A Book of American Martyrs(15)

If I had not gone to that church service, that Sunday morning.

But it was decreed by the Lord, this would happen. It was decreed that Edna Mae Reiser and Luther Amos Dunphy would meet in that place and at that time in June 1977, that our children would be born each in time. For in no other way could our lives have progressed, that these children would be born as they were, and baptized in Jesus.

The Edna Mae that is, and the Edna Mae that was. Hardly would you think that the woman of thirty-six or -seven (I was not absolutely certain of Edna Mae’s age as I am not ever certain of the children’s exact ages for they are changing all the time, and so the family laughs at their Dad-dee who is always being corrected and scolded) could even be the mother of the seventeen-year-old Edna Mae Kaiser with her round face and shy eyes.

Not of the same type, you would think. Not the same blood.

In my memory, Edna Mae is wearing a white dress in the church. (For she was a nurse’s aide, I would discover.) Yet, Edna Mae has always laughed at me, saying no, she had not been wearing any white dress that day!—she had certainly not been wearing a uniform to church. What she’d been wearing was a pink flower-print dress, and white ballerina slippers.)

Now Edna Mae was complaining of something I could not fully comprehend, how tired it made her, to drive at night. How selfish it was, that I should make her drive, when she hated to drive at night, and was afraid to drive at night, on the interstate especially, and now she had a headache, and needed to take some medication and get back to sleep right away.

This was a surprise! For Edna Mae had not driven any vehicle since the shock of January of this year. I was sure of this. Luke or Dawn would have told me. Never would I have asked my dear wife to drive on the interstate at night even when she’d been in good health. But I did not refute her now which would only make matters worse.

“Have you taken more of those damn pills, Edna Mae? When you have to get up in a few hours?”

It was like a slap, to utter damn to Edna Mae. But it was a light sort of slap, to get her attention, and not to insult her as a harsher word would have done.

The shock of hearing our daughter Dawn mutter the f-word a few weeks ago, in the kitchen slamming drawers talking to herself when she’d thought no one was within hearing. F—k you, f—kface just f—k you, got it?—laughing in contempt imagining an exchange with one of her school classmates.

The shock of it had been such, I backed away into the garage. And reentered the house dazed a few minutes later, to avoid a confrontation with the child.

Of course, I knew that Edna Mae had taken one or more pills in the bathroom. I knew that Edna Mae would not be able to get up in the morning before the children left for school, and I left for work. The older children would help the younger as they had been doing since January and it would not be surprising to them, to return home from school in the afternoon to discover their mother groggy and slurred of speech still in her nightgown.

I know, these are said to be “addictive” pills the doctor has prescribed for my dear wife. I know that there is a problem of “dependency.” But the doctor has insisted, Edna Mae would be “severely depressed” without them.

It is a sin against Jesus, to be depressed. If you are in despair, it is an insult to Jesus who died for your sins, as if Jesus is not adequate for you, but I do not want to tell Edna Mae this fact for fear of making things worse for her.

In a woman, the weaknesses of a man are doubled, or trebled. Their will to withstand the temptation of despair is like the muscles of their shoulders and upper arms, lacking in development.

Quickly I rose from the bed, that badly needed changing. (I did not want to see if, in her moment of panic, when it seemed that she might be suffocating, my poor dear wife had wetted herself and the bedclothes.) I helped Edna Mae back into bed, and adjusted her pillow beneath her head, and sat for a while with her, caressing her hand that was strangely hot and dry.

“Which time is this, Luther?”

“Which time?”

“I know where we are but—when . . .?”

Our minister has said, there is a time beyond time. You will have no words to speak of it. This is a thought that has come to me too, when I stand up, lifting my head, seeing quickly the arrangement of clouds in the sky, and the types of clouds—their particular shapes, colors, thicknesses.

In silent reply to her question I gripped Edna Mae’s hand tight.

We have faith, that meaning will come to us from above. Like a light-falling warm rain that blesses.

It was a blessing now, soon then Edna Mae lapsed back into sleep. I was confident that she would not recall any of her nightmare of choking, in the morning.

That is a blessing of bad dreams, they are quickly forgotten.

While Edna Mae slept in our bed, with opened mouth, and damp hoarse breath, but less agitation than before, I felt my own agitation gradually subside; and a feeling of gratitude filled my heart. For it seemed to be decided, I was not meant to put my dear wife out of misery. And it was not so clear, that God did not have a special destiny for Luther Dunphy.

Quietly I switched off the light and slid beneath the covers beside the female body.

“Thank you, God. You have shown me the way as I have prayed You would.”


SOON AFTER THIS, without informing my dear wife I became a member of Operation Rescue, which I discovered through the Army of God newsletter. In all, I would attend only three meetings and at these, I would not speak. But, with the others, I would vow to lay my life on the line for Jesus.