amish suicide note

"I don't know how you put up with me all those years. I am not worthy of you, you are the perfect wife you deserve so much better. We had so many good memories together as well as the tragedy with Elise. It changed my life forever I haven't been the same since it affected me in a way I never felt possible. I am filled with so much hate, hate toward myself hate towards God and unimaginable emptyness it seems like everytime we do something fun I think about how Elise wasn't here to share it with us and I go right back to anger."

This is the text of the first page of the 3-page note Roberts wrote to his wife prior to going to the amish school and killing several young girls and then himself. Further details that have come out reveal that he says he molested two young relatives 20 years ago and could never get it out of his head. That, along with the death of his daughter, are his stated reasons for what he did. In my opinion, suicide notes tend to be truthful.

How to comment on this tragedy besides saying sad, sad, sad... for everyone. Everyone. Every one.

While there is no excuse for the incalculable damage that this guy did to these girls and to this community, I hear his silent agony for all these years. He was truly a tortured soul and I believe he wrestled with many demons, both real and metaphorical.

What could have changed the ending to this story? His wife was at a Bible study. She said he was a great man. It sounds like he tried to be, but inwardly suffered a horribly low self-esteem. The weight of his own sin and inadequacy was too great to bear. Why was the Christian community not able to help him with that? Why did he feel the need to keep quiet?

What choices did he make at each step of his life that led him to this point? Why did he stay silent all these years? Was there something about our culture or his church environment that made it too embarassing to seek help and talk about what was going on inside? Could those he had molested not have come forward long ago? What forces kept them from doing so? What forces kept him from dealing with his true emotions of anger after his daughter's death so that they didn't fester and explode?

My challenge, in the middle of this horror, is to not be quite so quick to point the finger always and only at the one who did the crime. But to also look at me, at us, and say "How have we contributed to the crime? Even in a small or unconscious way?" If we are not willing to even stop and consider that question, then we are like the pharisees. Eager to stone, as if they were above weakness and frailty and sin.

Satan, who came to steal, kill, and destroy may appear to have won the day. But let's not let him win the war.