I had the privilege of knowing Michelle and the Witmer family for the past ten years. We live in Door County and Michelle and Tim and Mark and Charity and actually, Lori and John have all come and helped us work our farm, our fishery and our store. We picked strawberries. We worked in the fish shed. We picked raspberries and cherries. We made great pies. And Michelle was a wonderful sales woman as you might imagine.  We ran together. We swam together. We talked until late in the night, many times. So my family and I got to know Michelle well.  We had long talks about life, death, what it takes to live life well, and about God.  And this kid was a great Life-Liver. We just admired that in her so much.

Now, the whole world knows Michelle.  About how courageous, loving and strong she was.  But I would like the world to know that she had the real kind of courage.  Real courage is not the absence of fear and negative feelings, but the strength of character to go on in spite of how you’re feeling. You see, you’ll never believe this, but in spite of all the beauty, talent and incredible capabilities that Michelle had, she struggled, sometimes, with feelings of inadequacy. She felt deep heartache and she had fear of failure.  She would often speak, to me, of the loveliness of Rachel, the fearlessness of Tim, the tremendous self-confidence and strength of Charity and the talent and self-discipline of Mark. But sometimes, for some reason, she did not feel in their league, sometimes she went through, what we called when were talking about it, “the dark nights of her soul.”  We discussed these feelings a lot of times. She said she didn’t know why she had to struggle with this. She said that she had a great family, great parents.  That her parents had always shown her unconditional love, forgiveness for whatever and were always there for her 100%. 

She knew and believed that God loved her but sometimes she just couldn’t feel it.  She decided it was just some type of weakness she just had to live with.  One fall evening after Michelle and I had processed the Caviar from our days catch in the Fishiery (Yes Michelle was a caviar processor, one of her many talents) we were talking and laughing after a good afternoon of hard work and fresh air.  We were discussing old movies we loved to discuss old movies.  Actually we were discussing the “King and I” one of our favorites and Michelle decided that a song from that movie could be her song.

(Mrs. Teskie Sings the following)

 Whenever I feel afraid,

 I hold my head erect,

and whistle a happy tune,

and no one would suspect: I’m afraid. 

While shivering in my shoes,

I strike a careless pose,

and whistle a happy tune,

and no one ever knows: I’m afraid. 

Courage. Real Courage, not the absence of fear or hard to cope with feelings, but the ability to keep on walking out life’s responsibilities despite how you feel.  God says he uses our weaknesses to display his strength in us.  Michelle walked in his strength. She fought hard to stay up.  She walked in courage long before she joined the National Guard.  It was her way of life.  It carried her through Minnesota, Waukesha, New Berlin, Door County and Baghdad where Michelle fought for our freedom from tyranny, oppression and fear so that we and other could live our lives in liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

I want to be like Michelle Lord.  Please give me, and all of us the courage we need to keep on going now through this, “the dark night of our souls” and help us to celebrate a life so well lived.