I love stories and especially love movies. I’m a sucker for anything romantic. Among my all-time favorite movies is Jerry McGuire. Can you guess what my favorite line is from that movie? (Here’s a hint—it’s not “Show me the money”). If you guessed Renée Zellweger’s line, “You had me at hello,” you’d be right on!
I’ve said this in previous posts about my husband. I’m reminiscing now . . . twenty-eight years ago I was standing at the door of one of the single-adult classes at church, and in walks this guy with blonde hair and the most gorgeous blue eyes I had ever seen on a human being. And he winked . . . at me! I thought I had died and gone to heaven! This was my lightning bolt! I later learned his name was Cary (like Cary Grant).
Later that week, I called all the visitors to the singles class about a social we were having. I dialed the number, the phone rang, and a voice answered, “Cary Efurd.” I said, “Is Cary Efurd there?” He said, “That’s what I said, Cary Efurd.” I said, “Did you say ‘Cary Efurd?’” He said, “Is this a test?” We both laughed, and we still laugh to this day when we think about how we met.
Over the course of the next few months, Cary would call me Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights at 10:30 p.m. sharp after he got home from night classes. When the phone rang, I would run to the phone like a giddy schoolgirl, wait until the third ring, then pick up the receiver leisurely (you can’t let a guy know you’re anxious). We talked for hours. Cary is my BFF.
Every Sunday during our “courtship,” we would sit together in church, in the front pews, looking up at the choir. As time went on, we started holding hands, and then he started putting his arm around me. Choir members noticed the developing relationship before we even realized it ourselves. Our relationship was readily evident to all.
One Sunday, the singles Sunday school teacher asked everyone to tell about their most memorable New Year’s Eve. Cary raised his hand immediately and told his New Year’s story . . . how in 1984 he was physically hauled to the county jail in Pittsburg, Texas, in a straitjacket, then shipped to Terrell State Hospital for sixteen months for treatment for manic depression. He further explained what he had learned about himself and his disease, that he had been sober since 1985, and that he was proud to be a graduate of Terrell State (the hospital, that is).
Oh my! I can’t tell you how many people started calling me that afternoon telling me I needed to back off and stop seeing this guy. I cooled my heels, backpedalled, and we stopped seeing each other for a couple of weeks. I don’t know about Cary, but those weeks were completely miserable . . . it was as if a knife had ripped out my heart.
To make a long story short, Cary and I were married on November 12, 1988, having the fairy-tale wedding I had always wanted. Until I met Cary, I had only heard the term “manic depression” (bipolar disorder) in passing. I thought it was like a thyroid problem: you pop a pill and everything’s A-OK. I had a lot to learn about mental health.
It happens slowly over a period of time. First you get busy and forget to take your medicine; then you’re trying to keep your business going, so you don’t sleep as much as you should; then, because you’re busy and you’re not sleeping, you’re not eating right and drinking too much caffeine. Then you have the bills to worry about, payroll, and the challenge of keeping business coming in the door. To top it off, you have a wife who up and quits work, thinking she’s going to “help” get this business shaped up. Now you have no income, except for what you pull in, and a wife who is not working and depending on you for support. You have mounting debt to keep the business going, and pretty soon, you don’t have a pot to . . . plant petunias in.
On October 1, 1997, I arrived home from work. As soon as I walked in the door, I knew something was wrong. Cary had rearranged all the furniture, and there were sticky notes everywhere. Then he left in our (leased) Jeep, saying he would be back in a little while.
The phone call came later that night from Parkland Hospital. Cary had been in a wreck. When I arrived at the hospital, I learned the accident occurred as a result of Cary’s manic episode. While speeding, he rear-ended a vehicle stopped at a red light, locking bumpers and flipping both vehicles in the air. Our Jeep, the one Cary was driving, landed on its right side. As Cary climbed out of the wreckage, the other Jeep he hit burst into flames, trapping the driver in the front seat.
Cary leaped out of our car and ran to the other Jeep. In a manic state, Cary didn’t hesitate reaching into the fire to pull the driver out of the burning wreckage. Cary carried the young driver, still on fire, to a grassy sidewalk, staying by his side until paramedics arrived. This young man of eighteen looked up at Cary and asked him to tell his wife and child he loved them. Cary said he would. We don’t know for sure, but that may have been the last words this young man ever spoke. He had third-degree burns over 75 percent of his body. Cary had second- and third-degree burns on his hands and arms. The next day, that young man of eighteen passed away, leaving a seventeen-year-old wife and an eight-month-old baby boy.
The trauma of October 1, 1997, pushed Cary into an acute hyper-manic state. He was sent from Parkland to a Texas state mental hospital for thirty days. Me? I was scared, overwhelmed, and trying to keep going. I had a job I was trying to keep, a business I had no hope of running, no money, mounting debt, and no car to run away in.
It didn’t take long before reporters and personal injury investigators started calling. Within a week of the accident, Cary and I were sued in a personal injury lawsuit against our business and us personally. Cary was charged with criminal negligent homicide and also faced assault charges from a hospital nurse.
Family members pitched in, lending support and providing a car to drive. We hired three sets of lawyers for the civil, criminal, and bankruptcy actions working against us simultaneously. I was now working my day job, an evening job, and was looking for a weekend job.
To say I was angry at life was putting it mildly. I was mad and bitter at everyone and everything . . . my circumstances, Cary, God. I kept questioning: Why us, Lord? Why me, Lord? I saw myself in a 600-square-foot prison we called home, feeling like a trapped animal. I was not a pleasant person to be around.
I hate adversity and loathe conflict. I wanted to run away as hard and fast as my car would travel. I wanted to bury my head under the covers and come out of hiding when all of this “mess” was over. But something inside me caused me to take pause. I couldn’t leave . . . we had children, family, friends, and people we didn’t even know looking at us, watching our every move. Instead of choosing the easier road, I chose the higher path to honor commitment, being the “matriarch” our children needed, however imperfect a matriarch I was.
Healing began gradually. It started with many tears; the criminal trial; letters to the victim’s family; restitution; setting up a trust for the victim’s son; paying back bankruptcy debt; working hard; praying; studying; and surrounding ourselves with people who prayed for us and with us.
I can’t say at what point the turnaround in me happened, but my perceived “prison” eventually turned into a “sanctuary.” I no longer had all the trappings of worldly “possessions” distracting me and soon began losing interest in what the world thought of me.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t base my decisions on emotions. Don’t get me wrong: I still wasn’t sure how I felt about Cary. At that moment I didn’t like him . . . I wasn’t even sure if I still loved him . . . but I didn’t leave him, choosing instead to honor the commitment that we had made in 1988, “in sickness and in health.” I acted on the decision, and the feelings eventually followed.
During this storm in our lives, so many unexplained “God things” happened: the Bible that didn’t burn up; the handprints on Cary’s forearms that should have long ago faded but are still readily visible; the attorney friend who suddenly appeared in bankruptcy court, shortening our court appearance once she asked the judge if she could “hug the debtor” (the attorney whom we haven’t seen since); the man who showed up out of nowhere after Cary prayed for someone to “buy our little business”; the employees who were loyal to us to the bitter end; the job that suddenly became available when Cary needed a job; the GAP insurance I didn’t know we had on our leased Jeep that paid off that debt; the job opportunities that came my way that provided the income to get by; and all the miracles that you become aware of once your blinders are removed.
Looking back, Cary and I both remember that time as our wake-up call and are grateful for it. Despite the tragedy, there is triumph in our lives because we chose to honor our commitment.
Tagged: mental health, new year, prayer, prison ministry, purpose and calling
