As the son of American missionaries in the 1960s, who went to Christian boarding school, I grew up with devotions, church, Bible study, youth groups as a big part of my family and social life. I had a hard time with Bible studies because I a) I never really liked being told what to I had to believe and b) I was the type who could point out possible different interpretations and possibilities of logic and drive the study leader crazy. (Being polite I rarely did this).

Lately, I've been trying something different. I'm a storyteller—don't necessarily want to be, but that's what I am—so I'm thinking through issues of faith through the lens of this gift, or curse. It's the Easter season, and I'm writing a cycle of four stories. These aren't fully fleshed and polished stories, but more like sketches, driving to get down quickly what it is I'm getting a sense of. Here is the final story. Tough once to sketch, to get the heart without the saccharine.


EASTER SUNDAY

We gathered that bright Easter morning for what was supposed to be joyous ceremony. Instead, we were quiet and somber. Many of us were red-eyed from crying. Miriam sat restlessly at the piano, lifting her hands to the keyboard to play but then lowering them again, clearly at a loss at what to do, what hymn to play.

We were waiting for Pastor Ed, who was late. Finally he appeared at the side door, ushering before him a woman appeared from the passenger side. A stranger, salon-tinted hair, a dress suited for a cocktail party, and manicured nails you only saw in movies. He gestured for her to take a chair in the front row. She looked familiar, but we couldn't place her. Young, but a shellacked air to her, varnished by hard living. She ignored us, not out of contempt or disrespect, but because it was clear that she was in her own world at the moment, somewhere else.

Pastor Ed took the pulpit, decorated in lilies and other Easter flowers. He was rumpled, wearing the same suit he'd worn all night at the hospital. Shadows dug deep into his cheeks. We were expecting haggard eyes, grieving eyes, eyes of a warrior who fought the battle for a child and lost. But his gaze was vibrant, and his smile victorious.

"Christ has risen!" he exclaimed.

We were confused but we responded. "He is risen indeed."

"I'm sure you've all heard the sad news. Jimmy Wrightmore passed away last night. Ida and Steve have formalities to attend to but they ask me to pass on to you their greetings and their regrets they cannot be here to for this celebration of Easter."

He emphasized the phrase. Celebration of Easter.

"It does seem a paradox to be celebrating the Risen Christ when one of us has been so tragically taken from us, especially one so young and full of life. The first I knew of Jimmy Wrightmore was during the second week of my pastorate here. He was, what, six? He asked me if I could baptize his pet frog. I was inexperienced then, and explained why I could not, but the next Sunday, when I baptized Carole Kraft, the frog was in the baptismal." Pastor Ed looked around and spotted Carole's big head of red hair. "You remember that, Carole?"

"I sure do," she said. "He did it on purpose, too, the little rascal. He knew I hated frogs. Boy, did I ever screech and splash! I don't think anybody's been so thoroughly baptized like I was." She was laughing when she said this, and those of us who'd been there and seen the hysterics started laughing, too.

Ed Gagliadi stood up. He's a pharmacist. "I remember when Jimmy came into the store and bought all the hydrogen peroxide we had in stock. He said it was for a science experiment. An hour later I get a call from his dad. Jimmy's experiment was to see what would happen if he flushed all that hydrogen peroxide down the toilet. By what the plumber later told me, the result was quite spectacular."

More laughter rolled through the congregation. The blond woman shook her head and smiled.

Lisa Gardener raised her hand. She's fourteen, same age as Jimmy. "Last year, when the youth group went into the city to see Hamlet? These homeless people there at the theater plaza, asking for money? An old lady came up to Jimmy but he ignored her and then when we're in the foyer getting our snacks and Jimmy looks at his five dollar bill with like this totally stricken look and says he has to go out and find that old lady. I tried to get him to stay and at least watch the show first but you know Jimmy, he gets an idea in his head, that's it. So I go out with him and we go looking for the old lady but don't see her. There's lots of other homeless people and I'm like telling Jimmy, give the money to one of them, but no, it has to be that old lady. Nobody else. We finally did find her and give her the money and she just grumps at us. Not even a thanks. Aaaand we missed the show and I was so ticked off at Jimmy and he looks at me and gives me that smile, you know that grin he has? And he says, 'yeah, but admit it, that was more fun that some boring old play.' And you know what, it was fun."

There were more Jimmy stories. Then the blond woman stood. "I have a story, too. Actually, I have a lot of stories about Jimmy, because he was my kid brother."

You could have heard our eyelids blink. Why, this was Lauren, Lauren the Bad Girl, Lauren the Troublemaker, the Rebel, the Jezebel, the one arrested as a juvenile, the girl who broke her parents' heart, the one who vanished into the maws of Sin.

"I was already a teen when Jimmy was born," Lauren said, "and I didn't want anything to do with him. I wasn't going to be a babysitter or diaper changer or anything like that. I basically ignored him the whole time I was here. I left home, and did my thing, lived my life the way I wanted to live it, and when I thought of this town, it was to think I'll never ever go back there again.

"Then a year ago Jimmy tracked me down on FaceBook and said he'd like to be friends. I thought, what was the harm. We started chatting. Casual at first, and then one day Jimmy asked me advice about a girl he really liked, and you know what? Something clicked. I became his older sister. We chatted more and more on line. A few months he asked me to come visit. He said he'd love to see me. I wouldn't have minded that, but there was no way I was coming back here. There was no way I was going to talk to my parents ever again. I told him some of what I felt, and he said he understood. And he said he loved me."

Lauren paused to blink back tears. She coughed and continued: "I didn't know he was sick, how sick he was, until a few days, when a nurse had to type for him. She said I really should come and see him because I mightn't have another chance.

"I couldn't get away until yesterday morning. I went straight to the hospital. I didn't even say hello to my parents. Jimmy was all tethered up to those machines and he was still conscious and his eyes lit up when he saw me but you could tell right away that he was dying and all I could think about was all the years I didn't know him—" Lauren's voice held steady and strong to this point, but then it hit a wall. She didn't break down or stop sobbing, but you could see the emotions sweeping over her. She couldn't speak.

Pastor Ed gently said, "May I tell the rest of it?"

She nodded.

"A story like this," Pastor Ed said, "you'd think there should be grief, yes, of course that, but love and compassion and reconciliation. To be honest, there was none of that."

We listened as he told us how furious Lauren became—at her folks, at Pastor Ed, at the doctors, but most of all, at God. She was in a rage, cursing Him, the unfairness of it all, right there in the hospital room.

A spectacular fury, as well, eloquent and passionate and real.

Jimmy's reaction was curious. Pastor Ed didn't know whether it was the medication or his physical weakness or the knowledge you get when you're peering into the other side of life. But Jimmy calmly watched his sister, and with quiet gestures he told his parents and the doctors, it's okay, let her be, let her be. She finally quieted down and then said, I can't stay here, I can't watch this, Jimmy, I just can't.

Just wait a little longer, Lauren. His voice barely audible. Please. Sit down and hold my hand.

So there Lauren sits, holding Jimmy's hand. We can all see her. We can see Jimmy's beginning to drift inward and then suddenly, without warning, how his eyes snap wide and his gaze sharpen. He looks at upper corner of the room. We can see the surprised and radiant smile spreading across his face. This boy who's been immobile for days rises up and points. Look, he says to Lauren.

What? Lauren says.

Jimmy whispers something in her ear. He is a younger brother telling his older sister a secret. Family business.

He lies back down, the glow still lingering as he closes his eyes.

And in that hospital room, a stunned wonder beginning to break across Lauren's face…

'In the Easter service, at the church, Pastor Ed said, "I don't know what it was that Jimmy said or what he saw—"

Lauren had found her voice again. She spoke up. "I'll tell you. I'll have to break a little promise but I don't think Jimmy will mind. No, he won't mind at all. What he whispered to me was Look, Lauren, there's Jesus. You see him? He's waiting for me. But don't tell anybody or they'll think I'm crazy." Lauren laughs a little as she says this, and we smile with her. "And what did I see? To be honest, I didn't see anything except the ceiling. But I was looking with my eyes. And then something happened. It was like I was all of a sudden looking through Jimmy's eyes. And I saw what he did."

Lauren turned to face us. The hardness is still there, but we can see the softening, too, the way spring seeps into winter. "I don't know why or how it happened, but I know as truly as I know anything the true meaning of Easter, it's not any of this four spiritual laws born again crap, I'm sorry if that offends you but I don't want the theory, I want the truth, I know the truth, the truth is simple, the tomb is empty and Jesus is risen and my life is going to be change in ways I can't even begin to imagine. Jimmy's gone, and I've cried and I'll be crying lots more, but I tell you, the crying's gonna be different. It's going to be an Easter kind of crying. Thank you."

She sits down. There is a deep silent reaching to the seas and up to heaven and then Pastor Ed spreads his arms and says, "Christ is risen!"

And we say, triumphantly, "He is risen indeed."


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