When Todd finished his message, he announced to the congregation that they were going to end the funeral a little differently. Instead of allowing the congregation to file by the caskets and exit first, he asked the people to remain seated while the family said their goodbyes. Normally, the congregation is dismissed first so that the family can have some privacy in their final moments with their loved ones. But it would have been too hard to sit there while hundreds of people filed by. Some would have wanted to stop and talk, and I was in no condition to talk to anybody. Besides, I didn’t need privacy when I walked by those caskets. I was so overwhelmed by the sight that I was unaware there was anybody else in the building.
With Larry and Virginia supporting me, I stopped by Tyler’s casket first, then Penny’s, then Matthew’s. I ached to see them one last time, to touch them, to tell them I loved them. But Charlie Wilkinson and Charles Waid had taken away that possibility when they set fire to the house. So instead, I stood at each casket and wept until I felt as if I had no tears left. My heart felt as if it would burst. When I left Matthew’s casket, the wheelchair awaited me at the auditorium door. This time I sat in it willingly.
As they wheeled me out of the church and toward the car, I saw Detective Almon from the Rains County Sheriff’s Department approaching. Mary intercepted him.
“I need to talk to Terry,” he said.
She cut him off. “Now isn’t the time for questions. He hasn’t even buried his family yet,” she said, exasperated.
“Tell Terry that I need to talk to him,” he said.
When I called him back some time later, he said, “It’s too late now. The judge has issued a gag order, and we can’t discuss the case.”
I never did find out what he wanted that day.
VISITATION
We buried Penny and the boys in donated plots at the White Rose Cemetery in Wills Point, Texas, about a twenty-minute drive from the church. Todd kept the private graveside service brief, just some Scripture reading and prayer. As I looked at their caskets, ready to be lowered into the ground, I didn’t see how I was ever going to live without them.
We returned to the church as soon as the graveside service was over. Todd had invited everybody to come back at four o’clock for a time of visitation. I desperately wanted to skip it, to go back to Larry and Virginia’s house and hide. I didn’t know how I would get through those next two hours.
“You don’t have to go, Terry,” Virginia said. “Everybody will understand.”
I knew that was true, but I shook my head. “I need to go. All of these people came out to say good-bye to my family. I want to thank them.”
About three hundred people attended the funeral, and at least a hundred of them came back for the visitation time. I pasted on a smile and tried to meet and greet as best as I could. It was difficult, but I was glad I went. I saw people that I hadn’t seen in nearly twenty years. Even people from a church in Garland where Penny and I attended had remembered and cared. That overwhelmed me.
One lady, Nelda Walls, had been a coworker of mine many years earlier. Penny and I were very close to her and her husband, Stanley. They were elderly now, and Stanley’s health was failing. It touched me deeply that Nelda would take the time to make the drive by herself and be with me. Two months after the funeral, I went to spend the night with them at their home in Merit, Texas. They had set up a hospital bed for Stanley in their living room, and I sat by his bedside as he lay dying. We stayed up all night reminiscing about the old days with my family and his.
Many who came to the visitation shared stories about Penny or one of the boys. I appreciated the stories, but I found it difficult to listen to them. Every story was another painful reminder of what I had lost.
When the visitation time was finally over, we returned to Larry and Virginia’s house, and I decided to spend a few days with them before I went back to Mary’s. The next day was Sunday, but I had no plans to go to church.
Back in my room, I took a lot of medication. Double and triple doses. Then I went to bed, hoping I wouldn’t wake up the next morning.
Chapter 12
Job
Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept
adversity? —JOB 2:I0
“I WANT TO GO back to the property.”
Larry and Virginia were concerned. “Are you sure it won’t be too hard on you?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I want to go back anyway.”
I could tell from their expressions that they didn’t think it was a good idea. It was Monday morning, only two days after the funeral and just over two weeks since the murders. Maybe it wasn’t a good idea. Maybe it was too soon. I just knew I needed to go back there and see the place for myself. I wasn’t even sure why.
Tommy Gaston agreed to take me. Four of us piled into Tommy’s pickup truck that cool, overcast Monday morning. My former pastor, Wayne Wolf, and his son Justin joined Tommy and me. Were they there to provide moral support, or maybe to help carry me back to the truck if I was overcome by grief? I didn’t know, but I was glad they had come.
My stomach churned as we turned up Rains County Road 2370. As desperately as I had wanted to go back and see where everything had happened, I was also horribly afraid. When Tommy pulled into the driveway, the sight of my burned-out house took my breath away. Some of the debris had already been removed, but remnants of heat scorched sheet metal still lay scattered around. Some of the house’s subfloor remained. Ground zero—the area immediately underneath and around the house—was charred and black.
I climbed out of the truck and walked onto the blackened piece of earth where my house had stood only a few weeks ago. I dropped to my knees and began clawing through the ashes and mud.
“Nothing’s left,” Tommy called after me. “We’ve already looked.”
But I had to look anyway. I had to see for myself.
Maybe I could salvage something from the rubble. It seemed as if Penny and Matthew and Tyler had been wiped from existence. I had nothing left to remember them by. No pictures or videos. None of their belongings. I was desperate to find something—anything—that would help me remember them.
I only had one good hand to dig with, but I dug through the rubble as if I were prospecting for gold. The black soot and ash felt cool to the touch. Finally, I felt something flat and metallic under my fingers. I kept digging until I pulled a skillet from the scorched earth. I clutched it to my chest and began to weep.
Penny held this in her hands.
I knelt there a long time, holding that skillet and crying. Finally I set it aside, but only so I could start digging again. My hands were black, and my knees ached, but I kept clawing through the mud and rubble, looking for anything tangible that might connect me with my wife and sons.
I found a Hot Wheels car that had belonged to Tyler, a partially burned picture of Erin and Matthew, a horseshoe belt buckle from a belt the kids had bought me for Christmas just a few months earlier. I held each item I found and cried, thinking of the person it was connected to. Everything I found was damaged in some way, but I kept and treasured all of it.
After a while, Tommy and Wayne told me that we needed to be going. I didn’t argue. I had pretty well exhausted my energy reserves. I kept my treasures with me as I walked back to Tommy’s truck.
READING JOB
When I got back to Mary’s, I returned to my nightly routine: building barricades and keeping watch until dawn. The Discovery Channel continued to keep me awake and masked any outside noises. In the daytime, I still double-dosed my medication and slept. One day I slept seventeen hours straight.
One night as I sat there keeping watch, Roger Pippin’s words came back to my mind: You ought to read Job. You have a lot in common with him.
That was what Roger had said when he brought me a Bible in the hospital. I hadn’t appreciated his suggestion. I had read the book of Job many times before, and I couldn’t see how reading it now would make any difference.
I w
as so confused at that point that I didn’t know what to do or believe. As I saw it, I hadn’t turned away from God; He had turned away from me. Where was He when Charlie Wilkinson and Charles Waid broke into my house and killed my wife and sons? Why didn’t He stop them? Why had He allowed them to destroy everything I had? Why had He allowed Penny, Matthew, and Tyler to suffer such terrible deaths?
I didn’t believe the Bible had any answers for me. Or at least I didn’t want the answers I might find there. Nevertheless, when I moved in with Mary and her family, I brought Roger’s Bible with me. It sat at the end of the couch at the top of a cardboard box that contained all my worldly possessions.
Night after night as I sat with the door barricaded and The Discovery Channel providing background noise, Roger’s words began to nag at me. I tried to ignore the idea, but I couldn’t get it out of my head. Finally, I picked up the Bible and opened it to Job.
This time, that book grabbed me as it never had before. In rapid-fire, almost machine-gun fashion, Job loses all of his wealth. One breathless, disheveled servant after another rushes into his home to deliver bad news. The Bible doesn’t record Job’s response to any of the earlier reports. Then, in what must have been the most crushing blow of all, a servant bursts in and tells Job that all of his children have died in a tragic accident.
At that point Job rises, tears his clothes, and says, “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).
That statement startled me. How could Job praise God after losing everything?
I continued reading as Job loses his health and yet maintains his integrity and commitment to God. When his wife tells him to curse God and die, he responds, “Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?” (Job 2:10).
Job almost seemed too spiritual for his own good. I wasn’t sure I could identify with this man after all. In my opinion, to affirm God’s goodness and sovereignty after facing such loss was superhuman.
And then I read chapter 3: “Afterward Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. . . . ‘Why did I not die at birth, come forth from the womb and expire? . . . For now I would have lain down and been quiet; I would have slept then, I would have been at rest’” (Job 3:1, 11, 13). A lump formed in my throat as I read Job’s words. He was expressing the very pain that I felt.
Job’s suffering finally gets the better of him. But he doesn’t curse God; he curses the day he was born. He wishes he had died at birth because then he wouldn’t be experiencing such terrible pain and sadness. As I read that chapter, I identified with Job in a way I never had before. Many times since the murders I had thought how sweet it would be not to exist, not to have to suffer such incredible grief. That’s why I was considering suicide. It seemed the only sure way to end my pain and suffering.
I continued reading. Sometimes I had to brush tears from my eyes. Other times, I just had to stop reading and weep. I read Job as if I were reading it for the first time. More than that, with every page I felt as if I were living Job’s story with him. Sitting on that couch in that dark and drafty house, I wept with Job. I hurt for him as I hurt for myself.
When Job’s three friends show up to comfort him—and instead accuse him—I felt the sting of their reproach. Nobody had accused me of wrongdoing, but I had accused myself plenty: Were Penny and I somehow responsible for what had happened? Were we bad parents? Had we been too strict? Had we provoked the attack? Was this God’s way of punishing us?
As Job continues his discussion with his friends, his protestations of innocence grow stronger. At one point he expresses his desire to present his case to God face-to-face: “Remove Your hand from me, and let not the dread of You terrify me. Then call, and I will answer; or let me speak, then reply to me. How many are my iniquities and sins? Make known to me my rebellion and my sin” (Job 13:21-23).
At another point Job practically demands that God give him an audience. Job hasn’t lost his faith, but he clearly wants to understand what is going on. Near the end of the book he cries out, “Oh, that I had one to hear me! Here is my mark. Oh, that the Almighty would answer me, that my Prosecutor had written a book!” (Job 31:35, NKJV).
That was exactly how I felt.
I wanted to understand why God had allowed such awful things to happen to Penny and the boys. I wanted to know what purpose such evil could serve. How could any good possibly come from it? I wanted God to explain Himself.
I read on.
God does grant Job a hearing, but the meeting doesn’t go quite the way Job had planned. Instead of answering Job’s questions and explaining why he was suffering, God confronts him with a series of impossible-to-answer questions. God asks if Job understands how the earth was created: “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell Me, if you have understanding, who set its measurements? Since you know. Or who stretched the line on it? On what were its bases sunk? Or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:4-7).
Further, God asks if Job has the power to control the universe: “Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion? Can you lead forth a constellation in its season, and guide the Bear with her satellites?” (Job 38:31-32).
God asks if Job has the power and understanding to give birds flight: “Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars, stretching his wings toward the south? Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high?” (Job 39:26-27).
The questions go on and on. And all Job can do is stand there, dumbfounded.
As I read God’s cross-examination of Job, I realized that He didn’t expect an answer. To answer yes to even one of those questions, Job would have to have been God. And that was exactly what God was getting at. By demanding that God explain His actions, Job was setting himself up as a judge over God, and God responded by showing Job His power, greatness, and sovereignty.
The message was clear: Job needed to trust God even when he couldn’t understand what was happening.
After God’s cross-examination, Job realizes that he has been out of line: “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. . . . I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You; therefore I retract, and I repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:2, 5-6). Job comes to the point where he acknowledges God’s sovereignty, even in his suffering.
I wasn’t at that point yet. I didn’t know if I’d ever get there.
At the end of the book, God restores Job’s health and prosperity and even gives him a new family. The thought of such blessings was the furthest thing from my mind. Right then, I’d have been happy just to be able to sleep at night. Nevertheless, as I read Job, I began to realize that God might somehow have a purpose in what had happened to my family and me. I didn’t know what it was. But if Job kept going, maybe I could too.
From that point on, I put away any thoughts of suicide.
JUST LET ME DIE
Reading Job was a breakthrough, but I was a long way from “normal.” I no longer wanted to kill myself, but I still wanted to die. Whenever I went to bed, I’d pray, “Please, Lord, don’t let me wake up.” Then I would go to sleep, hoping that when I did wake up, I would be in God’s presence. I imagined Penny and the boys rushing out to greet me and my grief vanishing in a flood of joy. Instead, I’d wake up still hurting, still buried under a mountain of grief, still wondering why God had allowed all this to happen.
I figured that I would go on wondering. God never explained Himself to Job. If God didn’t give Job an explanation, why would I think He’d give me one?
Quite a few people had quoted Romans 8:28 to me in the weeks since the murders. I had heard, “God works all things together for good for those who love Him,” more times than I could count. But if that was true, I wanted to know the why and how of it. I wanted to know why God felt it necessary to t
ake my family from me. And I wanted to know why He’d made me go on living.
But God wasn’t talking.
COUNSELING
I knew I had to talk to someone. So when Bryan, my boss at Praxair, suggested I get into counseling, I didn’t argue. I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of sharing my thoughts and feelings with a total stranger, but I knew that if I didn’t get help soon, I’d either change my mind and go through with my suicide plans, or I’d go off the deep end and wind up hospitalized. I figured that I didn’t have anything to lose by seeing a counselor.
Although I hadn’t yet returned to wrok at Praxair, Bryan kindly set up an appointment with a counselor named Steve. Steve’s office was in Greenville, so it was convenient and easy to find. Mary took me to my first appointment because I didn’t have a car and my doctor hadn’t yet cleared me to drive after my surgery.
Steve looked nothing like what I had expected. He was in his mid-to-late fifties, had a full beard, and wore boots and blue jeans. He was definitely my kind of guy. Steve told me that he was a Vietnam vet. He’d been wounded there and had nearly lost his life. I knew from then on that I could talk to him, because he had seen more than his share of pain and death. He had experienced horrific things and had managed to recover. If anybody could understand the horror I had lived through, I believed Steve could.
He began by assuring me that whatever was discussed in that room would remain in that room. Nothing I said would come back to haunt me. Then Steve encouraged me to start talking. Whatever fear I had felt at the prospect of counseling melted away in the calm, reassuring atmosphere of Steve’s office, and I began to tell him what happened that unspeakable night.
As I talked, it all started to pour out. All the anger I felt at Charlie Wilkinson and Charles Waid came gushing out of me like water from a fire hose. The pain came out too. I wept as I told him about losing my precious family and how much it hurt to think about what had happened to them. I shared my confusion about the possibility of Erin’s involvement and about how helpless I felt.
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