As they settled into parenthood and considered the future during the summer of 1979, Bill took a call from an old friend.
“Hey, Bill. You finished your doctorate. Well, I’m up at Vassar and we just had a position on the faculty unexpectedly open up. It’s not in your field at all. But I can allow you to have it, if you want to cram over the summer and be prepared.”
“Sure,” Bill said. He understood he didn’t need to know everything about the subject. “Just on any given day, I need to know more than the students.” Bill likened it to being chased by a bear: You didn’t have to be an Olympic sprinter to outrun the bear; you just had to run faster.
As he taught, the job became unfulfilling. Bill didn’t feel he was doing what he was meant to do. Or what he had envisioned for himself at that stage of life. The gig was bankrupting him spiritually, which he knew would affect his overall demeanor and attitude in the long term. How many people clock in and out of life every day not satisfying their wants or dreams, their needs? Bill and Mary were not those people.
Another job fair came through the area.
Bill met three men from Furman University, in Greenville, South Carolina. They talked. Hit it off.
“We’d like you to come down and visit us, Bill. Can you do that?”
Bill was taken right away by how well he and the Furman people got along. It felt right. Like he was going with the grain this time. After heading South for a visit, the “country club atmosphere” of the place struck Bill immediately. “It was even on a golf course.”
They offered Bill the job. Back home, he approached Mary and asked her what she thought.
“We both hooted and hollered, and jumped up and down together.”
They bought a little farmhouse in the country close to home, and then moved South so Bill could start teaching.
For three years, Bill fed his soul and earned great money. Mary had Tamaryn in 1980.
Life was good.
The next summer, Bill had a conversation with another old friend.
“Chiropractic school,” the friend mentioned. “I’m going now.”
Bill was intrigued.
They talked about how the field was heading in a more mainstream direction within the medical field. Even the mystical aspects of it were being more clearly understood and accepted. Bill and Mary had conversations about it. A chiropractic practice was a field offering the opportunity for Bill to put his core beliefs and passions together with a vocation.
Becoming a chiropractor felt like a natural fit to how the Yoders lived their lives. In some respects, the goal of the chiropractor was to relieve a person of pain. Take away a bothersome backache, achy hip or joint, and restore some modicum of comfort. For Bill, it seemed to be the ideal balance: mind, body, spirit. These were the three most driving forces of his and Mary’s lives.
By then, Bill was in his midthirties. He needed to make a move toward a career. As he thought about chiropractic work, he opened the newspaper and turned to the “Dear Abby” section, which he habitually read every morning. The question of the day was based on the notion that the writer was thirty-five and had “always wanted to attend medical school,” but it would take eight years to complete. The writer worried about being forty-three years old after completing his medical degree. This was a growing concern on Bill’s mind as well.
In her response, Abby had solid, practical advice: How old will you be in eight years if you don’t attend medical school?
“The idea I took away from that answer was that you’d be a lot older if you were not doing what you loved in life.”
That was all Bill needed to hear.
“Mary?”
“Yes, Bill?”
He explained.
After considering her husband’s ideas, Mary decided she wanted to study chiropractic medicine, too.
“I’m totally on board.”
Bill finished a year before Mary because he’d had more science classes under his belt. So he taught at the South Carolina college while Mary completed her studies. The school even worked it out so their schedules would not overlap. One or the other could always be home with the children. With degrees, they went back home and set up shop in Utica.
“We lived on student loans.”
What interested Bill about settling in Utica was that he’d not grown up in an extended, close-knit family.
“I was rumored to have one cousin back East.”
He wanted to give his children that traditional family life. The large and loving gatherings. Cousins and uncles and aunts. Holiday get-togethers. Sunday dinners. Grandchildren and birthday parties and BBQs.
As they wrote a business plan, Bill and Mary noticed that all of the chiropractic centers in town were clustered in one specific area of Utica. With that information, they placed a pin on a map of the town and chose a location away from the other businesses. As luck (or the universe) would have it, exactly where they’d placed the pin was an office building available for rent. The owner was willing to build it up to Mary and Bill’s specs.
After they opened their practice, philosophy became a major part of what Bill and Mary wanted to pass on to their patients. Bill clarified that chiropractor work did not involve taking patients’ pain away. That was a contradiction within the popular conception of the field, a way for most to look at how the practice works.
“It’s about wellness,” Bill insisted. “It’s not about fixing something. It’s about opening the channels of the body to allow life to extend outward into the body so the body can heal itself. Mary and I believed the wisdom of the body knew how to fix itself.”
Over the years, Bill said, “we witnessed what I can only describe as miracles. We didn’t take credit for any of it. All we did was remove the blockage. It was all tremendously satisfying.”
They shared a dream, Bill concluded.
“We did it together. The two of us and our children.”
19
BILL YODER DUG DEEP for a bit of strength, pulled himself together as best he could, and drove home from the hospital early on the evening of July 22, 2015.
The entire day had been somewhat of a tragic blur; yet, at the same time, it was so perfectly clear. It was as if someone else had experienced it all and Bill watched from afar.
Bill and Mary were healers who had spent their professional lives helping patients overcome chronic pain. That dedication to wellness, Bill contended, started on the inside. Bill claimed on his website, echoed in the book’s author bio, that he’d “studied Eastern and Western philosophy and religion for over forty years.” He’d also written a doctoral dissertation on comparative mysticism. Bill had taught philosophy courses for ten years at three different universities.
As time passed, he “left the academic world to pursue a career in holistic healing.” He had also “given presentations and taught workshops in both private and corporate sectors on the topics of health and healing, human potential, self-actualization and spirituality.”
Bill and Mary Yoder were intelligent, highly educated people who cared deeply about the world, how people moved within it, and dealt with the emotional and physical pain they experienced. Mary wanted nothing more than to give her patients a fighting chance at the best life they could create for themselves. She preached herbal remedies and suggested organic foods and the healing properties of herbs and holistic medicines.
Mary and Bill encouraged not only their patients but those they knew, and family, to live the lives they dreamed of having. Don’t think of the dream as a dream—but rather as a place you will land someday. A major contributor to ultimate happiness began with family: “We’ve welcomed seven fantastic grandchildren who are marvelous teachers in their own right (and a boatload of fun).”
All of that seemed to disappear in one afternoon. Bill’s best friend, the mother of his children, and his business partner was gone two days after entering the ER with a supposed stomach bug. In those hours after Mary passed, Bill was overwhelmed as he sat in bed, staring
at the ceiling, uncontrollably crying.
His wife of decades was suddenly gone. Her belongings were still where she’d left them: a sweater, gardening gloves, tools, watering pot, and her favorite mug. Bill could still smell his wife in their bedroom. He could see the smile on Mary’s face whenever she walked through the door. Somehow, inside of forty-eight hours, the healthiest person Bill Yoder had even known had left without warning.
The pain, Bill added, “was so bad . . . I have absolutely no memory of the other six hours or so there [at home that night].”
Beyond family, once it became clear Mary was not going to make it, the one person who had gone to the hospital was Katie Conley. Bill recalled seeing Katie on his way out of the hospital. He knew she had not been part of Adam’s life romantically for nearly a year, but Katie still worked for the Yoders. Showing up to support the family showed Katie’s concern and compassion. Whatever had happened between Katie and Adam was their business, Bill felt. The immense void they’d all experienced in losing Mary wasn’t about that. Having Katie’s support was incredibly important.
“I think [Katie] may have come into the hospital,” Bill said later, referring to the hectic afternoon when Mary coded eight times. “I think at the very end of the day, I might have seen her briefly.”
Katie and Adam had been in touch all that day. Katie had responded to Adam’s texts early in the day and drove straight to the hospital.
“She’s important to me, too, you know,” Katie had texted that morning when Adam reached out and sounded emotionally lost, and in a terrible state of mourning.
“How you holding up, Kate?” Katie’s sister asked in a text after hearing Mary had passed.
“It’s really, really hard,” Katie responded. “I’ve been crying literally all day. Thanks for calling.”
Katie’s sister was empathetic, explaining how she would tell everyone on their side. Katie shouldn’t have to “go through it, over and over,” and make those calls.
Katie’s sister let her know she was just a call away if Katie needed to “vent or just cry.” She would always be there. “I cannot pretend to know what you are going through . . .”
“[Mary] was so really great,” Katie texted back.
* * *
THE LOAN KATIE HAD extended to Adam, which they had been texting about into early July, a few weeks before Mary’s death, was Katie’s way of keeping Adam within her grasp. This became obvious as Adam and Katie continued to text.
Katie dangled the money in order to wield control over communicating with her former boyfriend. The money gave Katie a reason to call and text Adam, after he had made it clear he wanted nothing to do with her.
Conversely, Katie had been a vital part of Mary and Bill Yoder’s lives, along with Adam’s extended family. She had been with Adam and his sister Liana when two of Liana’s children were born. She’d taken care of Liana’s children while Liana was in the hospital. She visited Long Island frequently after the children came. For Katie to offer Adam a loan when he obviously needed it was a kind and generous gesture two people in love did for each other.
After they met for teatime on July 8, 2015, Katie texted Adam, stating once again how nice it was to see him.
“I know life is hard and I don’t know the best way to work through it,” she said. “Guess we’re just supposed to experiment and see what works.”
Katie waited a minute.
No response from Adam.
So she texted how “important” he was to her: “You always have been and I imagine always will be.”
Adam responded fifteen minutes later. He explained the struggle he was experiencing managing his life, adding, “You’re important to me, too, Katie.”
He then sent Katie a link to a song by Vanic x Aquilo, “Losing You.” The lyrics depict a man wrestling with the idea of letting go as he stares back at “what we were.” There’s a dark finality to the song, with its slow tempo and deliberate, pulsating-drone rhythm.
Adam called the song “saddening,” if “somewhat healing at the same time.”
Within this same text exchange, Katie and Adam called a truce. Perhaps they realized life was better—with far less anxiety—when they acted out of empathy instead of scorn. Their texts during this time frame leave an impression of two people trying to work on remaining friends while understanding the romance was dead. The tone for the remainder of that day suggested they were miserable knowing the relationship had run its course, and they couldn’t do anything to rekindle it.
“We must’ve been pretty entwined for [the relationship] to feel like this still,” Katie texted.
“I’ll text you tomorrow after the dentist,” Adam said, leaving the door open for further communication.
The intensity of Adam and Katie’s relationship spoke to how codependent they were on each other’s affection, participation, and reaction to what the other said and did. Adam was a guy unafraid of expressing his deepest emotions and feelings for Katie. A part of him needed to save Katie. Rescue her.
During one breakup early into dating, in a letter, Adam asked Katie if she knew “how much” he loved her, before explaining how all he could do when she was not around was “stare” at pictures of them together. He wondered if she felt the same, adding, “I’d rather be dead than live without you.” In his notebook, describing his most earnest feelings about the relationship, Adam wrote “kill myself to death” on a page, before admitting a desire to “OD” on Katie. Then he drew a heart monitor chart with the spikes and dips that a needle on paper makes as it records a beating heart.
On the next page, still in the midst of dealing with the dissolution of the relationship, Adam spoke of how he had recently started “breaking down.” “Love” was nowhere “to be found.” He was clearly lost without hearing from Katie, “starin’ at the phone . . . wishing, hoping, praying” she would call or text.
According to Adam, he and Katie were together two years before their first serious breakup. Katie had said she was “unhappy” in the relationship “for a long time . . . [and] told me . . . many times.”
So they agreed to end it.
Those who knew Katie claimed she was a “loving sister, aunt, daughter, cousin, niece, and friend . . .” One of seven daughters, Katie was part of what friends labeled a “devoted family.” Her father had been an army major. Those closest to Katie believed the time her father spent in the military instilled “certain values and morals” in Katie as she grew. Her most admirable trait was “loving others,” claimed one friend.
Katie’s passion was tennis, which she excelled in, having played competitively in high school and later in college. At Sauquoit High School, records indicate Katie finished in the top 10 percent of her class. Several former classmates remembered her only by a nickname: “Crazy Katie.” There were stories of her keying an ex-boyfriend’s car after a breakup and acting bizarrely when she didn’t get her way.
She earned an associate degree in liberal arts from Mohawk Valley Community College. Later, Katie enrolled in Utica College and State of New York Polytechnic Institute, receiving a bachelor’s in business, with what has been said is a perfect 4.0 final semester grade point average. So tenacious and studious, in fact, Katie earned honor society status in high school and college.
This was the one area where Katie and Adam diverged: Although highly intelligent, Adam struggled academically—or, rather, he lacked the discipline, structure, and hours required for study, which seemed effortless for Katie.
One of their biggest challenges as a couple occurred in October and November 2013—and threw Adam into a spiral of negative emotion, depression, and anger. Perhaps this incident reconfirmed for him in 2015 why he wasn’t with her anymore. At the time, Adam was seeing someone. He’d texted Katie, saying, “I can’t remember what it was like being happy with you and I have finally moved on.”
Katie suggested that “living alone” had made Adam unhappy, not the demise of their relationship.
On October 30, 201
3, Adam had called Katie. “Moving out today,” he said. “You can come see the cats tonight and say good-bye if you’d like.”
She responded by saying she might.
He never saw her.
The next morning, while staying over his new girlfriend’s house, Adam woke up and looked at his cell phone. A call had come in after midnight. Adam had been asleep.
Katie?
She hadn’t been phoning. She’d texted occasionally. Mostly, however, she gave the impression she was leaving Adam alone. Yet, at five o’clock in the morning, as Adam stared at the screen, something felt urgent about this call.
“I was like, ‘Is she okay?’ Believe it or not, I am a decent person. I was trying to maintain some sort of respect for her, hard as it was.”
Adam checked on his new girlfriend, who was still asleep. Then he stepped outside for privacy so he could call Katie.
No answer.
The day went by and Adam had not heard from her. Just as well. He was finished. In a good place. Not great, but he was getting over Katie, moving on with his life. Katie still worked for Mary and Bill. She was a reliable employee, as far as anyone could tell. No complaints from patients. Everyone seemed to like her. Bill and Mary did not have a problem with Katie’s work ethic or ability to do her job.
Later that night, Adam’s cell phone buzzed.
“I get this long, detailed text from her,” he recalled.
In that text, Katie explained how she’d driven herself to the hospital the previous night—that was the reason for the late-night call.
“According to Katie in that text, I had gotten her pregnant. I could have had a baby. It was a weird moment for me. Oh, my god, I could have gotten someone pregnant and had a child. I had never really thought about that before.”
Adam texted back, saying he was rushing to come see her. Being at his girlfriend’s house, he told Katie to meet him where he rented a room, which was a two-minute drive from Katie’s.
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