It wasn’t anything fancy. Just the kind of Bible you could find at any Wal-Mart or Dollar Store. Black imitation-leather cover with gold leaf on the edges of the pages. The words Holy Bible in gold on the front.
I turned it over in my hands. The truth was, I had no desire to read it. In fact, I hadn’t prayed since the attack on my house. Why should I? God had let me down.
I had committed myself and my family to serving Him. I had taught my children well and brought them up to follow Him. I had kept my family in church. I had done everything I knew to do. But then God allowed all this to happen.
God didn’t just take my family; He took them in the most brutal of ways. He allowed the killers to burn my house down and destroy everything I owned. On top of that, He allowed my daughter to be arrested and charged with complicity in the murders. I felt as if God had forsaken me. Why would I want to read His word? Would it somehow make sense of all this? I didn’t think so.
Of course, I didn’t want to dump all that on Roger. He had come out of kindness and concern for me, and the gift he had brought was from the heart. So I thanked him when I set the Bible down on my bedside table.
“I appreciate that, Roger. Thanks.”
“You know, maybe you ought to read the book of Job. You have a lot in common with him.”
I nodded and smiled, but inwardly I bristled. I’d read the book of Job many times. And Job and I definitely had a lot in common. Both of us had lost our possessions, our families, and our health. But I didn’t want suggestions for a Bible-reading program right then. I wanted to stay in a drug-induced fog and not have to think about everything that had happened.
After Roger left, my mind wandered. I thought of my dad’s funeral the week before and about how Matthew and I had played a harmonica duet. I wondered if his harmonicas had survived the fire.
MATTHEW
We had called him Bubba as far back as I could remember, but Matthew desperately wanted us to stop. He was thirteen and thought his nickname sounded too childish. So when he went back to public school, he made sure all the teachers called him Matthew. At church it was more difficult. Most of the people there had been calling him Bubba most of his life. So they’d slip now and then and have to catch themselves and apologize.
“Sorry, Bubba—I mean—Matthew.”
Even Penny and I occasionally forgot and called him Bubba in public. Matthew would roll his eyes and sigh. We’d apologize and promise to try harder, but it wasn’t easy. In any case, he was always Bubba at home.
The nickname fit. Matthew was definitely a “bubba,” a big, soft-spoken, gentle bear of a boy. Although he had always been big, in the past year he had really shot up. But despite his football-player size, Matthew wouldn’t hurt a fly. He had an amazingly tender heart.
When he was eight years old, we went to a Christmas program at a friend’s church. Matthew wanted to have a better view, so he sat by himself, several pews ahead of us. During the service, the pastor explained that they were taking an offering for a family whose house had recently burned down.
Matthew had worked hard for months, saving money to buy Christmas presents for all of us. He’d saved up about forty dollars. As the offering plate came around, we saw him take out his wallet and put some money in. I turned to Penny and said, “It looks like he put in all of it.”
After the service was over, I talked to him about it.
“Did you put all your money in the offering plate?”
He looked up at me and nodded. “Yes.”
“You didn’t have to put all your money in. Why did you do that?”
He shrugged. “I thought they needed it more than we did.”
Even at eight, that’s the kind of person he was.
Over the last few months of his life, Matthew had kept a journal as an assignment for school. It was the perfect thing for him. He was shy and didn’t talk a lot, so his journal opened a window into his mind and heart.
Because Matthew kept the journal at school, it wasn’t lost in the fire. His teacher gave the little notebook to our pastor, Todd McGahee, to pass on to me. As I read his entries, I saw again and again the kind of boy Matthew had been turning out to be:
SEPTEMBER 19, 2007
I would like to forget the time my brother’s dog died. We have [sic] only had him for a month, then, he mystieriosly [sic] passed. My brother was so grieved about his death that I wish I could have been the one to find our dead dog. Me and my dad disposed of his body, so my brother could take time to recover over his loss. It’s been over a month since he’s been gone, and I think my brother will be all right. The dog wasn’t our only dog so it’s not like he doesn’t have a dog now.
Another entry reveals how important music was in Matthew’s life:
NOVEMBER 13, 2007
Something I would never sell would be my old acustic [sic] guitar. My guitar has always been there for me and has never let me down. It was given to me by my former pastor and that is the most important reason why I will never sell it for any amount of money. I would hate to see it go and would miss it dearly.
Matthew was a natural musician. He taught himself how to play the guitar and sat on the platform at church, playing every Sunday. Penny was teaching him piano, and he was a quick student. But he was best known for his harmonica playing.
We had bought him a harmonica when he was about ten years old. I play a little, so I showed him a few things. But Matthew picked it up quickly and took it far beyond anything I had taught him.
Just before Matthew’s last Christmas on earth, he wrote this:
DECEMBER 14, 2007
To me the meaning of Christmas is to celebrate the birth of my Savior Jesus Christ. Every year my family and I get caught up in the buying and the giving of presents, but every 25 of December we forget about the presents and we thank God for sending His Son for our eternal life. The meaning of Christmas would not be fulfilled without my family and most important Jesus Christ.
Matthew cared about others and knew how to empathize with them, as he shared in this entry:
JANUARY 10, 2008
To me the Native American proverb “Never criticize a man until you’ve walked a mile in his moccasins” means don’t judge somebody by the way that they may appear. One example of that is, a friend of mine may seem different, but if anyone were to see his life they might think differently about this person.
Matthew also loved the outdoors. Some of his greatest joys were riding our Kawasaki Mule around our property or shooting tin cans off the fence posts with his BB gun.
OCTOBER 18, 2007
My favorite thing to do is go fishing on a cool morning just watchin’ the Sun come over the horizon. I love to fish because it dose [sic] not have much to it. I would usaly [sic] go to a nearby lake or just fish out of my own pond. We usaly [sic] go as a family to a lake or up in the Arkansas mountains. I love to spit sunflower seeds while waiting for a fish to take a bite.
Like his mother, Matthew had a tender heart and always seemed to think more about others than he did about himself.
FEBRUARY 19, 2008
I occasionaly [sic] commit an act of kindness, for example, I found a five dollar bill fall [sic] out of the pocket of someone and I could have taken it and they would not have known. I did the right thing and handed it to the person and to my surprise he handed it back to me. He said for doing the right thing I was rewarded.
Less than a month before he died, Matthew made it clear that he was a follower of Jesus Christ. I drew deep comfort from knowing that Matthew was certain of his relationship with the Lord.
FEBRUARY 7, 2007
In my life there was an event that changed my life for the good and every day I’m glad that I chose to do that. That was the day that I gave my heart to the Lord. I was 7 years old when I took this very important step and I can remember the date and what day of the week it was. More importantly I can remember how it felt to change my life. Without me done [sic] that I don’t know what my life could have turned o
ut to be. I thank God for my parents and most important, the Lord.
As I lay in my hospital bed and thought about Matthew and his kind and caring spirit, I couldn’t understand how a good and loving God could allow my sweet, sensitive bear of a son to die such a horrible death. It wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t.
HOMELESS
I guess the best way to describe me during my hospitalization is emotionally numb. I simply couldn’t cope with the shock of losing Penny and the boys, having my house burned to the ground, and hearing of Erin’s arrest. So I pushed all those horrific truths to the back of my mind. I didn’t want to think about what was going to happen in the future. But even in the cocoon of my hospital room, the awful reality found me.
Wednesday of that week, I experienced the first moment of pleasure I’d had since the murders. I felt stubble on my cheek and realized that I hadn’t shaved since the previous Friday. I asked Mary to buy me a razor and some shaving cream. When she returned, I got up and washed my face and shaved. I didn’t know it was possible for something so simple to feel so good. But that was also the first time I had looked in a mirror since I’d been shot.
My eyes were puffy and black, and my right cheek had turned a dark purple. The right side of my face was scarred, and the stitches stood out like stubby whiskers. I had to be careful as I shaved not to damage them or reopen the incision. But the warm water and soap on my face made me feel as if I’d gone to an expensive spa.
The good feeling I got from shaving and cleaning up was probably the highlight of that week in the hospital. I spent the rest of the time trying not to think about what had happened—or what was going to happen.
Reality finally hit on Friday, March 7, when a nurse came into my room and said, “Mr. Caffey, we’ve done all we can for you here. We’re going to send you home.”
The word home smashed into me like an 18-wheeler. I didn’t have anywhere to go.
I dissolved into tears and began weeping uncontrollably.
Chapter 9
Homeless
My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
Far from my deliverance are the words of my groaning.
O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer;
And by night, but I have no rest. —PSALM 22:I-2
“ARE YOU SURE I’m ready to leave?” I asked the nurse.
I was still crying, but I’d calmed down enough to talk.
Even though I had known the hospital would eventually release me, I’d never talked with anyone—not even family members—about what I would do after I got out. I had just tried to make it through one day at a time. I hadn’t even allowed myself to think about life outside the hospital. So when the time to be released came, the idea caught me totally off guard.
“Yes, you’re ready,” the nurse said. “We’ve done all we can do here. You can finish healing at home.”
“I don’t have a home,” I said. “My home was burned down. I don’t have anywhere to go.”
Once more my sister Mary came to my rescue.
“Don’t worry, Terry,” she said. “You can come home with us, and I’ll take care of you.”
The nurse dressed my wounds one last time and gave me instructions for keeping them clean and dressing them myself.
“Here are some medications the doctor has ordered,” she said, handing me three prescriptions: one for pain, one for depression, and one for an anxiety medication. “You’ll need to start physical therapy in two weeks to help you regain the use of your arm.”
A few minutes later a wheelchair arrived to take me out to Mary’s car.
When I left the room, a crowd of doctors, nurses, and hospital employees gathered in the hallway to say good-bye and wish me luck. As my wheelchair passed by, a lot of them hugged me and told me they’d be praying for me.
I rolled through the front doors of the East Texas Medical Center into a totally different world. On the surface, it looked like the same world I’d left behind only a week earlier. It was a beautiful day. Bright flowers bloomed all over the hospital grounds. People were milling about in the sunshine. Everything seemed to be alive and thriving. But there was one huge difference in the world I was about to reenter.
My family was no longer there.
Mary and her husband, Mike, tried to cheer me up, to get my mind off everything that had happened, but it didn’t work. No matter where I looked, I saw something that reminded me of what I had lost.
As we drove north from Tyler, I looked out the window and watched life go by. Some people were driving. Others were gardening or mowing their lawns. Some were going in and out of stores, spending their day shopping. As I watched them, all I could think about was that these people had no idea what I was going through.
None of these people has any idea that my world has been destroyed.
We drove by a school with children on the playground. As I watched some playing on the swings and others throwing balls to one another, I felt a crushing weight on my heart.
Matthew and Tyler will never play again.
I couldn’t make my mind accept the reality that my boys were gone.
Matthew would never shoot another tin can off the back fence with his BB gun. He’d never climb into the Mule and drive his brother around our property. Tyler would never again fill his red wagon with dirt and pull it around the yard. He’d never play with Max, our black Lab, again.
As I thought about Tyler, tears streamed down my face.
TYLER
Tyler was our free spirit.
Although he was outwardly shy like his brother and sister, Tyler also loved excitement and adventure. He regularly pushed the envelope where safety was concerned, much to Penny’s dismay.
We had a small pond on our property. Tommy Gaston, the boys, and I had built a little deck near it, where we could have cookouts. One day Tyler noticed a long “Tarzan” vine hanging from a tree near the deck. In no time he had gotten some rope and tied it to the vine in a loop, making a perfect handle. Then, standing on the deck railing, he grabbed the vine, leaped off the deck, and swung out toward the pond and then around and back toward the railing. He was having great fun until Penny saw him.
“Tyler,” she called out, “that vine’s going to break. Don’t swing on it.”
Just to be sure it was safe, I swung on the vine myself. It held my weight and didn’t appear to be stressed, so I told Penny that if it could hold me, it could hold Tyler. He was just a little bitty fellow. As for his homemade rope handle, he had tied it so securely that even Tommy couldn’t get it off.
Tyler would swing on that vine for hours and have the best time, but it always made Penny nervous. Finally, Tommy came to her rescue. He asked if he could set up a rope swing for Tyler in a little circle of trees right in front of our house. Penny thought that would be much safer, so one Friday evening Tommy came over and hung the swing for us.
Tyler wanted to try it out right away, but it was dark and chilly outside.
“No, you can try it tomorrow,” Penny said. “Maybe it’ll be a little warmer out.”
Tyler was disappointed and came in only grudgingly.
The next morning I woke up early. Erin and Bubba were on the couch watching Saturday-morning cartoons.
“Where’s Tyler?” I asked.
“Out on his swing,” said Bubba.
I looked out the front window, and there was Tyler, swinging on his new swing—in his underwear. It was a cold morning, probably only about thirty-nine or forty degrees, but Tyler didn’t seem to notice or care. He was having the greatest time on his rope swing.
I opened the door and called out to him. “Boy, get in here and get some clothes on.”
He didn’t want to stop. “But, Daddy, I’m having fun,” was his only response.
That was Tyler. Free-spirited and living in the moment. He also had a quick wit and a wry sense of humor.
One of his favorite expressions was “Just deal with it,” and he’d toss it out often. One afternoon he was helping me
work outside. It was one of those days when things just weren’t going the way I wanted them to. Finally I got frustrated and threw down my screwdriver.
Tyler just looked at me with a deadpan expression.
“Daddy, just deal with it.”
As we rolled into the driveway of Mary’s home in Leonard, Texas, I could almost hear Tyler whispering in my ear, Daddy, just deal with it.
I didn’t think I could.
LIFE AT MARY’S
Mary and her family lived in a small, two-bedroom house with only one bathroom. Mary and Mike had one bedroom, and their two daughters, Courtney and Hannah, shared the other. I was so thankful that they were willing to take me in, even though they didn’t really have the room. I was nowhere near ready to face life on my own. Because there were no available bedrooms, I slept on the sofa in the living room. I didn’t complain. It was the only home I had right then.
My only concern as we drove toward their house was their little dog, Tootsie. Tootsie was a small-breed dog, and like many small dogs, she tended to be high strung and hyper. I wasn’t sure how well I would handle it if I had to cope with a lot of barking. I didn’t know if my shattered nerves would take the noise.
After we arrived at Mary’s house and they got me settled on the couch, Tootsie came over and sniffed me. Then she gently climbed up on the couch and sat down beside me. It was almost as if she knew that I was hurt and needed to be cared for, because she never barked or made noise. The whole time I stayed with Mary and Mike, that little dog was my best friend. And without being able to speak a word, she brought me great comfort by lying next to me and letting me hold and pet her.
But although Tootsie was quiet, my first night at Mary’s was anything but restful.
Mary’s house was old, with hardwood floors and dark paneling. It was also drafty, as older houses tend to be. The wind whined and whistled through the windows as I lay on the couch. Everyone else had gone to bed, and every sound seemed to be amplified. I was alone and frightened. I tensed at every creak and groan.
Terror by Night Page 7