My Dearest Naomi (18 page)

James Yoder was in church yesterday. He and Millie made a trip back to northern Indiana where they came from with a load of our ministers to try to work out their problems. Hopefully this will be a solution for them, as James claims he respects the ministers from there. He also has family in northern Indiana. James and Millie had a meeting with the ministers from there and some from here. But Dad says he doesn’t think it did much good. At least from what he heard. Other than to establish the fact that the Indiana ministers agree with our ministers. Surprise, surprise.

They said afterward that his family just pleaded with James to change, especially his mother. His mom didn’t even want them to leave to come home until James promised a change. James wouldn’t promise, but said he would think some more about it. He is planning to come back to church for now. It seems like the predestination doctrine he picked up is very hard for him to let go of. He repeated his claim while he was in northern Indiana, that he believes he had no more to do with his second spiritual birth than he had to do with his first natural birth.

Well, I’d better get something done around here. I am about as excited about coming out there as I can be. This is probably the last letter you will receive from me before I arrive. So I can probably say see you tomorrow or the next day.

Yippee!

Love you,

Naomi

November 13

Lonnie and Luella’s grandchildren are here. They are taking them back home around 3:00, and I’m planning on going along to break the boredom. It’s hard telling when we’ll get back.

This morning at the breakfast table I dumped the sugar bowl over to start things off. Luella said it’s a good thing it wasn’t the salt or I’d have bad luck for sure. The next thing was pouring orange juice into the cereal bowl instead of milk. Well, there are those mornings.

I don’t know why I’m so blue about everything right now, but I am. Blue, bluesy, and dark blue. This may sound off the wall, but I still want to tell you. If you ever wish to break our engagement, I would understand and hold no hard feelings against you. But please don’t ever make any hasty decisions about such things. I would always remember our good times together.

As I said, I’m blue right now, so just ignore the ramblings as they don’t mean anything. I was able to write a poem, so perhaps that will help.

Until I see you again,
I love you.

Eugene

Thinking of You

When the days get lonely, and the way is long,

I think of you, love, in your faraway home.

When my heart gets weary, with the toil of the way,

I think of your sweetness, as I travel each day.

When I’m longing to see you, each day is so slow,

When your presence is absent, my heart hangs low.

How our parting does hurt me, and tear at my heart,

All day it’s throbbing, smarting, and falling apart.

Life without you is so lonely and drear,

A desert, a wasteland, a shadow that’s near.

I struggle, I rise, I gather my strength,

I rally my hope that I will see you at length.

November 18

I’m on cloud nine, maybe cloud ten. Every so often I squeal or get a big grin. Mom says she won’t be able to stand me until we leave. I went to the young folks gathering last night just to make time go faster. It was the sewing at Bishop Enos’s. Some of the boys were questioning me about when we leave and everything.

Robert asked with a cheesy smile on his face, “Can’t you wait, Naomi?”

I said, “No, that’s why I came tonight.”

He said, “Why? So you can tell us?”

I said, “No. So the time will go faster.”

They laughed over that one.

It did seem as if a lot of the young folks were missing. I think some are on a trip to Ohio, but the big hole of course was because you weren’t here. The boys became goofy halfway through and tried singing songs by themselves, which was awful. Some of them sang tenor so loud it was overwhelming, and they got off tune. Don said Phillip is one of the worst ones at the yelling, but Don gets loud enough himself, especially when they’re all trying to make an impression. If they could control themselves, things would go much better. Their first song was fine, but then the yelling started. I think they could have used your help.

Your last letter got me down a little, the one about me wanting to break our engagement, but I decided to let it go. We all have our bad days, and I’ll see you soon, which makes me happy. So I’ll just take it all with a grain of salt.

This finds me deep in packing, but I thought I’d finish this letter first. I figured if this was mailed tomorrow you’d get it Monday or Tuesday when I will have been there and gone. I’ve carefully spaced my letters the last few days so that you don’t get any on the Friday and Saturday I’m in Iowa.

I found out some news this morning. Katie came over to borrow something from Mom and said that her son Jonathan has dropped his relationship with Robert’s Mary. So that must have been the shocking news she was speaking of a while back. Isn’t that something? I thought of them as a fairly stable couple.

I’m just all excited and wonder if I can even sleep tonight. I have lost
sleep already from the excitement. I simply can’t say how much I look forward to seeing you.

Well, I have to go. I can hardly wait.

Your Naomi

November 22

I am in the depths of despair indeed. The weekend is over, and your van whizzed by the schoolhouse while I was opening the school day. How could the agony get any worse? I don’t know, but it did.

It happened during the story hour after lunch. I read a dog story to the children in which two friends, a dog and a wolf, are reunited after a two-year separation. The story concluded with this line: “And no matter what they did after that, it was fun.”

I nearly choked up thinking of us and could hardly go on with class time. I’m sure the children thought something was wrong, but they had no idea what it was. Nor will they, as I keep this pain to myself.

I arrived home from school and walked through the house. It seemed like everything still held memories of you. Luella must have noticed. She said quite nicely, “It gets better with time.”

When I walked up the stairs I could still see you standing there saying goodbye. I’d better stop this before it gets any worse.

I’m back.

I finished your Thanksgiving card this evening, and it will go off in the mail tomorrow. This letter won’t go out until Wednesday morning, but I’m still afraid the letter will beat the card, or get there the same time. Anyhow, if it does, you’ll know what happened.

By the way, what were you reading in the Bible this morning as you sat beside your mom at the table? For some reason that touched me, and I was wondering.

Well...I might as well go downstairs and read something, as sitting here thinking of you keeps the pain level higher than I want it to be.

With all my heart,

Eugene

November 23

I don’t have to go to work today because Chris is having her carpets cleaned. I’m relieved because I feel awfully sad. Last night I cried until there were no more tears left in me. I don’t know how long this can keep up, as it’s not really making me feel any better. I felt like crying every so often in the van all the way home, but I can’t cry in front of people.

On the bright side, it really made me happy to see how well liked you are in Iowa. Dad said he feels this teaching job really was the Lord’s will for you. And he wondered if you were being tempted to teach there another year. I said, “Yes, he is, but we might get married instead.”

I think Dad liked that answer. He certainly likes you. I told him how depressed you get sometimes, and he thinks you just need more reassurances, maybe over and over again. Well, I can certainly do that, as I love you very much.

I love you,

Naomi

November 24

I stayed at the schoolhouse until 5:30 tonight. It was pitch dark outside by then. I wanted to finish correcting the tests. The seventh and eighth grades had their science test, the third and sixth had an English test, and the fifth and eighth had a social studies test.

They’ve had a rough week, so perhaps they’re sharing in my pain. I’m piled up with schoolwork, as this is report card week. I also want to get the Christmas program typed up so I can hand out the different parts on Monday.

There is also decorating that needs to be done between now and Christmas. As pressed as I am, I should stay home from Bible study tonight, but I’ll probably end up going.

The three board members’ wives brought in Thanksgiving dinner today, and we had the children file past the table cafeteria style. Everything went well with no spills. Afterward, two of the wives stayed to observe the school in operation. I hope they liked what they saw, but I didn’t get to speak to them after school was out. They had to leave immediately for home.

We finished the lunch-hour storybook we were reading today, so that means a new book must be found for next week’s story hour. I wish I could find the two books called
The Mystifying Twins
and
The Secret of the Mystifying Twins
. I think the children would enjoy them.

I love you,

Eugene

November 25

I don’t feel too thankful today, even though it’s Thanksgiving Day. But I know I still have a lot to be thankful for even if you can’t be here. I haven’t felt like writing much since the trip. I thought if I could just see you again, this loneliness would get better. But it
hasn’t
gotten any better. I’m still glad I came for the visit. Before it didn’t seem real, but now that I’ve seen your schoolhouse and Lonnie and Luella’s place, it’s easy to picture you in that setting.

We will be having Ada and Deborah’s families in today, and Mom has fixed a big turkey dinner. It should be ready soon, and I need to help set the table. I think Mom plans to spread the table in the dining room to its maximum length. Whoever doesn’t fit will have to sit in the living room—mostly the smaller children.

I counted and reread your letters the last few days to cheer myself—there are thirty-five so far.

Don and Larry have plans to hunt this afternoon with your brothers and some of the other community boys. They are after rabbits, I think.

Tonight the young folks are supposed to be at Melvins’. The girls will wear dark dresses and white aprons and be there by 6:30. That’s all I know, but it sounds kind of exciting and strange. I don’t really feel like going, but I’m afraid if I stay home I’ll just feel worse.

With a heart of longing,

Naomi

November 25

It’s around 5:00 on Thanksgiving Day, and I’m by myself in the house, which isn’t exactly a pleasant feeling. Lonnie and Luella aren’t back yet from their day’s activities.

I worked this morning on the report cards before we left for church. It was kind of strange going to church on Thanksgiving Day. I got to wondering what you were doing. I guess your family likely got together somewhere for dinner or had someone over. I could picture you all laughing and talking, which of course didn’t help my feelings improve.

After church they had a Thanksgiving dinner for everyone. I’m afraid I’m not very good at hiding my feelings so I looked a little down. I would have gone back up to the schoolhouse and worked to cheer myself up, but there was no one to drive me there. Plus people were talking with me, which was nice. They are wonderful out here.

Ah, Lonnie and Luella just walked in with an invitation to supper somewhere. So there will be something to do this evening at least.

Love you, dearest.

Eugene

November 26

Greetings of Christian love. Don and I went to the Melvins’ last night as planned. Some of the older couples were also there, and the Melvins supplied the meal, with Bishop Enos’s girls supplying the entertainment. All of the young folks were there except a few of the boys who are in Ohio.

They had a long table set up with benches and had placed numbers on the plates. You pulled numbers out of a hat when you arrived, one hat for the boys and one for the girls. With your number in hand you matched it with the number on the table. The steadies didn’t get any numbers, they automatically got to sit in front of each other, the cheapskates.

After we had eaten, slips were passed out to everyone that told us what our assigned duty for the evening was. Then we sang for a while, and one of the boys read a Scripture. That was his assignment. They told us later that if a girl had drawn that slip, a change would have been made, but it worked on the first try. Then Bishop Enos had prayer after the Scripture reading.