When the Bough Breaks by Dora Lutz The first time I met Dora and Joe Lutz was in O’Neil’s Department Store in Akron, Ohio when I was autographing my book I Believe in Miracles. The young couple shyly stepped forward and the lovely, blonde wife smiled and said, “We just wanted to come and tell you how much you have meant to Joe and me” — and then her eyes filled with tears. There was little conversation because of the crowd standing around — but oh, I shall never forget the clasp of her hand and the look on the young husband’s face. It was not until later that I found out why they had come. Dora will tell you — just as she told it to me later. It was just four days before Christmas and the last present was wrapped and carefully hidden in the basement. A light snow was falling across the Ohio countryside and Joe glanced out the kitchen window as he gulped his off-to-work cup of coffee. He said, “It looks like a white Christmas for sure, honey.” I moved across the room and stood with my arm around his waist as we both drank in the beautiful scene through the window. The rolling fairways of the golf course behind the house were covered with a soft blanket of pure white. A gentle snow drifted down and collected on the limbs and boughs of the spruce pines that stood outside the window. I gently squeezed his waist. “How about another cup of coffee?” “Got to run, honey,” Joe said as he began to pull on his coat. “Weather like this means lots of work for television repairmen.” He kissed me on the cheek and started for the door when we heard the boys coming down the stairs. It was their first day home from school on Christmas vacation. Mikie, eight years of energy and enthusiasm, came running into the kitchen and jumped on a chair as he reached for Joe’s neck. “Daddy, Daddy, take me to work with you.” Joe leaned over and playfully patted him on the bottom. “Daddy has a busy day ahead, son; maybe you can go another time.” “But Daddy, I don’t have to go to school today.” “I know,” Joe said, “but not this morning. Don’t you want me to get all my work done so I can stay home with you on Christmas?” “Yippee!!” Mikie shouted. “Lemme give you a kiss so you can hurry up and get back.” Joe reached over and Mikie kissed his cheek with a resounding smack. Just then we heard Stevie, our ten year old, hollering from upstairs. “Wait for me, Daddy,” he shouted, “I’ve got something I want to show you before you leave.” Joe looked at me and raised an eyebrow. ” “What’s he got? I’ve got to get started.” he said. “He’s been working on his big Civil War puzzle since yesterday,” I said. “I guess he’s finally finished it and wants you to see it before you leave.” Joe started into the front room when he heard Stevie start down the steps. “Hey, hold it,” he shouted. “You can’t bring that big thing down here. You’ll mess it all up.” “But Daddy, I want you to see it.” “Well, just stay right there.” Joe grinned and dropped his coat on the arm of the sofa as he said, “It’s easier for Daddy to come up than it is for you to come down.” Joe bounded up the steps and moments later was back down, pulling on his coat and heading for the door. “See you tonight,” he said. And the door closed behind him. There were a million last minute things to do — baking, cleaning, and decorating. The boys had just swallowed their last mouthful of breakfast when there was a pounding on the back door. Several of the neighborhood kids, bundled up in their heavy coats with caps pulled down over their ears and scarves around their chins, stood in the drive. Stevie and Mikie ran to the door and peered out. “Be out in a minute,” they shouted, running back into the house for their coats and gloves. “Man, I bet that’s good sliding in the driveway today,” I heard them saying as they struggled to get dressed. I opened the back door and let them out and then stood momentarily looking through the glass storm door as they began running from the garage toward the sidewalk, slipping and sliding down the incline on their bottoms. I closed the inner door and busied myself in the kitchen. They’ll be back in shortly, I mused. It’s too cold for them to stay out long. I was humming Christmas carols as I finished the breakfast dishes and mixed up some cookie batter. Twenty minutes later, just as I was sliding the first batch of cookies in the hot oven, the doorbell rang. Wiping my hands on the apron, I went to the front door, still humming under my breath. A neighbor stood there, her coat hastily pulled over her housecoat and her head wrapped in a bandanna to cover the hair curlers. Her face was white and stricken and she stuttered as she talked. “D-D-Dora, something’s happened.” Her words escaped with little puffs of steam from her mouth. I caught my breath, unaware of the cold air that whipped around me and into the warm house. “What’s wrong?” She had difficulty getting out the words. “Two boys,” she said, “fell in the pond. I think they’re your boys.” I stood in stunned disbelief. “No!” I exclaimed. “They can’t be. They’re right out here sliding in the driveway.” My heart leaped into my throat as I looked toward the drive ... it was empty. “Get your coat,” she said. “I’ll show you where.” Somehow I managed to get back in the house, grab my coat, and stumble out the door. I hesitated. “There’s no pond around here,” I said. “You’re mistaken.” “There’s a big pond just beyond the golf course fairway,” she said. “Haven’t you ever been over there?” I shook my head as we started running across the frozen golf course. “It can’t be them,” I kept saying to myself. “Dear God, please don’t let it be them.” We ran to the top of a small hill and there, spread out before me, was a huge, frozen pond. I stood with my hand to my mouth as I looked at the horror scene below. A crowd of people had gathered on this side of the ice. Two police cars with flashing lights were parked close to the water. I saw two men dressed in dark rubber suits with skin-diving apparatus strapped to their backs bending over and pulling on their rubber flippers.” Then I raised my eyes and that dark, murky hole in the surface of the ice peered up at me ... like the eye of death. Two sets of tiny footprints ended at the edge of the gaping hole. I saw their playmates huddled together near one of the police cars and I knew it was Stevie and Mikie under that ice. I wanted to scream. I felt I was losing my mind. It’s a dream ... a nightmare, I thought. I’ll wake up in a second and it’ll be gone. But I knew I wouldn’t wake up. I knew it wouldn’t go away. I knew it was real and I couldn’t stand it. Joe and I were both Catholics, but our spiritual life was void. We had no real faith in God and only attended church because it was required of us. However, almost ten years before, I had started to listen to Kathryn Kuhlman’s radio broadcast. Joe was aggravated because I grew to love the program, and several times had threatened to smash the radio if I kept listening to that woman preacher. I had heard that voice five times a week for the last ten years. But I never knew how much of an impact her preaching had made on me until that day on top of that hill overlooking that frozen lake. I wanted to run down the hill and throw myself in the icy water with my babies, but was stopped by that voice, her voice, saying, “Be still and know that I am God.” I stopped dead in my tracks. I felt what I recognized at once as the power of God come over me. God himself had used Miss Kuhlman’s voice to speak to me in that time of heart-sinking terror. Friends helped me back across the snow covered fairway to our small home. By the time I got home, the house was filling with people. A local Protestant minister had arrived and friends and neighbors were hurrying over. All wanted to help, but no one knew quite what to do. Police and then newspaper reporters arrived. The house seemed to be bursting with people and I felt the old panic returning. “Please, somebody call Joe,” I said. “We already have,” someone answered. Again I heard Miss Kuhlman’s voice say, “As long as God is still on His Throne and hears and answers prayer, everything will turn out all right.” “Oh, I wish I could believe that,” I said out loud. “I do believe it. I must. I have no other hope.” I went into the bedroom and shut the door. Then I heard the faint wailing of a siren ... they had found one of the boys. In my mind’s eye, I pictured them pulling the small, frozen body up through that hole with little ice-encrusted mittens—the ones with the little ducks on the backs — flopping lifelessly back into the water. I saw those long, silky eyelashes, now glazed shut in death. I fell to my knees beside the bed. “Dear Jesus,” I sobbed, “please cany this burden for me. I can’t do it.” As I prayed, I felt great peace. Suddenly, I straightened up. What is happening to me, I thought. I should be going insane, but instead I’m so calm. I felt a flow of energy surging through my body. It was an enormous strength. I was so strong, I could have lifted the house. I had linked my littleness—my nothingness—with His Greatness. “No matter what happens, you will never go down in defeat if you are linked to Jesus,” I heard that familiar voice say again. Suddenly the door burst open. I turned and saw that Joe was gripping the doorknob, his knuckles bone white and his face lifeless with fear. His lips, blue with cold and fright, moved wordlessly. Dear God, how much he looked like Stevie! I wanted to reach out and draw him to me—to tell him everything was all right. Instead, I calmly said, “It’s the boys....” “Are they all right?” he screamed frantically. “No,” came my quiet reply. “They’ve drowned.” Joe turned and ran through the door. I wondered if he had heard that siren ... if he had passed the ambulance on his way across town ... what had been his thoughts as he drove up in front of the house to find it full of people ... what agony was he now enduring? I followed him into the living room in time to see him shove the minister against the wall. “I don’t want any minister,” Joe screamed, “I want my boys.” He stumbled across the room, his body wracked in convulsive sobs, and collapsed on a couch. The young priest from our church arrived. He thanked the minister and told him he would handle things. Moving toward Joe, he hesitated and then put his hand on his shoulder. “They do not prepare us for this in the seminary,” he said weakly. Joe was crushed, brokenhearted, lost. I knew he didn’t know a single verse of Scripture or Bible promise. All he knew was the Lord’s Prayer and Hail Mary. That was not enough at this time and I knew it. God had given me a double portion of His strength to meet the needs of the hour. I could not believe it was me. There were many things to be done. Someone must identify the children. Someone had to make the funeral arrangements. Someone had to answer the reporters’ questions. Someone had to talk to the police. God granted me the strength to do it all with calmness and sanity. Joe was sitting on the sofa, crying and wringing his hands. His brother-in-law was trying to comfort him, but he was incoherent and almost delirious. The police gave me the details. Mikie had fallen through the ice and Stevie, seeing him disappear into the icy water, had run to his aid, crying out, “My brother!” When he got to the hole, the ice broke and swallowed him up with Mikie. The pond was thirty feet deep. It took them almost an hour to find both bodies. A neighbor took us to the hospital to make identification of the boys. Joe collapsed in the hospital corridor and had to be given medication. I stayed by his side while the neighbor viewed the bodies and made positive identification. When we arrived home the funeral director met us at the door. Once again, I felt as if I were outside myself, looking on as an objective yet invisible outsider while this ninety-eight pound body of mine functioned flawlessly. I remember hearing Joe say, “God! What is holding her up?” Little did he know it was God. Joe staggered into the kitchen and began pouring himself shot after shot of whisky. My Mom and Dad arrived and seeing Joe’s condition, Dad wisely hid his hunting guns. While I sat on the sofa talking with the funeral director, Joe wandered aimlessly from room to room as if looking for something. He was totally unable to accept what had happened. The next morning the cars from the funeral home arrived. They were ready for us to go with them to see our sons. It was terribly cold, with snow flurries blowing around the car as we pulled into the driveway at the funeral chapel. The directors urged us to go on in and view the boys before the friends arrived. This was the hardest part—to see them like this. Again I felt this great strength flowing through me, over me, around me. I knew it was Jesus. Michael, eight years old with dark hair, was on the right side of the room. Stephen, ten years old and with oh-so-blond hair, was on the left. I walked over to Stevie and put my hand on his shoulder. Again I heard Miss Kuhlman’s voice talking about the death of her own beloved Papa. “It looks like him,” she had said, “but it is only the shell.” I looked up and thanked Jesus for His presence with me. I felt His great love and compassion around me and could literally feel Him weeping with me. I walked over to Mikie. He was lying in an identical white casket. We always bought two of everything for them. I looked at Joe who was standing beside me, his face etched in grief. He was faying to speak. I could see his lips moving, but no words came out. I stood close to him, hugging his arm with both hands. “What is it, honey?” I whispered. “Whatever it takes to get me where they are, I’ll do it,” he sobbed. “They’re so innocent....” And then, for the first time in all our married life, I heard Joe pray. “Oh God, make me as innocent in your sight as these little boys. I want to go where they are.” Suddenly, Joe’s last words to Stevie on that morning before he left the house flashed through my mind. “It’s easier for Daddy to come up than it is for you to come down,” Perhaps, I thought, this is what it’s going to take for both of us. The days that followed were full of shadows. The funeral was Saturday at St. Matthew’s Church, followed by the burial service in the freezing wind. Walking back into the kitchen, I gazed at the little gifts the boys had made at school, still on the countertop where they had carefully put them the morning they died. “To the best Mom and Dad in the world....” The shadows deepened and turned to night. Christmas floated past and then New Year’s Eve. Joe had always gone out and whooped it up, but this year he sat home in the silent house and cried in the darkness. Everything in the house was full of memories: the empty chairs at the dinner table; the rumpled clothes in the bottom of the closet; the drawers filled with little-boy underwear and mismatched socks. Things like rocks, bottle caps, empty shotgun shells, and children’s books seemed everywhere in the house. Then came that first day of school in the new year when I had to go to their classroom and clean out their desks. Their pencils, their scribbled papers, their workbooks, Mikie’s big box of crayons ... that’s all there was left. But there were memories; oh, the memories. That afternoon, I was standing in the living room when I heard the school bus stop in the street outside the house. The sounds of children laughing and shouting as they scattered to their homes cut into my heart like a sharp knife. I rushed to the windows and pulled the draperies, trying to shut out the sound of the frolicking children. I could almost hear Stevie and Mikie coming up the drive, swinging their lunch boxes and throwing snowballs at each other. But on the third day that I pulled the drapes shut, I heard that same radio voice whispering, so softly, “It is not what happens to you that counts; it is what you do with what you have left.” “Thank you, God,” I breathed, and opened the drapes, determined to rise above my grief. It was not so with Joe. He cried all the time. He was unable to return to work. He couldn’t sleep. He couldn’t eat. He couldn’t even dress himself. All he did was walk through that lonely house, wringing his hands and crying. At the breakfast table, he would break into uncontrollable sobs. He was losing weight, and he was chain-smoking himself to death. I tried to get him to listen to Miss Kuhlman’s daily radio broadcast, but his mind was too ravaged with grief to understand. Sometimes he’d sit at the table and try to listen, but would break out in great sobs in the middle of the program. I was deeply concerned about him, for it was as though he had completely lost his direction in life. His hair began to fall out. He looked horrible, with his sunken cheeks and blood-shot eyes. Then, to cap it all, came the boils. Like Job of the Bible, his body was covered with the huge, agonizing sores. No one can imagine the torture and turmoil that badgered his body and grief-stricken mind. He resigned his position as vice-president of the Television Technicians Association and threatened to sell his business, even going so far as to advertise it in the trade journals. He had lost all incentive to work, laugh, even live. It was weeks and weeks before he was able to drag himself back on the job. Then one afternoon the mail-man, a chap Joe knew only slightly, stopped by the shop on his rounds. He expressed sympathy over Joe’s loss and then said a very strange thing to him. “Mr. Lutz, are you trusting in the Lord?” At first Joe was insulted, then embarrassed. But he saw the obvious sincerity on the part of the mailman and answered, “Yes, I’m closely related to the church.” “I didn’t say the church,” the little mailman said kindly, “I asked if you were trusting in Jesus.” It hit Joe like a ton of bricks. This was the first time in all his life anyone had ever separated the church from Jesus. This was the first time he had ever heard that the two might be different. Joe came home that afternoon and told me what an impression this had made on him. The priest had been by several days earlier and suggested we pray to our dead children for comfort. The Protestant minister had stopped, and in answer to Joe’s question of “What can we do?” had suggested we read the twenty-third Psalm. “It’s comforting,” he had said. But now, for the first time, somebody suggested we try Jesus Christ. Joe began talking to the mailman every morning as he made his routine deliveries. One day, he brought Joe a Gospel of John. Again, Joe was impressed. That night I heard him rummaging around in the attic. “What are you doing, Joe?” I hollered at him, afraid he might be getting ready to shoot himself. “What’s going on up there?” Moments later he descended with an old Bible under his arm. “I knew we had one someplace,” he said. “That radio preacher lady of your says if you stick with the Bible, you can’t go wrong. So, I’m going to start reading it.” His voice broke and he began to sob, “If there’s anything I can do to go to my boys, then I’m willing to do it.” So he began his intensive search, a search which was to lead down one blind alley after another until he emerged into the sunlight on the other side of the valley of the shadow. Joe was getting up every morning and leaving the house early to attend Mass at St. Matthew’s. He was listening to every radio preacher who bombarded the airwaves. He even followed up on some of the radio preachers and went to their offices where they prayed for him. He left no stone unturned in his search for God. Then one night, several months later, I told him I had finally broken down and written Kathryn Kuhlman a letter. “What did you write?” he asked. “I told her how she had been with me during the darkest hours of my life,” I answered truthfully, “and that her life for Christ had given me a new hope.” “Maybe you’ve got a new hope,” Joe said, his eyes filling with the ever-present tears, “but I have nothing.” I tried to comfort him, but he got up from the table and walked back into the living room. “Do you know what happened to me this afternoon?” he asked, pacing the floor. “I was driving down the street and started to cry. I had to pull off the road. All I can do is cry. Yesterday while I was fixing a lady’s TV, I found a little toy dump truck under the set. I began to cry right there. All I want to do is see ... see ... my boys,” he sobbed out. “It’s all I can think about.” Two weeks later Joe came home from work and said, “Guess what? Your preacher lady is going to be at O’Neil’s Department Store tomorrow to autograph a book she’s written. Let’s go see her.” I could hardly believe my ears. Kathryn Kuhlman was going to be in Akron. And Joe, my husband Joe, who had one time threatened to smash the radio, was asking me to go with him to see her. We got there early, but the line already extended out into the street. We stood watching her autograph the books. I couldn’t get my eyes off her. She was so vibrant, so radiant, so full of joy. Then we were next. We introduced ourselves and I said, “Maybe you don’t remember, but I wrote you a letter several weeks ago and told you how much you had blessed us after our boys drowned.” “Oh,” she said, rising from the table. “Of course I remember. I have been praying for you. How could I forget that wonderful, touching letter!” Then, before we could reply, she put one hand on my head and the other on Joe’s shoulder and began to pray out loud—right there in the middle of O’Neil’s Department Store. She prayed for our salvation and for the Holy Spirit to descend on us. As we walked out of the store, Joe’s face was radiant. He put his arm around my shoulder and said, “Honey, Sunday we’re going down and hear that lady preach in Youngstown. Maybe this is the answer to all my prayers.” Joe got up early the next Sunday and went to early Mass as usual. Then he came back by the house and we drove to the service in Youngstown. After that first service, we knew that if there was an answer to our spiritual search, it would be found under Kathryn Kuhlman’s ministry. We kept attending the Kuhlman services in Youngstown. I began to notice a change taking place in Joe. He stopped smoking. And then one day when I was upstairs, I heard banging and scraping in the basement. I looked out the window and Joe was dragging his homemade bar out into the driveway. By the time I got downstairs he had set it on fire. We stood silently and watched it bum. Several times after the services Joe turned to me and said, “I almost answered the altar call today, but something keeps holding me back.” In March, 1963, fifteen months after we had lost Mikie and Stevie, whatever it was that was holding Joe back turned loose. We were standing side by side during the altar call when Joe turned and said, “I am ready. Will you go with me?” I hugged his arm as we stepped out in the aisle and started forward. I could hear Joe weeping as we walked down that long aisle and joined the crowd at the front of the auditorium. We stood as close to the platform as we could and I heard Joe sob out, “Jesus, I am sorry.” And no one will ever know the joy that swept my soul at that moment. I could feel Joe as he was born all over again into a new life, and I was being born with him. Then I felt a soft hand on my shoulder and looked up to see Miss Kuhlman with that ever-present smile, urging us to come forward to the microphone. I do not know to this day how she remembered us or even saw us in that huge crowd. But she urged us forward and we stood before the microphone. “Why did you come forward?” she said, looking at Joe. “Miss Kuhlman,” he answered, his voice cracking but strong, “I have to see my boys again. I just have to be ready so I can be with my sons again.” “You can see your sons,” she said. “You can be with them through all eternity if you will give your heart to Jesus. For that is where they are, with Jesus.” I gripped Joe’s arm so tightly I was afraid I would cut off the circulation as he turned to those five thousand people and said, “Today, I take Jesus as my Saviour.” Oh, the glory came down that day! Since that time, Joe has been used by the Lord to win thirteen members of his family to faith in Jesus Christ, including his ailing father who went forward just a few weeks ago. All my family has come to Christ. And now, several years later, the teen-age boys who live in our neighborhood — former playmates of Stevie and Mikie — are gathering at our house for Bible study and going with us to the services in Youngstown. They pile into Joe’s truck and go all over the city to worship and witness. Most glorious of all, we have been used by the Holy Spirit to counsel with more than one hundred couples who have lost children through death. Just recently, we stumbled across a passage of Scripture that wraps all our desires and all God’s promises into one package. It is 2 Samuel 12:23. King David’s infant son had died and David had ceased his mourning and said with assurance, “But now he is dead ... could I bring him back again? No, I shall go to him; but he will not come back to me.” And I remembered those words so seemingly incidental and yet so prophetic at the time: “It is easier for Daddy to come up than it is for you to come down.” Not only easier, but far more glorious! It Could Happen to Your Daughter: Chapter 9 |