The Third Tree on the Left

The white fences that stretch out on Hillsdale Road in Jasper offer a bucolic scene for a Sunday afternoon drive with the top down. The road snakes and twists, rises and then bottoms, as houses and barns dot the meadows and distract motorists with their time-worn beauty. It is there that I have seen the sun, low and majestic, bursting through the towering pines and strafing with its soft heat the greenest grass I ever saw. Yes, I have been down Hillsdale Road many times in my life, but since 1992, there is not a time that I have driven it that I have not thought about the death of Robbie Bellville.On the afternoon of Thursday, April 2, 1992, Robbie, a sharp, radiant boy of only sixteen, lost his life in a tragic car accident there on Hillsdale Road. The pastoral scene was transformed into horror, as thick smoke entwined the pine trees and unrelenting fireman doused the flames of the burning vehicle.Robbie was a boy that grew up like all kids in this part of the country do, playing sports and making lifelong friends, but Robbie possessed an intangible gift—the gift of magnetism. Simply put, people were drawn to him. He was honest and kind and had a great personality, traits that beckoned relationships in droves. He had ambitions of one day being a physical therapist, and his last day on earth was spent shadowing at a local rehabilitation clinic. He had other dreams, too, and as his father Bob Bellville submits, he was “coming into his own.”He was precisely the kind of kid that doesn’t deserve to die young.Becky Bellville, Robbie’s mother, can walk through the last day of her son’s life just as if she were recalling events that happened to her yesterday. Since that time, her life has been largely shaped by that crucible.Becky remembers her last moments with her son, when the family gathered at McDonald’s in Jasper. It was there that young Colby’s (the Bellville’s third son) already loose tooth fell victim to an errant straw. The whole family got a big chuckle out of it. As they were leaving the parking lot, Becky remembers an indelible moment, one of the last images of Robbie she would ever see while he was on this earth. As Robbie was getting in his car, he grabbed the door handle, turned back toward her, and gave his mom a big wave goodbye. Hours later, that goodbye would be final.The first family member to arrive at the scene was Bob Bellville. Just moments before the wreck, Robbie was going to pick up his brother Nathan at a friend’s house, and when Robbie didn’t arrive, Nathan became worried. He phoned his dad to tell him that Robbie hadn’t shown up. Then Bob got a call that there had been a wreck on Hillsdale Road.“I knew it was Robbie,” says Bob.Becky was coming home from the grocery store when she saw ambulances and fire trucks plugging up Hillsdale Road. “I got out and started walking up a hill and I saw the end of a brown truck. I saw a fireman and I said to him, ‘That’s my husband’s truck, is he ok?’ He nodded, but he knew my son was not. When I got there, Bob was sobbing and two men were holding him up. He said to me, ‘Robbie’s dead, Robbie’s dead’ and I kept saying ‘What are you talking about? What are you talking about?’ That scene is etched in my mind and will be forever.”Word of Robbie’s untimely death spread quickly, and an entire community grieved with the Bellville family. But death soon has little company, and the weeks and months that went by after Robbie’s passing left Becky hopeless and searching for answers.“Honestly, I wanted to die. My whole world…I was just consumed with grief. I hurt so bad. I just didn’t know how I was going to make it,” says Becky. “I started reading every book about grief. Kay Wilson helped me to get involved in the Compassionate Friends organization. I went to six different counselors. I was searching for someone to take my pain away. I finally realized that they can’t because Robbie’s not coming back.”Becky also attended a Life, Death, and Transition Workshop in Hedgewater, Virginia, which she says was a powerful experience. One of the objectives of the workshop was to help residents deal with anger, and a couple of exercises in particular stick out in Becky’s mind. “We had a meeting and there was a mattress in the floor and a rubber hose and a phone book. When it got to be my turn, I started sobbing and tearing out pages of the phone book. I kept saying, ‘Why God, Why? Why would you take my son away?’” To conclude the workshop, a bonfire was lit and each resident picked up a pine cone and tossed it into the fire. With that symbolic act, each person decided what they were leaving and Becky chose to leave her anger toward God amid the flames. “The workshop taught you how to love unconditionally. We can’t love unconditionally if we live with anger and hate,” she said.Months went by and the pain continued for Becky. Although she was no longer angry at God, she still continued to grieve for her son. That is when she reached a breaking point. “I remember it was in the middle of the night one night and I was in the living room. It was just me and the stillness of the night. For some reason, I just grabbed a pencil and started writing. I wrote page after page. I felt like the four walls were caving in. I ended up writing to God. I said, ‘Lord, I can’t do this. I don’t know how to survive. Here I am, Lord. Take me, use me.’ That night, I turned my life over to God.”“The next morning, I didn’t wake up with the pain gone. But when I finally said to God, ‘I am yours’, that was the turning point. I had to go on for Bob and the boys.”Because Robbie was the oldest, Nathan, Colby, and Ryan—the younger brothers—were left to deal with the loss of their big brother and to carry the torch of his life for the Bellville family.They have done so admirably.Becky remembers the last Christmas gift that Robbie gave her. “I had been taking these ceramic classes and I made my own canister set. Robbie was working at Kmart at the time, and he got me a canister set for Christmas. It was cheap,” Becky laughs. “But on the canister set, there was an inscription. It said, ‘In every recipe, make love the main ingredient.’ What an amazing message. What that means to me now is that in everything I do, make love the main ingredient.”As Becky and I are sitting in the living room talking, Bob walks in and sits in a chair across from us. Listening hastily while he sits on the edge of his chair, he eventually breaks in: “You can’t change it. I never thought I’d be burying my son. But God’s been good to me. I remember a boy died six days before Robbie died. We were talking about it as a family. Robbie said, ‘When your time ticket’s up, it’s up.’ God didn’t want Robbie to die. It’s just what happened.”I asked Becky and Bob to tell me the exact spot where the accident occurred. I told Becky that every time I had driven near a certain point in the road that something in my soul was telling me that this is where the accident occurred.“I don’t know,” says Becky. “I haven’t been that way in almost twenty-one years.”“I know,” says Bob. “I know exactly where it is. There’s a little curve in the road and down beneath it is a little holler. It’s the third tree on the left.”It is exactly where I imagined.The third tree on the left robbed a family of their most precious commodity—their beloved son. Yet, the image of the three trees goes back to another horrific scene, two thousand years ago. There, in the third tree on the left, hung the unpenitent robber on the cross, stripped of dignity, yet refusing to beg the Savior of the World to have mercy on him.Becky finally realized, in the midst of every emotional outpouring that a human can endure, that grief can either destroy us or we can choose to make the world better by allowing God to pull us through it. Becky has chosen the latter, the avenue of penitence. She has chosen to accept the grace of the man that hung on the middle tree.“Robbie’s death gave me a purpose. It taught me so much about life. I value people, I don’t value things. When I started to try to help people, that’s when the healing began,” Becky says. “I want to take Robbie’s death and use it to do good. Anything else would be going against God’s will.”Until then, the Bellville family waits for an eternal reunion with their son. “I can’t wait to see him again,” says Bob.As pictures of Robbie are strewn all over the coffee table, Becky looks at me and says, “God knew Robbie was going to die, but God grieved with me. I still believe that God gave me the courage and strength to get through it. I know, I know that God carried me.”