Part 4 (2/2)

When Kari hung up the phone, she turned to her mother, sobbing, and said, ”The doctor thinks we did something to Ka.s.sidy. She's calling CPS.”

On top of the anguish of her granddaughter's death, Linda heard the hurt in her daughter's voice. She couldn't imagine why the doctor would make such a bizarre statement. ”Well, that's crazy,” Linda a.s.sured Kari. ”That's just crazy.”

The physician followed through with her threat, and just days after Ka.s.sidy's funeral, a CPS worker arrived at the parsonage to talk to Matt and Kari. Anxious, not knowing what to expect, Kari asked her aunt Kay and Kay's good friend, Jo Ann Bristol, a Waco counselor, to be there to support them. They agreed, and the three women and Matt greeted the CPS worker when she came into the house.

A heavyset woman with a notepad, she had questions, and the small group sat in the parsonage and answered. The CPS worker asked about Ka.s.sidy's battle with the tumor and the aftermath, and about what happened the night of her death. Matt answered as the woman took notes, describing as he would for so many finding Ka.s.sidy's lifeless body. Meanwhile, the woman glanced about, sizing up the house and those gathered.

It was when Matt mentioned that Ka.s.sidy had a trained health-care aide in the house eight hours a day taking care of her special needs, that the woman appeared most interested. The aide had even gone to the ER with Matt and Kari days earlier. ”Oh, I didn't know that when you went to the ER you had a home health nurse with you,” the woman said.

That, it would seem, had settled the matter. ”I don't think there'll be any problems,” the woman a.s.sured them as she left.

Matt would later say: ”CPS had a claim we didn't take care of Ka.s.sidy properly, and the woman was checking to see if Kensi was okay. She interviewed us, me and Kari. But she didn't find anything wrong. She never did anything.”

A few days after the CPS worker walked out the door never to return, Kari had her Bible open to a pa.s.sage that read: ”For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given.” The grieving mother, fighting to find some order in all that had happened stenciled her lost daughter's name, Ka.s.sIDY, in all caps beside it.

For Matt, grieving appeared vastly easier. The week after he buried his daughter, he was at the pulpit in Williams Creek Baptist. Some wondered if the young pastor was allowing himself time to grieve, speculating that a father needed time off after the death of a child. Yet there Matt was, standing before the congregation, insisting he followed orders from above: ”This is where the Lord wants me. He gives me strength.”

This strength of Matt's, it would appear, confused Kari. She expected him to share her pain. ”I can't understand why he's not hurting like I am,” she told Janelle. ”Why is it tearing me apart, and Matt's acting like nothing happened?”

”The fact that it was business as usual for Matt was hard on Kari,” says Janelle, who looked at Matt and saw the same thing Kari did, someone who'd moved on. ”At one point, I heard him say, 'Now I can get back to work.' It was as if Ka.s.sidy's illness had interrupted his life and his preaching, and he was glad to have it over with.”

Over the weeks, Kari talked often with Janelle, who was working as music minister at Williams Creek. ”Kari questioned the events, how they happened, how Matt found Ka.s.sidy, how long he'd been in there, was there more they could have done,” Janelle says. ”She thought it was strange that Matt was the one who found Ka.s.sidy, that he'd decided to go in there and check on her after they went to bed.”

At the time, Janelle never considered that Kari could be struggling with a suspicion that Matt had somehow caused their daughter's death. Only later would Janelle believe that was exactly what Kari was attempting to sort through.

One time that would stand out in Janelle's memory was a day she and Kari were at the parsonage and ended up in Ka.s.sidy's room. ”Kari began talking about the night Ka.s.sidy died. She wandered around the room, saying things like, 'I just don't understand what happened. Why did Matt come in here a second time? Did he know something was wrong? What if I had been the one to check on Ka.s.sidy, would she still be here? How long did it take for her to die? I mean, Matt checked on her, and she was fine, but then when he went back, she had died. What happened? I hate thinking that Matt did something wrong, like with her feeding tube, that could have caused this. But, why doesn't he hurt like I do?' ”

That afternoon, the conversation continued, Janelle listening but able to offer little in response. Talking it through, Kari pondered, ”Matt's able to go right back to preaching like nothing ever happened. How does he do that? He wants to have s.e.x, but that's the furthest thing from my mind. It's almost like he's relieved that Ka.s.sidy is gone.”

Although the conversation was highly emotional, Kari didn't cry. Instead, she looked right into Janelle's eyes. ”She was rambling all of these questions while I just empathized. I didn't have answers. Her tone was one of confusion. She couldn't piece together what happened, and speaking aloud her fears of Matt made her feel too guilty. She was careful in how she spoke. She would question what he did that night but then immediately have a look of, why would I think that?”

At times, Kari closed her eyes and simply shook her head. Perhaps she felt haunted by what the oncologist had said, her accusations that Matt or Kari must have done something wrong.

Despite all the turmoil inside her, Kari did her best to forge ahead. Yet the sadness seemed to follow her. She was at Target buying clothes for Kensi when she ran into Basy Barrera, her hairdresser. ”Did you hear what happened to Ka.s.sidy?” Kari asked.

”No.”

”She died,” Kari said, and the two women stood in Target, hugging and crying.

”People were probably staring,” Basy said later. ”But I don't think either one of us cared.”

As the weeks pa.s.sed, Kari talked often of Ka.s.sidy, wanting to keep her memory alive, much to Matt's annoyance. ”He really didn't seem to have time for it,” says Janelle.

To help Kari through the grieving process, Linda suggested that her daughter seek professional help. ”I wanted her to be able to talk freely,” Linda explains. ”She needed someone to help her work through her grief.” Kari did, turning to the friend of Kay's who'd come to help the day the CPS worker dropped by, Jo Ann Bristol, a licensed clinical social worker who'd gone back to study psychology and specialized in grief counseling. Bristol had first worked with Linda's family in the early nineties, when Linda's grandfather was dying of cancer. At the time, Bristol worked for a hospice. Over the years, she'd opened her own office, and she and Kay had become good friends.

From that point on, once a week, Matt, with Kensi in her car seat, drove Kari to Bristol's downtown Waco office, on a quaint street lined with shops and restaurants. Matt and Kensi would then leave, while Kari talked to Bristol, a motherly woman with a well-lined face. There was little doubt that Kari was grieving. ”I saw that as Kari's way,” says Linda. ”She lived big, with so much joy in her life. The opposite side was that she grieved hard. Kari never had a feeling that she didn't tell someone.”

”I don't want to be here,” Kari admitted in the confines of Bristol's office.

”Are you suicidal?” Bristol asked.

”No, that's not what I mean,” Kari answered. ”I just wish I could be with Ka.s.sidy.”

Bristol would later say she'd heard these same words before from others who lamented the loss of a loved one. ”Kari wasn't talking about taking her life. She was just saying overall, 'I wish I could be with Ka.s.sidy.' ”

At one session, Kari complained that Matt was pressuring her for s.e.x, at a time when she felt as if her heart had been torn from her body. At times, Kari confided that she looked for Ka.s.sidy everywhere, in other blond babies she saw on the streets, when she looked up to the heavens. In those sessions, Kari laid her soul bare, exposing the deep pain of a mother who'd lost a child. Yet as the hour ended, Kari dried her eyes and took a lipstick from her purse. She put it on, smoothed her hair, said good-bye to Bristol, and walked to the waiting room with a smile, where an unemotional Matt waited with Kensi. They left together until the scene replayed the following week.

On other days, Kari wrote in her journals, calling out to G.o.d. One journal was flowered and brightly colored with a Bible verse on the cover, John 3:216: ”For G.o.d so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”

It was on the one-month anniversary of Ka.s.sidy's death that Kari wrote: ”My dearest Ka.s.sidy, I haven't written in so long because I just didn't have the words to say how I felt. Now it has been a month, and you are no longer on earth with us. We miss you so much. The thing I miss the most is your smell. I felt that you are so special, and I just never knew how much until you were gone. You are my soul, and you will always have a piece of that.

”Kensi misses you so much. Give her in your own little way something on her birthday that will let her know you are with her . . . Thank you for letting me see you on Friday in the clouds. Please keep that up. I want to feel you all the time.”

Two days later, the day of Kensi's third birthday party, Kari wrote again, telling Ka.s.sidy: ”Oh how I wish you could have been here . . . I am going to keep you by my side forever . . . I know you aren't sad, but I am . . .”

She then wrote: ”Dear Jesus. Please help me! This sadness is death feeling. Give me your strength. Please help Matt and I [sic] get through this. I love him so much. You are my rock. Please give me the strength.”

When Kari talked about the counseling sessions, Jenny saw it as an indication of her friend's strength. At church, after the first few weeks, Kari had stepped right back into her role of pastor's wife, working with the youth group. ”Kari wasn't afraid to say, 'I'm getting help because I need to talk about it,' ” says Jenny. ”She was the strongest person I knew. Anything the group did, anything we needed, Kari volunteered. One day we played tug-of-war. The devil was pulling us in one direction and Jesus in the other.”

In May, Kari wrote to Ka.s.sidy again, calling her ”my everything” and lamenting that she had nothing left but photographs and videos. ”There is something missing, and it is you,” she noted. A bracelet Kari wore, one with two intertwined hearts, had broken, and she said it was because Ka.s.sidy had died. ”I will carry you with me always.”

The tension must have been building-Kari struggling with such powerful emotions while Matt watched, stone-faced. On the two-month anniversary of Ka.s.sidy's death, Kari again turned to her journal: ”I went crazy on your daddy today. I just have so much anger. I don't know how to channel it. I know how you loved your daddy so much, and he misses you so much.”

As the letter continued, she asked Ka.s.sidy to help her control her anger, and to ”help me fall in love with your daddy again. You and Kensi are so lucky to have a father like him. I guess I just wish I had more control of the way I felt.” Then, in all capital letters, she printed: ”I WANT YOU BACK!”

In those quiet moments, alone with a pen and a blank sheet of paper, Kari pleaded with Ka.s.sidy, telling her that she shouldn't have died. ”I wish I could explain why you aren't here anymore,” she wrote. ”But I really don't even know.”

One day during Bible study, Janelle sat next to Kari. Other women were gathered with Bibles open, and Janelle saw Kari write: ”I want to be with Ka.s.sidy.”

”I understood what Kari meant,” Janelle said. ”I didn't take it as Kari saying she wanted to die. Kari needed to cry, and she did that. She wanted Ka.s.sidy back, with her.”

The summer came, and in July Matt and Kari accompanied the teenagers to the Glorieta Youth Camp in Santa Fe, New Mexico, near the Sangre de Cristo (Blood of Christ) Mountains. While Jenny and Kensi drove with Kari in her Volkswagen Touareg, Kari talked. On the drive, she recounted a day after Ka.s.sidy's death when she stood in the empty sanctuary at Williams Creek alone. ”I screamed at G.o.d. I told G.o.d it wasn't fair.”

That afternoon, Kari admitted there were days when the only reason she got out of bed was Kensi. Yet at camp, Kari played games with the teenagers, held wors.h.i.+p services, even helped mow the gra.s.s. She smiled and laughed. ”She was so strong,” Jenny said.

The summer wore on, and Kari again confided in Janelle, admitting that she didn't like going in the room that had been Ka.s.sidy's, the room where her baby had died. Quickly after the child's death, the room was cleaned out, and Matt converted it into an office. Later, Barbara would say that when she drove to the parsonage with Kari in the car, Kari would become upset as they neared the house. ”I don't like coming over this hill,” Kari said. ”I can't breathe, and my heart starts pounding. I want to keep driving. I don't want to go back to that house where my baby died.”

In hindsight, it would seem that the only place Matt showed any emotion about his daughter's death was at the pulpit during his sermons. It was then that he sometimes choked up. ”I thought Matt was so great, that he was being so strong,” says Todd.

It had been months since Kari had written to Ka.s.sidy when Kari opened a journal on August 25 of that year, 1999. After addressing the entry to Ka.s.sidy, Kari informed her daughter that she had returned to Baylor that day, picking up her cla.s.ses to finish her education degree. It would be a milestone, turning the corner toward moving on. Yet Kari admitted, ”I don't really want to go. I'm doing it for you. I want you to be proud of me . . . I wish the pain would go away. I wish you would come back.”

There was more news to share with her dead daughter. Members of Williams Creek were building a memorial for Ka.s.sidy, a small prayer garden in front of the church. On that same day, they'd begun digging to make the beds for shrubs and flowers. And in her journal, Kari again pondered why Ka.s.sidy had died. ”Why can't I just die?” she asked, pouring out her grief on the journal pages. Finally, she wrote an entreaty to G.o.d: ”Please help me. I need you so much.”

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