The personal grief that shaped parts of Malachi’s story in His Amish Marriage Offer
Trigger warning: This post talks about death by suicide.
There are moments in life that change the way we see the world—moments that shape who we become and what we carry forward. I promised you I would write about the harder subjects that influenced parts of His Amish Marriage Offer, and death by suicide is another one of them.
When I wrote Malachi and his thoughts in the years after his loss, I wrote from experience. I placed on the page the same questions, emotions, and quiet struggles I faced myself—during difficult conversations, in seasons of caring, and in the aftermath of events that left no easy answers.
In the early 1990s, I met a beautiful young woman. She was a year or two older than me—vibrant, magnetic, and seemingly full of life. We connected instantly, and I believed she would be a lifelong friend.
Then she was gone.
She died by suicide.
Devastated doesn’t begin to cover it. I had seen her only hours before. In the aftermath, my mind became a battlefield of questions. Had I missed the signs? Could I have said something—anything—that might have made a difference? The could haves and should haves became their own kind of torment.
In November 2007, loss came again. My uncle—a man I admired deeply, a man who had always felt more like an older brother given we were only four years apart—fell victim to the cruel, lying voices in his mind. I wasn’t there. I wasn’t even in the same state. But I remember the moment I found out. The shock. The physical violence of grief that brought me to my knees.
Once again, the questions came. Could I have been a better niece? A better friend? Our entire family wrestled with our own versions of why. There was disbelief. Anger. And the quiet, heavy weight of survivor’s guilt.
Thankfully, I had writing.
At the time, I was working on a medieval historical. My grief found its way onto the page. Supporting characters became villains. They met brutal ends. It wasn’t pretty, but it was honest. Writing became the place where I could put emotions that had nowhere else to go.
Time, distance, and life experience eventually gave me something else: perspective.
There were others, too—people I loved—who quietly battled depression. It took a great deal of effort to simply face another day. Walking beside them taught me a difficult but necessary truth: their choices were never mine to control, even when every right step was taken, even when help was sought and hope was held.
I learned that love, as powerful as it is, cannot always rescue someone from their pain.
And I learned that sometimes, the greatest kindness we can offer is not only to them—but to ourselves.
Grace for what we could not change.
Still, I understand the instinct to ask why. It is part of being human. We seek meaning in loss because meaning makes the unbearable feel survivable.
In His Amish Marriage Offer, part of Malachi’s lie and his why reside right in the core of his mother’s mental health and demise.
“But I don’t want a wife.”
A wife would be one more opportunity to fail in his responsibilities. Marriage would force him back into the spotlight of their community, even if only until the courtship and wedding were over. It was more time than he wished to be under the gmay’s sometimes crude magnifying glass. He’d already spent too much time there, being pitied and gawked at when his daed had refused to seek forgiveness from the community and left the church for the Englischer’s ways.
He’d been pitied and gawked at even more when his mamm battled depression until her mental faculties declined enough to keep her from getting out of bed, leaving him to care for Jared. Malachi had heard the whispers behind cupped hands, saying Mamm died of a broken heart, but he didn’t think so, and he never corrected the bishop out of fear of more unwanted attention. Mamm had said she never could hold her head up again and face her shame. Malachi knew his mamm had died of embarrassment, and he was fairly certain there’d been more to her death than anyone knew. The handwritten note, still tucked in the back of his Bible, that she’d left behind told him all he needed to know. Suicide wasn’t common among their people, but neither was the type of abuse or neglect she’d suffered at his father’s hands.
Malachi carries his own burden of grief, rooted in his mother’s mental health and her tragic death. His silence. His shame. His carefully guarded secret. The fear of becoming like her. All of it traces back to a wound he doesn’t know how to heal.
“I can afford a nanny.”
But that was a problem, too. It was difficult to trust just anyone with Jeb, even the young women he’d grown up with. Especially with the Stoltzfus reputation. He didn’t want Jeb to hear anything bad about his family. Not about his grossdaddi, his daed, or even Malachi. What would negative words do to the infant? Leave him feeling as if he were an outcast for sins not his own?
Just like Malachi often felt.
The air left his lungs. If he weren’t holding his nephew, he would have hit his knees and cried. The burden on his shoulders was too much, even at thirty-two, and he wasn’t sure how he could keep walking tall, especially with the shame he carried on behalf of his parents and his brother. One thing was for certain—He understood Mamm a little more. She just hadn’t been strong enough. Or he and Jared hadn’t been enough to draw her from her depression.
Malachi had been a child when his mother died. The death occurred off pages, many years before His Amish Marriage Offer begins, but we know from his thoughts, her death continues to hang over him like a dark cloud and leaving him wondering why he and his brother had never been enough, why their love hadn’t been enough to root her to their lives.
Sometimes the hardest thing isn’t loving someone who is hurting.
It’s learning how to live after they’re gone.
There are days when my uncle feels very close.
Sometimes it’s in the smallest moments—like when I glance in the rearview mirror after driving past a piece of debris, making sure nothing caught beneath the car. It was one of those practical bits of wisdom he gave me when I was younger. He didn’t just tell me to look. He told me why I should.
He understood, even then, that I needed the reason behind things.
That small act of checking the mirror has stayed with me all these years. And every time I do it, I think of him.
And every single time, it makes me smile.
Stories have always been how I make sense of the world—and how I find healing.
If you see a piece of your own journey in Malachi’s story, I hope it reminds you to be gentle with yourself. To hold close the good memories. And to trust that healing, even when slow, is still possible.
You are welcome to share your reflections below, or simply carry this reminder with you today: love does not end with loss.
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