The Heart of Oso

Why would I chase sleep tonight when I know I’ll never catch it?

I’d rather linger here, here by the fire, long after this day falls away like the rain and a new one begins.

How do I tell you about that day? How do I begin to express the feelings rooting me together?

We were driving on March 22nd when I got a text from my brother.

“Making sure you’re safe – landslide on 530.”

We talked for a minute more, enough to know that neither one of us really knew anything – except that my dad was heading into it to act as a chaplain.

I had no idea.

I had no idea.

We continued on through the snowy mountains, the road carrying us towards the beautiful Bavarian village of Leavenworth for my pre-birthday trip. The long drive through the logging towns and quiet, frost covered woods was just what my heart had been yearning for.

My companion became quieter as we drove through the mountains and into the snow, until finally, he pulled over on the soft white shoulder and said he wanted to show me something.

I looked out the window and saw nothing but a wall of snow and trees.

“Here?” I asked skeptically.

I got out of the truck. He pulled me up over the snow wall, and we set out for the tree line.

As soon as we passed into the forest, we might as well have been in a different world. A different time.

The sounds from the road were erased, and the snow was brilliant and white, dotted with moss covered boulders.

I followed him as he made his way through the trees, enchanted by the beauty I disturbed with my noisy boots. By the sound of my camera clanging against my belt. By the very footprints I left behind.

I held my breath and hoped that would help.

The birdsong soared from treetop to treetop and I realized I could hear the sound of a roaring river. He smiled back at me. We walked deeper into the woods.

I was in love with every second that ticked by.

I watched as he methodically wound his way through the trees, following an invisible path that only he could see. We were hours from home and in the middle of nowhere. Where was he going?

Even the ways he surprised me surprised me.

Finally he stopped walking in front of me. We’d reached the rushing water, and he stood waiting for me on a perfect platform of pure white snow.

He held his hand out to me, and I went to him.

“Randi.”

One word. Maybe it was the way he said it, but in that one word, I thought I knew.

He reached into his pocket, and in his beautifully gentle way, he began to speak.

The rush of my heart overwhelmed me.

The years came crashing over me like the waterfall. All the years that had led me here to this spot, to this very place on a hidden snowy stage by the river at the beginning of spring with this quiet man whom I loved more than life.

All the long nights I’d never slept, feeling like I’d lost my youth, and with it, my joy.

All the long days I’d tried to sleep to forget.

All the hours lost, the dark hallways visited and revisited.

All the months it took to find the pieces that had broken off along the way, collecting the bits like ribbons in the wind and wrapping them around the open wounds.

The hours spent crying out to God that I didn’t understand…

He stopped speaking for a moment to open the handmade wooden box. He got on one knee in the snow.

“Will you marry me?”

I understood.

I looked into twin green pools, and I understood.

I remembered seeing him for the first time in the parking lot on the way to that snowy retreat in a cabin on a gray mountain. The first time he spoke to me by the window overlooking the snow covered forest.

I remembered the way he made me laugh that first night when we lingered into the morning by the fireplace. His gentleness. The way he listened to every word I said.

The way he forgave me. The way he constantly led me into each tomorrow.

Here was my sun. My warmth. My shelter. The future I’d prayed for. That my parents had prayed for.

A gentle man who knew Jesus, loved me, and was asking for my hand. For my heart. To be my partner for the rest of our earthly lives. To roam through the woods with me, eat teriyaki with me, watch bad westerns with me, fight with me, pray with me, grow with me. He wanted it all.

Every moment brought me to now, and I breathed a prayer of thanks. Now made sense. Now felt right. Now, I was home.

My answer couldn’t come out fast enough.

When we finally arrived in Leavenworth, I began to call my family. That’s when I began to learn: This thing I’d thought so little about was far beyond my understanding. My comprehension. My imagination. My father was unreachable. He was helping in the heart of Oso. Serving. Praying with frantic people who couldn’t find their friends, their parents, their brothers and sisters, their children. Staying with a mother and driving her from the chaos to the hospital to identify a 4 year old boy the helicopters had pulled straight out of the nightmare of debris.

The boy survived. The woman’s husband and 3 other children were lost.

They said The Slide had taken out the only 2 lane road in and out of town, that it had blocked the Stillaguamish River. They said it had formed a dam, and when it broke, the flooding would be massive. They said an evacuation was beginning.

Dad was still in the heart of it all.

I’d had no idea.

We skipped our dinner reservations and turned towards home, anxious to be close to the ones we loved. Anxious to be close to home. Anxious.

I watched my battery life drain as the texts flew and the calls came and went. I had to know they were safe. I had to know what was happening.

The sapphire and diamonds on my hand flashed in the fading light, and my heart burned brighter than the falling sun.

He took the decorated hand and kissed it.

The sky turned ominous as we got closer to home. Helicopters filled the sky.

When we hit the 2 lane road that led to my house and The Slide, it was filled with horse trailers and cars of every shape and size making their way out. We turned onto 530 East and kept going uninhibited, a lone truck in a ghost town amidst flashing warning signs.

I glanced down at the river and saw nothing but a shallow dark brown trickle. The houses that lined the valley floor were dark.

I wondered how long the dam upriver would hold.

I squeezed the hand still holding mine.

The road officially closed at the turn off to my side street, and I breathed another prayer of thanks that I would indeed, make it home. We were some of the only ones that hadn’t been evacuated since the street that holds our home is set at a steep incline above the river. We pulled into my driveway a moment later and watched the sky mourn.

Dad was home.

The first thing I did is go to my family and hug them all.

There was so much news shared in the warm glowing kitchen that night.So much heartache and grief poured out for our small, close-knit community in the safety of the family filled home of my parents.

So much happiness shared and plans spoken of for the future.

In the darkest hours of that first night, no one slept. He held me by the fire, and started to pray.

Since then, everything has been a chaotic blur. Stories from my friends who have been a part of the recovery effort are overwhelming. A coworker lost family and friends and now drives more than 2 hours around The Slide to get to work each day.

My fiance’s coworker lost his uncle.

A couple we know lost everything but escaped with their lives – all because they chose to leave home and go to Costco just a few minutes before.

A woman from our church had just purchased her home on that stretch of land at the beginning of March, and was setting up for a party with the help of a man my future mother-in-law went to school with. Both were lost.

In a town as small as ours, everyone lost someone, or knew someone…The stories that have been coming in break my heart again each day.

As the pastor of the only church in Oso, my dad has been involved in the efforts since day 1. The chapel doors are rarely closed. Visitors come nonstop. We’re receiving donations by the truck load from amazing groups all over the world. People have been stopping in to talk, to ask questions, to write stories, to take pictures, to grieve, to pray.
The news crews came, as we knew they would – respectfully. Intrusively. Disarmingly. Every which way. The stories are still being written; groups from literally all over the world have been surrounding our little 110+ year old chapel out in Oso these weeks. Statesmen have come. Government officials have come. The president is coming. I watch my gentle father tell the people time and time again that we are here for them. That the people of Oso are not without hope. That there is help and resources to be had, all they have to know is where to look for it. How to ask for it.

I wonder when the hurting people will truly see what he means.

I am thankful for his warrior’s spirit and his gentle heart.

My mother supports him behind the scenes in ways no one will ever know. She somehow also managed to write and illustrate a book for the children of Oso, a book that has already been picked up and sent out for printing for the next big Tribute.

Her desire to bring comfort to even the tiniest hearts inspires my own.

It all seems so unreal.

I take it all in. I wasn’t raised here, yet the people in this community have taken us in and loved us as their neighbors and friends.

We love them. We grieve with them.

Someone sent me a card that said, “I think the timing of your engagement couldn’t be better. The look of joy on your face when you told me on Wednesday has been the highlight of my week. I smile and am joyful when I think on it.”

I smile and am joyful when I think on it too.

My broken heart is full of joy.