A Dog's Collar

By Sam Knupp

The day I buried 233 children


Kids in bottles, endless rows of shelf children stacked five deep. It took me an hour to count them. Not so much for my poor math skills, but it's hard to count what keeps tearing up the eyes. Every time I'd blow my nose, I'd have to start over from the beginning. I wasn't making any progress. Just making myself sick. Finally, I picked up the phone in the morgue and called up to my office, "I need Grace."

She came right on down. She's like that. Well named, and a better servant of God than I deserve – but what I need. "Sam, why are you crying?"

"I'm not crying. It's the dust. I have seasonal allergies to morgues."

Grace is sixty, plain as Methodist punch, and starchy as an Idaho potato. She just says, "Humph." Picks up the notebook, and we begin the count together. Once done and 233 children accounted for, she brings down labels, and for the next five hours, we name, baptize, bless, and anoint those kids.

For the ones that we can determine sex, we give a boy or girl's name. When in doubt, we wing it. It's not like it matters much, and yet it matters more than anything else we're ever going to do. Jesus Christ Almighty: it counts. I told Grace, "I've named two boys John already. Does this kid look like a Leon?"

She puts on her reading glasses. Tilts her long nose down a bit to take in the quart container child. "Sam, are you blind? That's a little girl for sure. I'm calling her after my daughter. She's Martha. Martha, it was, still is, and always going to be. I told Grace. "I figure I'll just put in for the last name Christ. So, Martha Christ got her label, a baptism, a blessing, and anointed with just enough holy oil to make the bottle a slight bit slippery.

"Sam, do you really need to put oil on the jar?"

I told her, "That's the problem with you, Mennonites. You're more plain than fancy."

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 17, 2022
• ISBN: 9781667829753

Book preview

Dedicated to

Charley, Bobo, Ben, Shelly, Mr. G, Jenks, Sadie, Bosley, Thumper, Bugle, Franz, Snowball, Pi, Mr. Man, Miss Kitty, Peachy, Reggie, Stripey and the whole family, Goat, Althea, Peter, Midge, Lord, Izzy, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Whitey the mouse, Tim the turtle, Green Bean and his mate, Tramp, Violet, Freddie, Maggie, and the many, many lovely creatures unnamed, but loved and claimed. Thank you.

And so it begins

The first time I was shot surprised me. It wasn’t the circumstances that caught me flat-footed in thought; it was the pain of the personalized attack. The man wanted me dead. He didn’t know me from ‘Adam,’ but he meant real harm. Really, how can someone be so hateful to someone he doesn’t even know by name? I thought at the time, Hey, my name’s Sam. You have to know my name to want to kill me. It’s not right to kill me without even calling me by name. I actually thought that lying on the ground clutching my chest, wondering, Now what do I do? If that seems far-fetched, then you’ve never been shot. That’s precisely what you think at that time, if the shooter is a stranger to you, and you’re still alive enough to give it some thought.

I remember thinking, I should tell him my name. He should know he shot Sam. I guess I should have been thinking, He’s reloading, and probably I should get to my feet and leave. But fleeing wasn’t my first thought. My second thought was, That bastard shot me. He’s going to shoot me again. I said to myself, He shot me. I’m going to mess him up bad. And I lumbered to my feet and started toward him.

Just saying: my first thoughts and my second thoughts weren’t about turning the other cheek. I wasn’t thinking that even one little bit. And maybe that’s part of the problem. My third thought about the matter came several days latter after I woke up. I told the nurse explaining why I was wearing handcuffs, Jesus Christ and rubber ducks, he shot me first. All I did was to make sure he remembered my name.

Preface

Have you ever seen God? I have, and I must say I don’t like how he looks. It’s not that God looks bad. Not that at all. He looks like what God probably should look like on any given day. It’s the fact that when I see God, it’s always such a big deal. I always wondered why most people don’t seem to see God routinely. And when they pray to him, they are surprised if he carries out his half of the conversation. God saying, So, why are you closing your eyes when you talk to me? Why assume you can’t see me? You’re treating me as if I’m invisible. And why do you talk to me silently? I’m old. Maybe I have a hearing problem. People praying to me sure seem to rely on my sense of hearing. And what’s this one-sided crap? Prayer is supposed to be a dialogue. I’m not a vending machine. Pray open-eyed and aloud, and expect to see and hear from me soon. OK?

God must be frustrated sometimes when people who believe in him don’t expect to see or hear from him in person. This all leads me to think we like our gods invisible and mute. It seems to work better that way. But that’s not been my experience with God. I pray with my eyes fully open and often look behind me. And every prayer is usually some form of a question. I become pretty grumpy when all I hear is silence. I’d stop praying to God if he didn’t talk back. If you’ve never seen God, then how is it you believe? And if you’ve never had God tell you stuff, then how do you know what he wants or his personal opinion?

Get a piece of paper. Grab a pen. Sit down in a chair. And begin to write. It won’t matter what you start with. Just put some words down. It’s easiest to start at the beginning, write a single word, and then imply a looming future. Write God… The three dots after that word just means – After God is written down, everything else is history.

That’s how He began everything in the beginning. Just four words said aloud, and only his ears to hear them spoken, Let there be light. And then the whole place lit up, and in that, we know the dark. After you write God, everything else that you record will reflect some shade of darkness and light, black and white, acknowledging that life is a matter of tensioned opposites pulling you along into a future of many possible understandings. Congratulations: you are now a theologian.

Chapter One:

the reluctant servant

The first step

When fear has you in its grip

Remember this simple rule

Step forward a single step

Courage will walk with you

Do you ever wake up screaming? And if you do – do you wonder why the person sleeping beside you doesn’t? Two people sharing the same bed – you’d think our common skin would enclose a familiar nightmarish landscape. It does. To be human is to fear. Man: the creature afraid of living and scared of dying, and even when he’s asleep, he can’t stop worrying.

We are the created and finite, and that’s why our dreams are disturbed. We didn’t make ourselves, and we don’t control death. The truth of ‘humanity’ – we don’t get to choose. The choices we can make are bounded by birth and death. Theology is a way of talking about how we feel about our ‘lack’ of options. Theology allows us to go places that aren’t known to us except by ‘belief.’ And it is ‘belief’ that wakes us screaming or lets us sleep a full eight hours and awaken with a smile. I’m a ‘screaming’ theologian myself. And all that really means is that my beliefs aren’t working as well as I would like. In fact, sometimes, it is my very desire to believe that seems to cause more hell than heaven.

Night terrors are difficult enough, but in the broad light of day, my screams remain the same – just sub-vocalized, and I wonder why my eyes don’t explode. Awake or asleep, I struggle with belief. Belief in God is a rational response to life and death. And yet, it is in the irrational and seemingly miraculous that makes me a person of faith.

The B I B L E: that’s the book for me. And yet it isn’t. It’s not like it isn’t my book of books and daily read. It is. I read it every day. I do, and then I struggle. I have been told I over think about stuff. I don’t believe that’s the problem. It’s not about thinking at all. It’s more about how I just don’t understand why everything stopped about two thousand years ago. What happened?

Where are the last two thousand years of ‘testimony?’ Why is that New Testament still such a skinny book? I know for a fact that God still exists. I have seen his presence in both the miraculous and mundane. I see God everywhere I look, and when I sleep, I see him in visions and dreams. I can’t eat a meal, take a walk, think, feel, or doze off in a nap without talking to God, asking for some type of help for myself or others, praying to him, invoking his name somehow, questioning respectfully, questioning not so respectfully, so forth, so on, never gonna stop and then some. Every time I take a breath, I inhale the divine. And so does every other creature in the universe. If you’re one of the created, you breathe God.

I’m like most men but taller. And I am a sinner and probably taller in that too. I should probably capitalize that ‘S’ but don’t want to be so dramatic. I’m a true believer but maybe not a true ‘liker.’ I love God. Just don’t like God much of the time. I’m pretty sure the feeling is mutual.

I am a servant to God. And in that capacity, I have experienced both joy and sorrow and known damnation and forgiveness. I have seen the most extraordinary sights. I have known God in the lives of so many, and the sights I have seen have changed me for both the better and the worse. What I have not understood often leaves me angry, sad, and truculent. My mother and father named me Samuel. And it is by that name I have been called to serve the Holy One. I am the Reluctant Servant.

Reluctant not in my personal desire to believe but rather reluctant in agreeing that any of this whole life/death business makes any sense at all – let alone something to be encouraged, practiced, and passed on.

This book is a ‘testament.’ It is my testimony. It is about God and his creation. It is one man’s Lives of Saints: or, in some cases, more of a cautionary nature when dealing with the infernal. God never stopped talking to his people. And I don’t think we ever stopped listening. I think what happened was that we forgot that every generation has its own characters that play out their parts differently and the same. We need to hear from them and know their names. The God of Creation has given each of us a voice to be heard.

The passage of two thousand years is both then and now. For can you not see God’s pattern: every generation a birth in a rude stable and a redemptive death on a lonely skull hill? I have seen God and hell. In every single life, the possibilities are infinite. I write of what I have known for I have been inspired both to wonder and terror.

Wisdom says, ‘When you talk with God, be sure it’s Him. Direct your prayers and be specific. First, pray to the God you want to believe in. And then pray he knows your name.’

Chapter two:

Chaplain

God’s sense of humor

He laughs last

I t’s chaplain with an ‘a,’ not just an ‘i.’ It’s not that little guy with a mustache.

Huh.

It’s not Charlie Chaplin. It’s Sam, the chaplain.

The guy I’m talking to lays back flat on the bed, looking confused. So I ramp it up, saying in portentous tones, They sent for me. Finally, he starts to smile a little. They said an atheist was dying over in room 212 who was a real pain in the ass. So I’m here to fix you. He’s grinning like a hyena now.

Well then, pull up a chair.

I tell him, Buddy, I’m already sitting down. So I am, but I still look like I’m standing.

Jesus Christ, you’re a big one.

See, I’ve already done fixed you good. We’re speaking the same language now. And so it goes.

I move one floor over and one down: like playing Tetris, but with the weight of accumulation getting heavier by the hour.

So they sent for the chaplain. It can’t be good. Gotta be bad if you’re here to talk with me.

I told her, I get tired of being greeted this way. Every time I drop by to see someone here, it’s always, Am I dying?"

Well, am I?

I told her, How would I know? I’m not God. Nobody gets through life alive. What do you want from me? How would you like it if every time you talked to somebody, they acted like they were being judged or fitted for a pine box? That shut her up good.

What’s the matter now? She looked ready to cry. I told her, Look, I got plenty of people dying to see me.

She started to laugh. You’re not what I expected.

How so?

You’re a lot bigger.

I said, I can’t help that. I used to be smaller. I was a baby once. My mother said I was a small baby and rather sickly at that. I’ve been this tall since I was a kid. So what. You’re so short even if you had legs, you’d need twelve-inch heels to dance with me. You do dance, don’t you?

I’d need some legs for that, wouldn’t I?

I told her the truth, I don’t know that answer either. I’ve always had long legs.

Her eyes start to bug out a bit, Are you laughing at me?

I told her the truth again, You’d never go dancing with me. It’s not about you not having legs. You’d be worried people would be thinking How is she ever gonna give him a good-night kiss?

I asked her, How tall were you when you had legs?

About five-three.

I told her, That’s not much. When they fit you out with new ones, maybe ask for longer.

Her roommate had already met me. You said you’d bring me some flowers the next time you dropped by.

Cheryl, I’m not here to visit you. You’re not dying and still have legs. You’re on my list, though. I’ll get around to you this afternoon if I’m still alive myself. Right now, I got to visit a woman that is short on wanting to talk with me. How tall are you anyway?

Cheryl speaks right up, I’m tall for a woman. I’m five-nine.

I ask her, Do you dance? She laughs, You know I do. You came in to see me when I first got here, saw how tall I was, and said, I’d ask you to dance, but that hospital gown isn’t doing you any favors.

That unnamed woman with no legs and the attitude is watching Cheryl, and I like some hawk over a rabbit run, You know this guy? Saying it like, You know Ted Bundy.

Cheryl laughed, Everybody knows Sam. Saying it like, He don’t bite.

I ask both of these women, What did the chaplain say to the woman who asked why he was there to see her?

Both ladies gave me their undivided attention. He told that woman the good news first. God loved her. Then he told her the bad news. God still loves her. One of the ladies looked surprised. That’s not how the joke is supposed to end. You’re supposed to say, The bad news is that she’ll be meeting him tomorrow. Her tone was rather aggrieved. We weren’t reading from the same page. So I told her the truth. It’s never a joke to see God.

Wisdom says, ‘Laughter and tears are often expressed the same.’

Chapter three:

Getting the Picture

Why children die

Not a statement

More a question

A dying little boy drew me a picture with a big black crayon. I had asked him what he wanted for Christmas this year. In the right-hand corner of the paper was a stick figure child. I knew it was David because on the ‘stick’s’ back was an oxygen bottle, worn just like Davy liked, high up, and tight. I had commented one time, It looks almost like you have two heads. He had thought for a moment about that and then said, I’d like two heads. Then I could hold more thoughts. And that had led to a discussion of what’s for Christmas this year. I had asked that because he had asked me, If I don’t live to Christmas, will I still get presents somewhere?

I had to think about that. I had to think about that so long that he had time to finish the whole of his artwork. I really didn’t know how to answer that question in any way that made sense. So I said what I believed. Yes. Yes, I do believe you get presents if you don’t live to Christmas. I believe you’ll get birthday presents too, and just for so presents, and probably some are exactly what you want, and some are for you to grow into, and I bet some years see boys getting puppies.

We had talked earlier of his beloved family dog, who was old and dying too. And Davy asked me, very seriously, watching my face with his full attention, Will Champ get presents too after he dies? At that point, I thought I’d rather die myself than continue this conversation. But I let my heart speak what I believe, Yes, Yes, I do believe Champ will continue to get presents for Christmas, his birthdays, and just for so when he dies. He then asked me, Sam, will Champ get another little boy when I die?

After Davy died, I put my art supplies away and reviewed his final picture. I hadn’t paid much attention to the completed image the day he drew it. I had been stuck in our conversation, more than stuck really, overwhelmed, and out of my depth. I had drowned that day talking to a little boy who wouldn’t live to Christmas. I remember I had told him, I do believe you are a most unusual little boy. I believe you are a very special creature. A ‘two-headed child,’ and God created you that way to hold more thoughts. It makes sense that if you have an extra head, you can think extra large thoughts.

I had wondered why we seem to think of God in such small and narrow ways. Now I had an answer. I didn’t have two heads. It made sense. If I had two heads, I’d have twice the room to hold thoughts of God. A little boy with an ‘O2’ tank on his back had made me think larger thoughts. I had told him, I sometimes think of God as ‘breath.’ He breathed life into the whole universe. And every day, I take tiny little puffs of that stuff. Davy asked, Do you breathe God when you die? And I had answered with my heart, Yes, Yes, I do believe that you and Champ will breathe God when you die. And then I added my really, really, really big wish, And I do believe that Champ will get another little boy too, but never lose you. I do believe that you, me, Champ, and every other life will breathe God forever.

Davy liked that thought, so after he died, I told his mother, Marion, about our conversation. She decided he’d be buried with his extra head attached. I thought I understood, but I asked anyway, and she said, The same reason you wear a cross. It says something about what you don’t know for sure but want to believe. So at the funeral service, Davy was wearing his extra head, tucked up high and tight. And Champ was sitting with the rest of his family, looking sad and wise. I started my service with these words, Have you ever thought that maybe we don’t have a big enough God because we only have one head?

Wisdom says, ‘don’t fight with God. There is no prize for winning.’

Chapter four:

The day I buried 233 children

Cut strings still hold

Ask a package

How it’s bound

Tied as knots

Holding is profound

Kids in bottles, endless rows of shelf children stacked five deep. It took me an hour to count them. Not so much for my poor math skills, but it’s hard to count what keeps tearing up the eyes. Every time I’d blow my nose, I’d have to start over from the beginning. I wasn’t making any progress. Just making myself sick. Finally, I picked up the phone in the morgue and called up to my office, I need Grace.

She came right on down. She’s like that. Well named, and a better servant of God than I deserve – but what I need. Sam, why are you crying?

I’m not crying. It’s the dust. I have seasonal allergies to morgues.

Grace is sixty, plain as Methodist punch, and starchy as an Idaho potato. She just says, Humph. Picks up the notebook, and we begin the count together. Once done and 233 children accounted for, she brings down labels, and for the next five hours, we name, baptize, bless, and anoint those kids.

For the ones that we can determine sex, we give a boy or girl’s name. When in doubt, we wing it. It’s not like it matters much, and yet it matters more than anything else we’re ever going to do. Jesus Christ Almighty: it counts. I told Grace, I’ve named two boys John already. Does this kid look like a Leon?

She puts on her reading glasses. Tilts her long nose down a bit to take in the quart container child. Sam, are you blind? That’s a little girl for sure. I’m calling her after my daughter. She’s Martha. Martha, it was, still is, and always going to be. I told Grace. I figure I’ll just put in for the last name Christ. So Martha Christ got her label, a baptism, a blessing, and anointed with just enough holy oil to make the bottle a slight bit slippery.

Sam, do you really need to put oil on the jar?

I told her, That’s the problem with you, Mennonites. You’re more plain than fancy.

A week earlier, I had been making rounds. I was the new chaplain. Going through the morgue stopped me in my tracks. I was stunned. The former pathologist had a collection of children in bottles. They were called ‘specimens.’ Sam, they are used for instructing our students.

I told that instructor, You don’t want to be teaching some things.

I finally got permission to bury these children. I would have buried them anyway without permission. So who’s going to stop me?

The former pathologist had collected a ‘freak show’ of tiny souls for forty years. Some children had ‘wings,’ and some were missing parts and pieces. The bottles, jars, and cups were sealed, leaving the kids looking like they were floating in some tiny ocean. The only time Grace and I got into an argument was when one jar seemed to hold more than a single form. Then I realized it was a two-headed child. Grace had named her Faith. So I added another name, Hope. Faith and Hope Christ: I commented to Grace, They don’t have a middle name.

Don’t be silly, Sam. I’ve been adding our first names to every child as a middle name. So this is Faith Grace Christ and Hope Samuel Christ. She started to blubber when she said that.

Let me begin this next part by saying, I like short people. I don’t purposely make them shorter.

I was trying to work out what to do with all these dead children when God sent Mr. Keper to the hospital. I cut a deal with a dying man who was a double amputee. I sat on his bed, Mr. Keper, how would you like to be buried with 233 children who don’t have family or a place to hold their remains? I hadn’t meant to blurt this out. I wasn’t even thinking about ‘the kids.’ I had come by to comfort.

Can you see us there in your mind’s eye? His face is pained and weary. His wife holds his hand tightly. She knows he is dying. She had told me, Sam, we wanted children. Then when we were ready to adopt, he lost his legs.

I sit on Mr. Keper’s bed, holding his hand: his wife holding the other. It feels like a family. And in a moment, I am telling a dying man my story, pouring out my heart. His face is gravely courteous as he hears me out. He grips my hand when my words are choked, encouraging me with little squeezes to continue. His wife takes my free hand in hers halfway through my story, joining us completely, and circled. She doesn’t know it, but she and her husband squeeze in synergy, and those encouragements enable me to continue. Mr. Keper listens intently. I finish my story, and he begins to sob. He cries so hard that I fear he will break apart. He convulses with tears.

I cannot believe what I have done. My temerity, my unbridled need, has harmed a dying man, robbing him of breath and peace. Then with great effort, Mr. Keper controls his spasms. He speaks with red-faced passion words that I will take to my grave. Well then, Sam, I better hurry up and die; those kids have been without a home and a father for way too long. He turns to his wife, Honey, I don’t miss my legs today.

It was a full house tight fit in his coffin when he died. 233 children were nestled in place of his missing legs: his empty trousers a soft blue blanket to hold decanted children, each now wrapped in their swaddling cloth. It was a close thing getting them all in. He had children everywhere.

I put the child with two heads and wings right over his heart. I asked his wife, Helen, Will this be ok? Helen told me, Sam, you put those who got the worst deal right up front, you hear me, Sam. You put those boys, and girls that got the least, right there with their dad. She cried herself sick.

It was a closed coffin after that. It had to be. I sat on the top of the lid to make it all fit. It took 275 pounds to close, and that was only after I ripped out some lining. I had looked over at Helen - getting her permission. Tear the damn walls down if you have to. Pretty is what pretty does.

On his tombstone, I had it written, A father to 233 children. Later, when I buried Helen, I was sad that I could not somehow make her fit in Mr. Keper’s full house. I wanted to add as an epithet, She was the prettiest of them all. And since I couldn’t do that, I did the next best thing, burying her casket atop his coffin; facing down - now face-to-face, a husband, a wife, and a family reunited.

Wisdom says ‘a child with wings is the impossible seen.’

Chapter five:

The Christmas Tank

Winter snow

Seasonal water

G et out of the way, old man. So I moved on over. No sense in keeping an intemperate man from his fate. But then he pushed me. He shouldn’t have done that. I pushed back. I’m not Jesus. I didn’t say that out loud, but the man got the message. Gunny used to say, I’m not Jesus. I learned that from him. A man doesn’t need to look for trouble - trouble will find him wherever he goes and in every season.

I’m a soldier. I’m not Jesus. If I heard that once, I heard it a thousand times over the years. And his three ex-wives certainly agreed. He’s not Jesus. The youngest X would say, The only thing we ever agreed on was he wasn’t Jesus. The middle one was more colorfully opinionated. The first X said the same: triple X’s, and for sure none of them coming to the funeral. So I’m burying a man who wasn’t Jesus. No surprise here: most men aren’t. The only thing men share for sure is dying. And the only differences really are where and when.

It was snowing to beat the band. Gunny used to say that too. I often wondered about that way of saying heavy snow falling. I asked him about that ‘once.’ Gunny said, A man’s entitled to ask a stupid question. The way he said it made it once and done. I figured it out on my own. A man finds his own answers. That’s what makes him a man. Gunny didn’t have to say that. That came free of charge. After knowing Gunny for a while, there wasn’t much need for conversation. I just filled in the silence with ‘the man.’ Anybody talking to him could carry on both halves of the conversation after knowing him a bit. When he was alive, I’d say to him, I don’t even have to see you to know your opinion. So you can imagine most of us who knew him didn’t need to get together much for visits, and it didn’t surprise me that the day I buried him, it was snowing to beat the band.

Gunny was a master sergeant: he drove a tank for a living. During a worship service, I once flubbed up saying, Let us give tanks to God. I had been thinking about Gunny at the time. That’s the way Gunny worked. He didn’t have to be around to be present. There’s good and evil. And then there are tanks. Gunny said that too. And the way he said it implied something special about all that heavy metal. Tanks are from God. And it’s the men and women who drive them that make them a curse or a blessing. A gun doesn’t shoot itself. Another ‘gunnyism’ and obvious: it takes a man to pull a trigger. The size of the gun doesn’t count, or even in which direction the barrel is pointed. Heaven and hell are just places on a compass. Most soldiers don’t get to decide.

If I wanted you to think, I’d give you an opinion. Gunny’s opinion, Tanks: angels with treads. God’s own battalion coming to rescue, and nothing going to get in their way. If Gunny had been driving by Golgotha that Good Friday, Jesus would have been saved. GI – God issued. Armour – rolling steel, ablating to protect fragile flesh; bringing the fight to the enemy’s front door, and a big gun doing the knocking for sure. Thank you, Jesus is a soldier’s prayer. If you’re ‘Armour,’ it’s Tanks God.

Tanks, X wives, life, death, and taxes, The only one that counts keeps you from dying today. Every man has to die sometime. It doesn’t have to be today if you’re in a tank. Drive a tank long enough, and it’s no surprise you develop an appreciation of layers of protection. After enough time elapses, a man and his own invention tend to look the same. By the time Gunny died, he had hardened up so much that even the surgeon who took off his legs commented that the man had no feelings. I told him we’d need to amputate. He just said, Do your job." What the surgeon didn’t understand at the time was that Gunny was doing his. A tanker fights. And a tanker endures, and even when all is lost, a tanker keeps rolling. A tanker takes ground. He doesn’t give it away for free. And when a tanker dies, his eyes are dry. Tankers go to Hades when they die, and when they arrive, they blow the hell out of it. A tanker doesn’t walk anywhere. A tanker rides.

Even now, when I think of Gunny, I see mighty Hesperus at his forge. Each hammer blow strikes many possibilities, but sparks fall where they will, and maybe not where we want. Men are made. God made Gunny soft - time and fortune made him tough. Three wives later, he was hard to like at times. Liking is optional. He said that like he really meant it too: some folks did, most didn’t. He was a hard man to like but easy to love. Three X wives and a girlfriend were sure about that. It’s hard to be an ‘old tanker’ - harder to just be an old vet slowly dying over in Coatesville, PA. Dying when death is by the inches, and each loss coming after the other barely healed over. Gunny died as he lived. He died hard. And he didn’t shed a tear. Jesus wept. I ain’t Jesus.

The only time I saw that hard man cry was Christmas day years and years ago. A little boy dressed in black ran over to where Gunny was standing ten feet above the snow-covered macadam. He reached his small hand up high on Lucy’s treads, patting her with love, saying to both man and machine alike, I love you. Said ‘Dutch’ style and heart on sleeve. Little Jake Stolzfus said, Tank’s. I do believe those four words, three in German and one in Pennsylvania Dutch English were the only things that ever broke through that tough man’s defenses. Innocence almost broke a heart of steel that day. The innocent heart of a child brought tears to Gunny’s eyes, and when he wiped them away, he stood tall and proud. But that day was long ago and many miles driven since then.

I was burying Gunny today. He had died on Tuesday. More death by VA and the accumulation of a thousand cuts and insults over the last few years. Gunny just rusted out finally and stopped moving. All the armor in the world can’t protect a man from dying. I thought I’d be burying Gunny at Arlington or over at Fort Indiantown Gap. But that was not to be the case: Gunny’s being buried at Mellinger’s Mennonite Cemetery, five miles down the road from the hospital, just off Route 30 Lancaster, PA.

I’m sharing death, not a bed. Said after I questioned his choice in internment. I had said, You understand it’s a Mennonite Cemetery. You’re gonna spend all eternity with a bunch of pacifists and draft dodgers? We were talking about his death. He had just been admitted to Community Hospital via the ER, telling the doctor on duty, The last time I was here was in a tank. He told the nurse, As pretty as you are, I’m already feeling better. He told the ward clerk when she asked about next of kin, Lucy, and Sam.

I’m Sam: the hospital chaplain. And it says on the admission sheet that an Abrams battle tank and I are a man’s family, and for once, the record reflects the truth. I had asked the admissions person who called me, Did they send his legs? She said, Well, he didn’t just walk on in. I’ll have to check. I could hear him laughing in the background, putting on a show, Sergeant Jackson, did your legs come with you, or will Sam need to go get them? Then, Gunny being Gunny, turning things from light to dark, and faster than a frown, Honey, I don’t need legs to die: only need legs to run away.

Later that day, when I went over to the Coatesville VA to get Gunny’s legs, they had already misplaced one. And that’s why Gunny, when he died, is getting buried civilian. Can’t stand on one leg if you’re missing two. Or more the truth, Dying is a war. If the army isn’t there when you’re fighting your last battle, then ‘shame on them.’ A soldier fights for his country. An old, wounded soldier shouldn’t have to face the enemy alone and crippled. Death comes to old soldiers and young soldiers alike. Soldier, civilian, child, and elder, that final battle is always lost. It’s a blessing to die attended. Courage comes and goes. A steady hand and prayerful touch ease many fears and calm the heart. It’s always hard to die alone, only your memories left to guide your way. It’s a hard thing to die in a hospital bed and family far away.

We talked a lot while he was further declining. Memories are dear at this time. Sam, I will be dead by Christmas. I smiled at that. That would be a fine thing. It’d be even better if it were snowing to beat the band. So the day before Christmas, when it started to snow, looking like it’d continue for a thousand years, I rummaged around in my office desk, finding a story I had written many years before. I had written it the day after it ‘all’ occurred and when the snow was still so deep that even the sleigh I was in had to turn around and admit defeat. Nature turned me around that night, but one day earlier Gunny, and Lucy had brought the meaning of Christmas to Lancaster County. It’s a true story and no tall tale. I read what I had written to Gunny that night, and he smiled with joy. By morning he was dead.

Sadie Stolzfus lay dying in one of our hospital beds. A small Amish woman took a turn for the worse during the ‘Storm of the Century.’ Her family was twelve miles down Route 30, far off the main highway, and almost to Ronks, and it might as well have been located over in China for all the chance of her family being with her when she ‘passed.’ The roads were impossible. They would stay that way for almost two days. She was going to die on Christmas. Ach now Samuel, the Lord’s will is His, and I bend to it.

I held her hand and prayed with her. Sadie trusted her Lord to know what was ‘needful.’ I wasn’t so flexible. I had contacted her family earlier via the ‘barn phone.’ (Amish don’t have electric in their homes, but some ‘wiring’ makes its way into outbuildings.) They were aware of the severity of her condition and had bundled eight family members into two sleighs but got bogged down only a mile from home and had to turn around. The snow was three feet deep, and some drifts were taller than houses. It was an effort to even get out of your front door, let alone dig a path to where you thought you had parked your car. Lancaster County was buried, and it would be days before we saw black pavement for real. Even a week later, it took ‘chaining up’ to climb Gap Hill. The storm of the Century lasted a week. It felt longer.

After hearing that Eli and the sleighs couldn’t get through, I tried the State Police and Penn Dot. They were