Free The Christmas Sweater by Glenn Beck Page B

engaged, and soon
     we were heading up the first big hill. Neither Grandpa nor I said a word.
    The view from the top was amazing. The car briefly paused, as if caught in gravity’s
     web, and I swore I saw Grandma’s church in the distance, its steeple clock reflecting
     the sun. I didn’t have a chance to look for long. We crested the hill, picked up speed,
     and hurtled back toward the ground, the wooden track shaking violently beneath us.
     Grandpa squeezed my hand and told me not to be afraid.
    I didn’t realize until years later that he was actually holding my hand tighter than
     I was holding his.
    Now, as Grandpa and I stood together at my mother’s wake, he was once again squeezing
     my hand tight. I didn’t know who was comforting whom, but it was the only thing that
     kept me from running out the door.
     
    I found out later that Mom had fallen asleep at the wheel. We’d drifted off the road
     and flipped in a ditch. I didn’t have a scratch on me, but Mom had broken her neck.
     Doctors and friends kept telling me that she had died instantly, that she hadn’t felt
     any pain—like that somehow made it all okay, but it didn’t. I wanted my mother back.
     She wasn’t supposed to die. Not then, not now, and certainly not “instantly.” I never
     said good-bye, but, more important, I never told her that I was sorry. Now she would
     never know.
    “Oh, Eddie.” Aunt Cathryn hugged me tight, her eyes swollen and red and her voice
     uncharacteristically soft. “I’m so sorry.” She tried to keep talking, but her words
     didn’t make any sense.
    Mrs. Benson and the others from the nursing home were there as well. But there wasn’t
     any cheek-pinching or caroling now, just tears and tender hugs. I wondered if I would
     ever see any of them again.
    Grandma said it would upset me if I touched Mom’shand, but I didn’t care, I couldn’t possibly be any more upset than I already was.
     I went up to her casket. She didn’t seem real. She didn’t look like my mother at all—she
     looked more like one of the mannequins she used to dress at Sears. So still. So peaceful.
     Her soft hand, which used to push the hair out of my eyes, now lay lifeless across
     her chest, clutching a rosary. She was wearing a dress I had never seen before and
     makeup I was sure she had never bought.
    I reached out to touch her and noticed that I was wearing my Christmas sweater. I
     didn’t even remember putting it on.
    I wanted to cry. Actually, I felt like I should have cried, but as I stood there holding my mother’s hand, I was surprised to find
     that all I felt was anger. I was angry at a lot of people, but no one more than God.
     He’d now taken both my father and my mother. Why? What had they ever done to deserve
     that? God could’ve saved them from disease and car wrecks, but he’d chosen not to.
     God could’ve answered my prayers, but instead he’d ignored them. God hadn’t been there
     when my father had prayed for a second chance. Hehadn’t been there when my mother had prayed for a blessed Christmas. And he obviously
     wasn’t there now.
    Grandpa must’ve sensed the transformation in my emotions. Just as I was about to collapse
     under the weight of all that I had been through and all that I still had to go through,
     he put his strong arms around me, pulled me close, and whispered three words that
     I didn’t understand at the time but that have stayed with me ever since: “All is well.”
    But with everything I loved once again lying in a casket, he couldn’t have been more
     wrong. Nothing was well. Nothing ever would be well again.
     
    The months after my mother’s death and funeral compressed themselves into a single
     point. I knew I was there, but my memories were like stories told by someone else.
     The fogginess lasted a long time. I didn’t live the time after the accident so much
     as I watched it unfold.
    I moved to my grandparents’ farm. My room at their house looked a lot like my