CHAPTER 1

Becoming Jonah: Runningfrom Our Stories

Oh yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either runfrom it, or learn from it.

—Rafiki, from The Lion King

It's my wedding day. We've just finished our last finals for thefall semester. Now, two days later, Duncan and I are gettingmarried.

I am not a princess bride; I am wearing a wedding dress borrowedfrom my English professor. The dress is fifteen years out ofdate, and it doesn't fit me very well. I know I don't look beautiful init, but it cost nothing, and I am honored that my English prof, whomI admire, has offered it to me. I will do my own makeup and hair.

The church was decorated by my friends, who hung fresh pineboughs cut from nearby trees. Our budget for the wedding is threehundred dollars. I have no idea who is supposed to pay for and dowhat. (I've been to a single wedding in my life.) But at the age ofjust-turned twenty, it is scandalous to me to think of parents beinginvolved in our wedding. Luckily, neither mother cares. Duncan'sparents and younger brother have flown down from Alaska to thissmall church in Ohio, that Duncan and I attend. His grandmotheris here from Oklahoma. His older brother and sister-in-law arehere from Indiana.

On my side of the church sit my mother and youngest brother,who drove down from New Hampshire two days before the wedding.My father is working in a shoe factory—throwing hides ontoa stamping machine—the first regular job he's had. He will notcome. My other two brothers are working and cannot get time off;my two sisters have small children and have no way to get here. Buteven having two here is something. I'm grateful for their presence.

The wedding march plays. The small church is full, mostlyof congregants who have so generously embraced us. I am partlyafraid. What am I doing? I feel as though I am the maker of myown future, which thrills me but scares me as well.

I am walking alone down the aisle—of course! Wasn't I theone who made it here, to this altar, by herself? At twenty, I havebeen running my own life for a while, and I don't need my firstwalk with my father to begin now, down this wedding aisle. Thelace carpet is the runway to my future. Duncan and I will live inAlaska, on a small wilderness island. We will commercial fish. Wewill travel. We will build a new life together, five thousand milesaway from the claustrophobic houses and small towns I grew upin. Surely that is far enough away to be freed from the past and tobecome the person I want to be.

* * *

My sister Laurie ran away from home at fifteen. I did not know thedetails until the writing of this book. She ran away at night manytimes, opening the window, stooping to get through, dropping tothe ground, and running two miles in the night to her friend'shouse, a shack on a backwoods dirt road. She would vow each timethat she'd never go back home, but the next morning she wouldwalk back before my mother's wake-up call for school.

But one night the pattern ended. She gathered some essentialsin a bag and left near midnight. He was there to pick herup, her then seventeen-year-old boyfriend, with his hopped-up car.His family had an old trailer in the woods that no one else knewabout. They went there, Laurie now feeling a mix of sickness andfreedom. What would happen when everyone got up at 6:30 a.m.and she wasn't there? right then she didn't care.

When we saw the next morning that she was gone, we weren'tsurprised. Laurie was different from the rest of us. She was darkand moody, withdrawn. We lived in rural New Hampshire, and therest of us escaped the house when our work was finished as oftenas we could and spent long days in the woods, on the skating pond,on the hill behind our house, in the field across the street. We hadfew neighbors. Friends couldn't come over. We were one another'sfriends and playmates—but Laurie often would not join us. Shehung back and did ... I don't know what she did, but it seemed shewasn't around very much, and when she was, there was some kindof trouble. She played with her kneecaps incessantly one year, untilshe pushed it too far and couldn't walk. She fell down the stairsone night when the six of us were alone at home. She was twelve,I think, and lying there, hurt. We didn't know what to do. But weknew if it were to happen to anyone, it would be Laurie. She was adark presence among us.

We didn't know where she was for months, though the policewere looking for her. We didn't know why she left, just that she wasalways unhappy. I wished her well but was not concerned for her. Ididn't know enough about the world to be concerned. I just knewshe was freed from our house—and I was glad for her. (Now, lookingback, I can imagine much better how difficult it was for my mother.)

The trailer was finally found one day, months later, but Laurierefused to return. Three years later, when she turned eighteen, shecame back to marry her boyfriend before a justice of the peace.

There are so many ways to run.

William grew up with a volatile, hostile mother. He left homefor college, then married and returned only for rare visits.

Vonnie ran from her house into the arms of a boyfriend, marryinghim at nineteen.

Randi tried disappearing through anorexia and excessiveworkouts, running out her rage on the road and track every day.

Dena immersed herself in her children and her new life, pretendingeverything was fine.

Lisa refused communication with her father, who abandonedher family while she was in high school.

Jimmy became engrossed in achievement, deciding he wouldbe the best at whatever he turned his hand to.

We go off to college, to early marriages, to early parenthood,to jobs. We grow up and leave our parents' houses, often too soon,sometimes not soon enough. We don't always know we are runningfrom what's behind us—sometimes we are so numbed to ourpasts that we think only of running into our futures. Almost alwaysthere is silence as we each desperately work at building a new life,a new identity. This is the second runaway: we will not listen orattend to what we've left behind. We leave through the doors, andwe think the new houses we choose are distant and safe. But theconstruct seldom holds.

Dena kept having panic attacks while shopping or cleaningthe house, ordinary things in a life she thought was fixed and"normal."

Vonnie's marriage collapsed into an acrid divorce, plungingher into alcoholism, a series of boyfriends, and a brush withsuicide.

Lisa brought her suppressed past into her marriage, viewingher husband with suspicion. Her father had been an adulterer andhad abandoned her. Her husband would as well, she knew.

Nudges and prods, tentacles from our earlier lives, reach in.Meanwhile, Mother's Day and Father's Day pop up on the calendarevery year. Don't we all know what it's like to read every singlecard on the rack—all those verses about love and gratitude, howour parents were always there for us and how much they listened,how thoughtful they've been all through the years—and then toput each one back, reaching instead for the blank card, where wecould write about the weather? Maybe someone will create a lineof cards that better fit our lives: "Thanks, Dad, for, uh, doing yourpart in siring me." "Thanks so much, Mom, for giving me ... well,for giving me life." "Happy Father's Day, Dad. Thanks for not yellingat me as much as you could have."

Or maybe we go to a movie or a play, and there's a momentof such tenderness between a father or mother and a child thatwe suck in our breath. Maybe we cry. I went to a seminar one yearcalled The Blessing, about parents handing down a legacy, givingtheir children their blessing and support as they move out intolife. How many have received this? I ran out of the auditorium,sobbing. Why didn't we all run out?

These reminders are not always painful. After speakingat a Christian college at homecoming, I was led into the innersanctum, the cherry-paneled dining room saved for the speakersand the potential donors. I sat down awkwardly for lunch with thepresident and assorted faculty. Halfway through the meal, thepresident turned to me and asked, "What does your father do?"

I looked at him, puzzled. I was thirty-six at the time, with ahusband and three children. I had left home nineteen years ago.My parents had divorced ten years earlier. I had no contact withmy father. So what did I say to the immaculate, designer-suited collegepresident over our linen napkins and exquisite food? My mindwhirled while I decided how to answer. But it suddenly hit me—Iknew what he was asking. I told the bald truth.

"He was a traveling salesman, but he couldn't sell anything,so he was unemployed a lot. He works in a factory now. He's anatheist."

The president blinked, eyes widened for a half second, and hissmile went plastic while he nodded, and then he turned away. Hebarely spoke to me the rest of the lunch. I'm out, then. I am judgedand found wanting—because of my father.

No matter how fleet your feet, how far you travel, those dayscome. Phone calls come in the afternoon, in the middle of yourlife, and everything changes. Vonnie's sister called her one day."Mom's dying. She wants to see you." Vonnie was dropping herkids off at school. How could she go see her mother? It had beentwenty years since she had seen her—and still the fear was there.She should go, she knew. It was the right thing to do—but how?

Vonnie, shaking with the return of suppressed memories,drove to her doctor's office and walked up to the window. Thereceptionist looked up at her, their eyes met, and Vonnie burst intotears. When the doctor heard her story, he set up an appointmentwith a counselor.

Over the next few days with the counselor, Vonnie recognizedthat she still loved her mother, as hard as it was to admit it. Sherealized maybe she had loved her all along, but her mother couldnever love her back. "It was okay for me to say I loved her, but shecouldn't love me," she said. "When I realized the truth of that, itwas a weight off my shoulders. I felt like finally I had some control."Shortly after those emergency visits with the counselor, Vonniedecided she would go see her mother.

Her hands shook as she entered the driveway; she was stillfearful. Moments later, she entered the bedroom and looked cautiouslyat the woman in the bed—white-haired, her eyes shut. Shewas frail, crippled, unable to talk or move or feed herself—thefinal days of Alzheimer's, her sister told her. She hadn't recognizedanyone in a while.

Vonnie sat beside her on the bed. The dying mother openedher eyes, not focused, and started to move them around. She sawVonnie, her oldest child, and whispered to her, "I shouldn't havebeen so hard on you." Then Vonnie's mother cried. It was the firsttime Vonnie had turned around to look behind her. And it beganto change her life.

* * *

A phone call from a sister broke into my life as well. It was two orthree years after my family's visit to sarasota. The call came whileI was fixing supper and coaching homework, settling disputesbetween brothers, working on a book in my head—all the thingsmy life was overflowing with.

"Dad fell down on the sidewalk walking back from the storelast week. He couldn't get up. An ambulance came—he's out of thehospital now. They thought he might have had a little heart attack.I just found out today."

My father was in his mid-eighties by then. How surprisingcould this news be, especially since he'd smoked all his life, andhis favorite food was ice cream? The larger question was, why hadhe lived this long? But I instantly saw him, fallen on the sidewalk,helpless, with a few people gathering, and felt a piercing stab inmy gut. That's my father. And I knew that had he died, we would nothave heard about it for ... how long? Maybe a week. He had nottold anyone in his housing complex that he had children.

"How did you find out, Laurie?"

"I talked to Dad on the phone today."

Silence. Then, "You're talking to Dad?"

"Yes. I've been calling him almost every week," she said, hervoice calm and assured.

"Does he talk to you? What do you talk about?" I could nothide my amazement and confusion. I couldn't believe that out ofthe six of us, she was the one calling him.

"Yeah, he talks. I ask him about things. He'll answer. SometimesI'm on the phone with him for forty-five minutes."

I didn't quite believe this. "But what does he say? He's nevertalked to us before."

"I don't know. We just talk about whatever's going on."

I was silent for a moment, then asked, "Why are you doing this,Laurie?"

"I just think he needs someone to care about him." She said itsimply, without judgment.

That was a new thought. I wasn't sure about it. Why Laurie?Dad was the very reason she had run away from home.

The children, the victims, are not the only ones who flee. Myfather ran away too. When he was employed, he was a travelingsalesman and dressed in a suit every morning, drank instant coffee,and left the house. He'd drive all day, sometimes all week,around New England, paying for his own gas and own time, stoppingto drink coffee in small cafés and Friendly's ice cream shops,an unheard-of luxury in our family's nonexistent economy. Hedreamed of a final good-bye, sailing alone around the world forthe rest of his life.

When my mother and father divorced, finally, when we wereall out of the house, he fled to Florida and stayed there, living ona twenty-eight-foot, derelict sailboat, thousands of miles from hisfamily. He came back home just once, for two nights, for a familyreunion, but only because my brother drove two thousand milesdown to Florida to get him, then drove him all the way back toFlorida the next day.

We've all run, fugitives from our own stories, our pasts. Butsometimes we are running from a future as well, a future we cannotimagine, one we don't want a part in creating. I know of someonewho did this. You may know him too. He was living whatever a normallife looked like twenty-eight hundred years ago, a man with ajob to keep, bills to pay, parents to please. And then—"the word ofthe Lord came to" him, and we know it's going to mean trouble.

It did, indeed. The world was a mess, of course, but it was amanageable mess, it seemed to Jonah. His own life was hardly aparty, but it was his life, and he knew where to go when things gothard. He had his buddies; he had his haunts and hangouts. He knewwhere to worship, too, because he was not just a regular guy. He wasa prophet, and he had work to do, words of God to speak. But nowhe was being asked to step outside of the life he knew and managed.

"Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, becauseits wickedness has come up before me," God said (Jonah 1:2). Godrang his bell, which He has every right to do.

We know what comes next. We've all heard this story sincechildhood; even those of us who weren't raised in sunday schoolmay have somehow heard this fantastical tale of a man who ranaway from God and got swallowed by a whale, and three days latergot vomited out. (Did I spoil the ending for anyone? so sorry!)That's what kids remember—Jonah, the upchucked prophet. Butfor us here and now, Jonah's story echoes into our own. He'd beencalled to a great, wicked city located in a neighboring country.They were enemies with Jonah and his countrymen, by reason ofbirth and by reason of their own violence and cruelty. They'd donehis people wrong, maybe even done Jonah himself wrong. He hadreason to hate them. And now he had to go and preach to them.

Preaching against them wasn't the problem. The problemwas, he was ordered to warn them of their coming fate—they'd bedestroyed if they didn't repent.

Destruction? Total destruction? Why should they be warned? Jonahmust have thought. Why give the chance to repent? How many timeshad Israel herself been destroyed, and judgment not been withheld?Oh, the bitter taste of this, to be forced to preach "repent!"to enemies deserving only of death! To be compelled to offermercy to those who had not been merciful! What kind of God wasthis, who did not honor boundaries and simple, decent justice?

He could not bear it. So he ran. He's one of us. Yes, to the shipbound the other way. And don't we do this? We never run towardwhat must be done. Instead, we run precisely the other way. It'slogical; it makes complete sense—until we remember God. Untilwe remember who He is and that this is His world, not ours. Andwe realize the absurdity of trying to outrun the only One.

Yet we do it again and again. This book almost didn't happen.After believing I was called to write it (no, not a voice from heaven,but almost), I ran from it. I ignored it for almost two years, busyingmyself with everything else. To turn around and marinate for twoyears in a life and memories I've spent my energies escaping—whywould I do that? Why would any of us make that turn back?