At least I couldn’t help feeling that this obedience was going to be rewarded. With patience comes knowledge, I could almost hear Daadi say in an oft-repeated Amish sentiment. And knowledge was something I still needed. Specifically, I needed knowledge about what my mother had been doing with that key when God called her Home.
Together, Dad and I headed downstairs, where Liz and Brady both did a bit of a double take at my transformation back into an Amish man. They didn’t seem displeased, just surprised. I hugged Liz goodbye as Dad and Brady went into the garage to start the car.
“Thank you for coming,” she said as we embraced. “And for my gardens. I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”
“You’re welcome. And thanks for sharing with me about my mom. I can’t tell you how much that means to me.”
When we pulled apart her eyes were misted.
“She would be so very proud of you. I know I am.”
Her words both cheered me and pierced me. “I’m sorry if I ever made it seem that I didn’t need you as a mother.”
Liz shook her head and dabbed at her eyes. “And I’m sorry if I ever made it seem that I didn’t love you like a son.”
We embraced again.
“Will you come to see me?” I asked when we parted a second time. “And I don’t mean in Philly. I want you and Dad and Brady to come spend some downtime with me and Daadi and Mammi at the home place. And I want you to meet Rachel, even before she becomes my wife.”
“I’d really like that.”
“Goodbye, Liz. Take care of that ankle.”
“Will do.”
My next farewell was for the little pup yipping at my heels. Impulsively, I bent down and scooped him up for a quick hug, marveling at how light and tiny he was. Frisco was no Timber, but he was okay.
I handed him off to Liz, hiked my duffel to my shoulder, and stepped into the garage.
The drive to Union Station in Los Angeles was relatively quick. Though the tension between Brady and me was gone, I could tell he was struggling to accept my decision. As I embraced both him and my dad at the station, I again reiterated my invitation for them to come out and visit in the summer.
“We’ll make a farmer of you yet,” I teased my little brother, chucking him on the arm with my fist.
I was kidding, but his expression remained serious. “I just don’t get how you could want to live that way for the rest of your life.”
“I can only say God has given me a desire to live simply. You have a bit of that desire too. I saw it in you just the other day.”
He rolled his eyes like the fourteen-year-old he was. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t.”
“I’m sure I did. When you told me you wanted to go backpacking in New Zealand, you said it would be nice to get away from school and homework and even other people.”
“Okay, whatever.”
“Not ‘whatever,’ Brady. This is important. When you said that, you were responding to that call on everyone’s heart to live a simple, surrendered life. It might be a just barely perceptible itch for you, but it’s there nonetheless.”
He thought for a moment. “Okay. So?”
“So for me, it’s not an itch. It’s an irresistible, all-encompassing longing. And that’s how I can live that way for the rest of my life.”
Brady furrowed his brow as he considered the truth of my words.
“Come out next summer. Spend a month with me. Unplug.”
Finally, he smiled. “I’ll think about it, but I’m not making any promises. Especially if you try to make me milk a cow or slop a pig.”
We shared a laugh.
With my time up, I gave Brady one last embrace. Then I turned to my dad. Though our hug was quick and our words simple, his final “I love you, son,” stayed with me, keeping me warm my entire journey home.
I reached Lancaster County two and a half very long, uneventful days later. At least I’d had my thoughts and God’s calming presence for company. From time to time I’d touch the strongbox inside my duffel and would sense there was one last thing I needed to do to complete my journey, and it had to do with what lay inside that locked compartment. I couldn’t shake the notion that I had been given an opportunity to do something for my mother all these years after she had passed from this life to the next, something that only I could.
The trip had been exhausting, to say the least, but the last hour made every moment of it worthwhile. Watching the scenery outside my window grow ever more pastoral, ever more familiar, my heart began to race with a childlike anticipation. Drifted snow lay across the rolling hills like folds of white muslin. Pine trees seemed ready for Christmas. The subdued November palette was very different from California’s perpetual vibrancy, and yet I found it comforting. As we rumbled on toward the Lancaster station, I could see Amish buggies here and there on the streets among the cars and trucks and motorcycles. I was almost home.