Lynchburg Living

Departments

By Jon Dupin

David Metzler and Heidi Childs did not know they were going to die that night. Like most wide-eyed couples, they planned to live long, to someday marry and to grow old together. Yet, in a scene no one may ever fully materialize, their lives were taken.

Late August 2009, in the summer half-light, David drove his worn-in Toyota from the Virginia Tech campus, where he had just begun his sophomore year, out towards the Jefferson National Forest in Montgomery County. The summer days were shorter now, but final rays still lingered, ready to drop off suddenly and hand things over to the moon and the dark. Blacksburg was fading in his rearview and the wheel-grip turned the car onward to the woodland reserve ahead.

Heidi sat next to him. Their evening together was another surprise date that David often loved to craft for her. She knew this, because David had texted her back and forth that day.

“What should I wear?” she typed.

“Wear something you can get dirty,” he replied. “And bring your guitar.”

The outdoors quickened David’s senses. He craved the serenity of the wild and so did Heidi. Therefore, his plan made sense: Get to the campsite and start a fire, talk and laugh around the terra-glow, strum the guitars and return to campus awhile later. Heidi brought along some songs she had written and wanted to test them out, but also, she needed to talk about a big decision, Med School. She had finally resolved that she was meant to be a doctor and a healer, so she wanted David to dream and plan with her about their future together.

Then the sudden and unimaginable came to pass.

A baffling act of violence left David and Heidi dead, murdered not far from the place they sought. He was only 19 years old; she merely 18. Their entire lives were at the forefront and then gone, just like that.

But stories like theirs refuse to end tragically or empty. No matter how barren the conclusion seems, the narrative always breaks open these countless cracks of light and promises through the margins. Anyone who hears or retells it cannot let go of the profound meaning that pushes through to ignite us all to live differently again, to help us hold gently, and yet fearlessly our brittle humanity and make our lives count for something everlasting.

David and Heidi have one of those stories.

Love At First Sight

David’s friends confidently admit that he fell for Heidi the moment he saw her. Just naively going about growing up in Lynchburg and then smash, the new girl walks into his church and changes everything. There was no hiding his fascination. Her smile seemed inescapable, like a centerpiece, and her energy captured every light particle in the room. People knew when Heidi was there, and yet, she never demanded their attention. That kind of attraction mesmerized David. He was not struck by the elaborate, but rather poise and grace drew him in, and that was Heidi.

Over a year passed before either of them admitted to an affection for the other. Then, it just sort of happened. One nanosecond, it’s eyes catching eyes and unsure smiles across a room, and the next it’s an axis of all possible emotion. Were they falling in love? Or, was such an indefinable word even more impossible for teenagers to fathom? Emotions like theirs might have been undeveloped and rose and fell to the point of vertigo, but there was something else underneath, something soulful and pure.

To just say that theirs was a high school crush was a hollow descriptor to the people who knew them both. Another kind of virtue surely linked them, like two ageless souls were given the exceptional privilege to meet on the same timeline. And, slowly, they had unearthed a rare-found friendship and a chemistry that was both contagious and composed. It is fair to say that even the most seasoned marriage could have looked on and seen something vicarious to steal away from David and Heidi.

Don Childs, Heidi’s father, talked about the unique confidence he had in his daughter and David’s relationship.

“They both had their own set of friends, so they didn’t feel like they had to be together all the time. And, there was never any drama between them. Never jealousy if the other one spoke to another girl or boy,” he explained, and then smiled. “Sometimes, she’d come in fussing at David about something silly and I’d say to her, ‘You better treat him right or he’ll go find someone else.’ And she’d say, ‘Well, if he does, he does.’”

He gleamed as he recounted the memory, because he clearly admired his daughter’s strength. Still, assurance such as this came out of Heidi’s faith. And, it was Heidi’s faith that really captured David the most. Growing up in church, it was typical for someone like him to watch a person conform to “moral Christianity,” behave yourself and say the right things, but never really get inward and familiar with the spirit of Christ, or to love God and others as he did. From David’s vantage point, though, Christianity had genuinely reshaped Heidi’s entire self. He soon caught on that she wanted to know and be like Jesus Christ, not just religiously practice Him, but share His passion to serve and heal a world awry.

Heidi once scribbled in her journal, “Dear God, I want to be someone who doesn’t just claim you, but proves it in the way I live. Just as the saying goes. Actions speak louder than words. I pray God that I will hold a strong testimony at Tech. Give me wisdom, and the courage to use it. I love you Lord.”

To see it through the eyes of those who knew her, Heidi believed that Jesus Christ was God’s rescuer, and she believed He redeemed her heart to unfurl sacred love on a planet wounded by human sin. Delivering God’s love, in Heidi’s own words, meant reflecting the life and teaching of Jesus Christ. So that is what she sought to do.

Once, Heidi discovered a young girl crying in a hallway outside a classroom. The girl was alone and deeply jolted by something. Without hesitation, Heidi collapsed by her side and enveloped this girl in her arms. Then she held the girl, so her face rested against one shoulder. For the longest time, she paused there to weep and pray for the girl placed in her path that day. Other times, Heidi went on church mission trips specifically to engage and comfort the marginalized. She volunteered for the arduous jobs no one else would touch and almost compulsively mentored other girls who came into her relational atmosphere.

Valentine Erisman, one of Heidi’s close friends at Tech, said, “I came to college having completely lost my faith in anything. I just didn’t know what to believe anymore. Heidi just had this subtle way of helping me find it again. I owe this renewal to her.”

Countless scenes like that, as Heidi enacted compassion and guidance, must have cut-and-pasted a yearbook collage in David’s mind; perhaps even scenes of a life to come. For there was no doubt that this was the girl he wanted to dream and shape a life with.

But, despite how sure he was of a future with Heidi, David had to shelve it and first gain a critical offering: his father’s blessing. Without such, this girl must stay at arm’s length.

The Heart and The Blessing

No invested parent can predict with whom or when his or her child will fall in love. They might only hope to have a seat on the ride through the tunnel, so they can cheer them on or give warnings as they go along. At that point, if such a love is true or just a mirage, their son or daughter might be able to see the light with fewer regrets and more deeply-rooted wisdom. Of course, there is no way that a father or mother can keep their coming-of-age teenager from totally falling for someone, but they can, if composed enough, save that kid’s heart from carrying major baggage into an inevitable marriage.

Keith Metzler, David’s father, sat across a restaurant table from his son. It was the boy’s 16^th birthday, and his father had something important to unfold; a pivotal intersection in their journey as father and son. By the conclusion, both would ask something substantial of the other. And, of course, much of the dialogue would include David’s flourishing attention to Heidi. So, for layered reasons, the talk could not have come any sooner.

The Metzler parents wanted to inspire each of their four children, when they turned 16, to aim for sexual abstinence until they married. As if that were not culturally out-there enough, they also fitted the entire talk around a ceremonial dinner that ended in a promise. To them, this right-of-passage was not about an anatomy review or to lay out some more do’s-and-don’ts, nor was it just boiled down to a virginity covenant. Instead, in their eyes, it was the most overriding gift to help their children learn how to actualize love with someone for life.

If strangers had been within earshot of David and his father that night, this is an expression of what they might have heard:

“I appreciate what you’re saying, Dad,” David said eagerly, but not out of sort. “And I plan to stay pure until marriage.”

Celibacy until marriage would not have bewildered him, such was the echo of his peer group and church, but why couldn’t he just call Heidi his girlfriend? Isn’t that what American teenagers do? They date, have girlfriends and boyfriends, hold hands and pretend they love each other, right? That doesn’t mean they all sleep around.

So David might have pushed on to ask a similar question , “But, why can’t I just date Heidi now? Why can’t she be my girlfriend? Don’t you like her?”

This is where tension tightens and space for an emotional comma is necessary. Somehow, Keith had to comprehend that his petition to David had a crucible-like density to it. Any young man like David can be capable of either going insane or driven to outright rebellion against the doctrine. But David was fit and genteel. A stable confidence carried him; one that never came across arrogantly. Many girls describe his way as one that disarmed them and made them feel prized. So, to a female in the maddening storm of high school life, he had the keys to go where he wanted. Now, his father was asking David to wait until his parents thought he was ready.

Keith realized he would have to shift to his greater actualization to win over his son.

“Your mother and I think Heidi is a wonderful girl. But there’s something more important to understand here,” he said, carefully choosing each word.

At this point, David moved even closer to take it in, because he honored his father like a sage. Once, when he was a boy, he accidentally dropped a tool and wrecked Keith’s hand badly. The reaction from his father was inescapable; it hurt and it showed, but he tried not to let it out. However, realizing the pain he had caused, David was immediately harassed by a relentless guilt. Keith later recalled that David said he was sorry over and over again, and even as he got older, David would bring up the experience and apologize as fervently as the day it happened.

Truly, the boy loved and revered his father to the point of being soul-crushed if he ever disappointed him. That’s why his attention was assuredly deadlocked on what the man was about to say to him.

“Son, we want you to preserve your heart,” Keith would say.

What does that mean? David must have wondered.

Keith started to explain, “You know, don’t give your heart away too soon or immaturely.”

Much later, Keith would divulge that he wanted to help David, at that critical moment, to understand that teenage relationships are better off as friendships and not serious or exclusive, it was simply too distracting. As much as he cared for Heidi, he admits this was for her protection as well.

“You give pieces of your heart away in these relationships,” he said to David. “And, you take the same from someone else. Most of the time, you realize this wasn’t the person for you anyway, because you’re young and learning. But you can’t get that part of your heart back when you do get married.”

Recalling the conversation, Keith explained that he then encouraged David not to throw around the word “love” in a romantic context.

“That word is a powerful word, especially to a young lady,” he remembers telling his son. “So, we led him to only say that he loved a girl when he was ready to marry her.”

Would this son honor his father’s drastic appeal to not date in high school, to wait until he received a blessing? Yes, but not before he asked something in return.

“Someday, when you think I’m ready,” David declared. “Please give me your blessing to pursue Heidi.”

The two men left the table that day, respecting each other’s wishes. Despite his feelings for Heidi, David would only seek a friendship with her. He committed that he would not kiss her until she was his girlfriend, and that “I love you” would only be granted the moment that love was true and unyielding.

But, would Heidi wait for David?

Rights of Passage

“Guide me each day on the path you have planned out for me,” Heidi’s journal expresses her prayer for patience. “Give me strength for the moments I feel like giving up.”

For the next two years, Heidi was outwardly just one of David’s great friends. Inwardly, however, they desired more, but David stuck by his word. She accompanied him to high school dances, smiled and posed for the pictures, joined his group of school friends, but she was not his girlfriend, or so David told himself.

“They really balanced their time with other friends at school and in the youth group quite well,” Kent Gregory, David and Heidi’s youth pastor, said. “They never were that clingy couple that’s always sitting together and doing everything together. But still, everyone knew they were waiting for each other.”

When would the waiting cease, though?

In the late fall of 2008, David’s father saw what he hoped to someday discover in him.

“I knew when David came home from Tech that first year for Thanksgiving, that something had changed about him,” Keith explained. “I recognized that his faith was not just a family faith, but instead it was a forged one.”

To Keith, his patriarchal calling was always about his son’s faith, and being assured that it was his own, not the church’s or his parent’s. As for dating Heidi, or anyone for that matter, Keith wanted no other relationship to distract his son from the one that he felt must stand strong first: David’s relationship with God. Therefore, when David went off to college and thrived at growing in and sharing his faith, the shift was a signal for his father.

Nevertheless, two conditions went along with his father’s blessing: He must ask Heidi’s father for permission to date her, and, he must wait to tell her that he loved her until he genuinely knew it was forever.

“Done,” David said. He was ready.

Wasting no time requesting an audience with Heidi’s father, Don distinctly remembers the conversation.

“David came to the door, nervous and very serious,” Don recalled about that night. “He said, ‘I’d like to talk to you about dating your daughter.’ And then we talked for an hour or so. He was open and forthright. I knew he was serious and sincere.”

Choking up as he finished, Don said, “He was a phenomenal young man. I couldn’t ask for a better man to pursue my daughter.”

Not long after, David prepped himself to fittingly ask this incredible lady to be his girlfriend. On a cold December twilight, he drove to the same house he had visited countless times before as “just a great friend” the same house he had come to days before to converse with Heidi’s father, but this time a new moniker went before and after him. Heidi would become an even greater part of his story, and he to her own.

She must have known something was up when he came, because he immediately asked her to go for a walk with him.

“It’s kind of cold, David,” she tried to suggest. “Why don’t we talk here in the living room.”

He hesitated before insisting that they take that walk.

“Okay, let me get my coat,” she relented.

Outside, he grabbed an oddly-placed Kroger bag from his car and brought it along. Christmas was near, so the neighborhood houses were outfitted with holiday lights and trees in the windows. They could see the fog from their breath and shivered a bit as they walked. Strangely, both were nervous about what was about to take place.

No one knows exactly what was said that night, but friends all agree that it was sublime and poignant for them, like chiseling their names on the armor of a deep-wooded tree. Pulling from the Kroger bag, David revealed unique emblems of their relationship. First, he drew out a Bible and said that it was the thing that would guide and sustain them no matter where they ended up. More symbols were withdrawn and explained to her, but no sources can agree on any other but the Bible. Several months later, the Bible was among the few possessions found in David’s car at the scene of their death.

After their walk, Heidi became David’s girlfriend. And soon, they granted each other their first kiss, one they awaited for three years. Still, David held back the venerable words, “I love you.”

Valentine once asked her friend, “How do you handle David not ever saying ‘I love you?’”

Heidi’s response was confident.

“He doesn’t have to say it until he’s ready to. Right now, he shows me more than he could ever say,” she explained.

Point of No Return

Summer Break of 2009 put David and Heidi on a new footing, now five months into a definable and better-folded relationship. Heidi was now his girlfriend, instead of just a great friend wanting more. Affection was still unimposing, but David wouldn’t hesitate to kiss her when a moment ripened. Friends recall that he paused once in the middle of a pickup game, tossed the basketball to a teammate and crept over to Heidi, who was studying nearby. She gazed up from her textbook, smiled and took in his kiss, like an endowment. The people who knew them best say their closeness had an unusual shine about it. Sure, they wrestled with typical inadequacies of a man and woman together, but their endearment seemed almost imaginary at times.

That summer, they both got jobs scooping ice cream at Mountain Frost Creamery in Wyndhurst. Heidi had part-timed there in high school, so she put in a good word for her boyfriend and, of course, the reference paid off. Shop owner, Tim Buzzelli, admitted he was hesitant to put a dating couple on the job, but those two carried themselves with such a keen sense of appropriateness, never overly flirtatious or distracted from tasks or customers. Fair to say, Tim explained, that no one caught on they were even a couple, unless they paid close attention. And, if someone did catch on, he continued, it was to their gain.

By the mid-solstice, David and Heidi seemed to be etching out a summer of culminations, a certain point of no return. If ever there had been a micro-doubt hid somewhere between them, a splinter that lingered and suggested they were not heart-bound or intended to write a lifelong story as one , all that went away. Certainly, this became increasingly apparent to their family and friends.

That Fourth of July, David and Heidi manned the Creamery’s ice cream truck at the fireworks display on the Boonsboro Country Club acreage. The club is an expanse of fairways, a few tennis courts and pools, with a 19^th century farmhouse as the focal point. On the outer parameter are oak-dense barrier forests and a distant, provincial river. Spaces and seasons like these feel somehow enchanted; a place that begs for memories to be made. For the young couple, it was inevitable. Moreso, for complete strangers, the night might have been a fragile conception of David and Heidi’s future, crystallized for them like a snow globe.

As more locals arrived to the fireworks event, ice cream became more popular. Kids walked parents to the truck and spoke of their wishes and so on it went. David and Heidi, were polite and efficient as usual, giving out cones with smiles, even though the workspace inside was hot and cramped. Soon, however, people lined up 30-deep from the service window, so much so that it must have been like staring down an avalanche.

Yet something magical happened. A crowd that could have gone hostile was wooed instead. Heidi rolled out her smile and charm, while David hustled to fill orders. On cue, she would spring from the window like a Jack-in-the-Box, to hand over a child’s treat with a soft tap on the nose, “There ya’ go, little guy.” Each new customer took their turn, all the while looking within the cabin to witness them bumping into each other playfully and laughing. Several times, David turned his hat’s bill sideways to parody for her and the onlookers. But, Heidi changed it back each time and pretended to roll her eyes, unimpressed. In the end, customers seemed more like fans of a pop band putting on a show down at the ice cream truck.

“People in the crowd who knew me told me how fantastic the couple out in the truck was,” Tim later called to mind. “It didn’t surprise me at all that they had made the impression they did.”

After awhile, the crowds moved on to go watch the “bombs bursting in air,” so David and Heidi eventually came to rest out on the truck bumper. Over their heads, the firelight boomed and radiated, and then fell back to earth, majestic and saline. Although exhausted, they insisted on not abandoning the truck for a better view. They both agreed that someone forlorn might still need ice cream, so they stayed.

Out of chaos, those two found a rare jubilance and were able to give it away to the strangers that came to visit them that night, almost as if it were their own kitchen and they were hosting a party for the world. Easily, that time and place would have been one they shared with others for years.

“Thank you for bringing David into my life,” Heidi’s journal later records as a prayer. “Please guide our relationship.”

Sunrise

Susan Metzler, David’s mother, said her son was never supposed to survive the trauma of his birth. Yet he fought for his life, and won. She counted every day onward as a gift from God.

Weeks before her son’s death, Susan stood on a beach house deck on Pawleys Island, South Carolina. She watched the ocean shellac over the sand, like a window washer readying a storefront. It was low tide and the white-noise was out there, but faint. The breeze was placid; just a butterfly wind that swept off the Atlantic. The sun was coming up again, but it had some trouble breaking through a far-off rim of clouds. She and Keith went to the island that week to wring out a final drip of summer before David went back to Tech for his sophomore year. A couple weeks before, Susan asked her son if he wanted to bring a friend along when they went.

“Heidi,” he answered. “I want to take Heidi with us.”

Not wanting to seem surprised, she responded, “I was thinking you’d want to take one of your guy friends.”

For David the choice seemed cut and dry, though, there was no one he’d rather share the island and his family with than Heidi. After some logistical considerations on appropriate sleeping arrangements, his parents agreed. Heidi was going.

The time that the Metzler’s went on to share with David and Heidi on the shore that week is now one they will remember for their lifetime. Susan and Heidi jogged the coastline in the mornings. Those early runs opened up doors to the vulnerable places that women only go when they trust and adore one another. For sure, this young girl was unknowingly becoming like another daughter to David’s mother. Evening plans were usually out at local restaurants and back to the seclusion of the beach house for a board game or an evening stroll. As much as anything, this time at the beach was Heidi’s ethereal bridge into David’s family.

Nevertheless, this was Susan’s final day to witness sunrise from the deck. When morning came the following day, their vehicle would be packed and heading back to Virginia. A cup of coffee warmed her palms and thoughts from the week comforted her. And yet, in that moment, she beheld a performance she would never forget. She saw Heidi and her son out in the sand, barefoot and barely awake. It quickly became clear to her that they had gotten up early to seize one last snapshot together. Not just any shot though, but one of the sun rising in front of them. This could be the perfect frame to tell about their time on the island. Heidi put her camera flat on the sand and bolted to get to David’s position. All this had to be in perfect pose and sync, before the camera timer clicked. After every attempt, they would preview the shot and then take it over. Susan giggled to herself as she looked on.

Several takes later, they settled on a shot that is postcard perfect, David and Heidi with arms pulling each other close, as a sunburst light-years away casts an eternal-looking glow. To see this picture today is both foreshadowing and magnificent: the irresistible couple that hallowed a sacred promise that Heaven is both real and forever.

Not long after, Susan would stand outside her Lynchburg home and wave goodbye to her son. His car was packed and ready for another year away at school. Even then, she regretted not making the trip with him, as she always had, but he insisted he go it alone this time. She finally subsided to stay. It was the last time she saw him alive. Today, she says that 19 years with him was her greatest gift; one she’ll cherish forever.

Saying Goodbye

Heidi once answered a question from her mother, Laura Childs, who was concerned about Heidi choosing Virginia Tech over other local colleges, because of the bizarre violence of recent times.

“What if something happens?” Laura thought.

But Heidi did not waiver.

“When it’s my time to go, God will have me exactly where I’m supposed to be,” she told her mother.

On August 31, 2009, only days after David and Heidi’s death, Laura rode away from Heritage Baptist Church and ahead to Virginia Memorial Park to bury them both. In that moment, the notion that Heidi was where God wanted her to be the night she was killed was of little comfort. She was weary. Public grief and adrenaline held her together precariously. And still, she later shared, “You eventually know how God wants you to think.” That’s when she paused and found the word from someplace within, “I know that God has a plan for all this.”

The memorial services were complete, and fresh in her mind. There, she heard others describe her daughter and David almost like people who had lived an entire lifetime, instead of one untimely seized. Those who shared, mostly their friends and spiritual leaders, seemed to all be in harmony: David and Heidi were an uncommon love story, one that inspired faith in many and offered evidence of true love to those watching.

The funeral procession seemed to go on for miles and Laura stared out her window to watch Route 221 drone on past her. Outside though, what she eventually saw along the curbs and lawn fronts is indelibly etched into her memory today. Neighbors and firemen, business owners and policemen, all lined the shallow road banks. It was an orchestra of solemn human faces. The community had stepped forward to say, “You are not alone and everyone grieves with you.” One even held a sign that read: OUR PRAYERS ARE WITH YOU.

It’s dreadful enough for a parent to ever imagine burying their child, but it is a surreal and burning anguish to actually do so. So when you cross paths with a mother or father who has carried such a burden, a special solace is birthed inside your heart. You want to take their pain away, but never want to be tested by it. As for the parents of David and Heidi, the shadows of grief will come and go throughout their days. Each of them, however, has individually expressed the serenity and purpose that continues to move over them.

Why? Because each of them believes that the impact of David and Heidi’s brief but towering lives will always outshine the tragedy of their passing.

“They’ve inspired so many,” Laura said. “And they continue to do so even today.”

Though their human story on Earth is written, their exhilaration and love for others and each other is unfading; the kind of remembrances that do not flicker or fall through the cracks. Instead, like a glittering night horizon that pulls your eyes upward to the endless canopy above, their lives remind you again how fragile, and yet unerasable your journey here can be.

David and Heidi have one of those stories.