals for murdered kids were always a little heart-wrenching. But instead of doing his job, Jonathan stood off to the side, no tape recorders playing, no dialogue or description being written. He already felt out place as it was, with his black trench coat and pinstripe slacks. It would be too much of an intrusion, he decided, to be scribbling away on his notepad while others mourned solemnly. He would be just another rude philadelphian. Just another loud, arrogant city reporter, shattering privacy like a sledgehammer to glass. So he kept his head down, taking in as much as possible to pound out later on his laptop over coffee. He remained a stranger among the strange.

As the pastor spoke softly over the five coffins, Jonathan made a mental guest list. He could distinguish the Amish from the strangers a mile away. One group was wearing traditional, gray, conservative clothing in contrast to suits and skirts and colors. Other reporters from papers all over Pennsylvania were scattered across the graveyard, doing what Jonathan was making a point not to: smoking, chomping on gum, and reporting the news. He even saw a couple cameramen outside the borders of the funeral, filming sadness. He shook his head and looked over the other mourners. His eyes stopped as he caught sight of Marie Roberts, the wife of the man who had barged into the one room school a week earlier and killed the five young Amish girls and wounded five others. For the millionth time in that hour he was amazed. Amazed at how the Amish people could so readily forgive the man and his family and invite this woman so soon to join in their mourning. So willing to put an arm around her and comfort her. Whisper in her ear that they forgave the man who killed their daughters. He watched as one of the Amish women slipped her hand onto Marie's shoulder as the first casket was lowered into the ground and bow her head. In fact, if he remembered correctly, one of the Grandfathers of a dead girl had made a public statement on the day of the murder, saying, “We must not think evil of this man.” It was phenomenal. Jonathan knew he would never be able to do the same. He knew a grudge would be too easy to hold. As the second girl and the third girl were lowered slowly six feet underground, it struck Jonathan that such forgiveness just didn't happen like this anymore in the world. It didn't matter if you were religious or secular, giving someone a second chance was becoming painfully rare. The pastor finished the final sentences of his eulogy and they lowered the fifth girl into her grave as leaves scampered and danced around the fresh, black, earthy holes in little whirlwinds.

A last prayer was spoken, condolences were quietly exchanged, and the crowd began to disperse. Jonathan closed his notebook and stuffed it in his pocket. He was suddenly tempted to give a couple words of comfort to the mothers, but felt strangely inappropriate and under dressed in a black trench coat and pinstripe slacks. It just didn't seem right: a city-going reporter, a stranger, apologizing for the loss of a person he didn't know from Adam. Instead he turned around, the bells of the small graveyard church tolling in the distance, and trudged slowly towards his Mercedes. A story was forming in his head, the story of the funeral of five Amish girls in a gray graveyard and forgiving mourners. Forgiveness, he thought. That was the story people wanted to read. The public needed to know that hidden among the front page headlines screaming destruction and corruption, that there was still a spark of good. It would be refreshing, he decided. It would be hopeful. Jonathan put his car in gear and roared out of the parking lot, back to Philadelphia.

Behind him, he left a swirling cloud of dead leaves whose brothers and sisters made their exodus slowly across the graveyard, whispering and rustling among the freshly covered graves. Crinkling just over the noise of sobs and moans. Just over the sounds of death.