I imagine everyone remembers the horrific shooting massacre at the Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. That was five years ago already, Oct. 2, 2006. The story of how the parents of the shooting victims (five girls dead, five girls wounded) gathered to publicly forgive the shooter, Charles Carl Roberts IV, who had also killed himself, made news around the world.My RNS colleague Dan Burke has another, unsung aspect of this story -- the deeply affecting journey of the parents of the shooter, in particular the mother, Terri Roberts, who has begun telling church groups how her life has come to be intertwined with those of her son's victims and their families:
Three months after the shooting, Chuck and Terri Roberts began visiting the victims and their families.Terri invited the surviving girls and their mothers to picnics and tea parties at her home.At one tea, Terri asked the mothers to sit in a circle and share the highest and lowest points of their lives. She yearned to connect with Mary Liz King, the mother of a paralyzed girl named Rosanna.King explained how her trials were different than the rest of the victims. Their daughters had died or healed, whereas Rosanna, unable to move most of her body, requires constant care.She cannot walk, talk or eat, yet Rosanna is aware of her surroundings and attends an Amish school, her father, Christ King, said in an interview.At the tea, Terri approached Mary Liz and offered to help care for Rosanna.Almost every Thursday evening since, Terri has visited the Kings for several hours, singing to Rosanna, cleaning her bedclothes, bathing her limp body and reading her Bible stories.After the first few visits, Terri cried all the way home. Lord, I cant do this, she said. But she went back the next week, and the next.Shes got to be an awful strong woman to be able to do that, said Christ King. Some of the evenings that Terri is there, Rosanna has a rough time or cries a lot. You cant help but think about what happened and why she is like she is. I dont know that Id be that strong.
I don't know that I would be, could be. Read the rest here.
