Episode 5: Terri Hoover Part 3

WHAT DO YOU DO WHEN BAD THINGS HAPPEN

TERRI HOOVER EPISODE 3

INTRO

KELLY

Welcome to Qavah, a podcast about hope in hopeless times. Today Terri Hoover continues her life story, sharing how she found hope in her darkest night.

TERRI

Broken is not even the word it is so there is nothing and I have buried cousin father to uncles all the same year my dad and his brother all got killed in the same year my first husband friends I Buried a lot of people I’m a grandparents I Buried a lot of people there is nothing like burying your child

KELLY

Terri faced a question that has haunted people throughout history: What do you do when a good God lets bad things happen?

BODY

 HOPE FOR THE HOPELESS

Jake starts driving his first week he got a speeding ticket and at that point he had decided that he wanted to go live with his dad he had never lived with his dad and he decided that he wanted to go live with his dad now because of the speeding ticket right before that but anyway he decided he wanted to go live with his dad and so they called me and said Jake got a speeding ticket what do you want to do and I said well there has to be consequences he just got his license and dad is a little more laid-back on those things more than I am I guess and so then he had a wreck and I think there was another speeding ticket all in a short period of time so I as a mom was Uber concerned and but when you’re the parent that only sees them every other weekend eat it I can see now how hard that is for dads because you know it’s hard to take away your child’s right to drive when that means you give up your right and you have to take them everywhere again after you just got done with driving them for 16 years so I’m sure that played into it to some degree so Jake had a leadfoot and he like to drive fast and obviously he got two speeding tickets already but my gosh what a great kid he came to our house 16,17,18 years old he still came to moms every other weekend spend the whole weekend he’d usually come During the week and at least come one night and go out to eat with us when he came to our house on the weekends he always went to church with us he loved his brothers on my gosh he would call all the time just to see what the boys were doing and Eli was very funny when he was little he still very funny but he was very funny said he would call and say what did Eli do this weekend what’s Gage doing in so fast forward Gage is probably gay just nine and Eli is six it was Christmas 2005 and my grandmother had not been doing well she lives in East Texas and we knew it would be my grandmother’s last Christmas and so my mom wanted us all to all come and Jake drove his own vehicle and so that morning before we left our house I had this little book at my house and I said I would read a question every morning and they had questions for toddlers they had questions for middle schoolers they had questions for teenagers so Jake’s question that morning was when you get married what will your spouse be like and he said should be just like Lesley which was the girl he was dating at the time and he said she’s so kind and fun and beautiful and you know of course he told me all these things about her that morning and I Donely met her a couple of times at that point so anyway we get in our vehicles and we go to my grandmothers we get there we had a great day my brother and his family were there my cousins were kind of in and out my grandmother was just tickled that we were there as much as she could show it she was very Christie’s she didn’t really show a lot of emotion but I took some great photos of Jake with my grandmother and just everybody took pictures and we always when we’re at our grandmothers house on the way out she had a big sweet gum tree in the front yard and we all just kind of get in front of that tree and take pictures it was just kind of a tradition anyway took pictures he gets in his blazer or whatever he was driving blazer I think and drives off you never think another thing about that and we ended up being there another hour we’re so we left and went to my aunts house and Tom’s grandmother had been sick and she’s old too my mom and I are sitting on the sofa and Tom gets up and takes a phone call and he comes back to the room and he summons me to come out and my mom goes you think somethings wrong and I said I was probably his grandmother she’s been really sick and uh Tom handed me the phone and he held onto me which was weird that’s not his that’s not who we are you know and he held onto me and it was my ex-husband and he was sobbing and he said Jack’s been killed and I was like what you know I began screaming and punching the walls punching your punching Tom I don’t even know the things I said I’m out of my mind literally out of my mind you have no it was like 0 to 1,000,000 Miles an hour because you cannot even your head cannot wrap around the fact that your child’s been killed like what are you talking about I started gagging I ran to the bathroom and I just started throwing up I’ve locked the door because but this time my entire family is screaming and crying my brother took my little ones outside to try to keep them out of the crazy and my aunt my mother my brother and his wife and their two daughters everybody scream and cry and I’m literally laying in a bathroom floor with the door locked they’re beating on the door trying to get in and I am out of my mind I’m literally out of my mind I’m vomiting I’m still like do you know how this can’t even be I’ve got to see much out I’ve got to see my child i’ve got to see my child so after Tom kinda gets everything under control as much as he can find out where they flown Jake’s body because they care flighted him I guess they thought He would live I don’t know Tom kept so much from me just because of the nature of what happened anyway so we got in the car and we drove to Mesquite Memorial Hospital or whatever and we pulled up and our life group from church was there and all my employees and when we got out of the car before we went into somebody I don’t know who somebody from our life group said can we all gather around and pray first And we had a circle of 25 people may be in the parking lot at the hospital and we prayed and my ex-husband showed up with his wife and they were all alone and so my people gather them up in the group and we got ready and we went into the hospital and it was just it was such a surreal experience you walk in first of all it’s Mesquite and they have wrestling on the TV in the waiting room I don’t know why I remember that but there was wrestling on the TVs in the waiting room it was the day after Christmas it was 26 December The waiting room was packed and they came out immediately and got us and said we have Jake back here so we walk down this hallway and we walk into the room and it becomes so real so fast there’s my child and one of his eyes wouldn’t close all the way it just bothered me because one of his eyes wouldn’t close I just needed to see him and so we uh I guess that was body identification or whatever so we identified his body and then we started the process of getting ready to bury your child which you shouldn’t have to you shouldn’t have to so from there we just check and remember that night I slept in his room went to sleep I laid in his room and I was watching out the window and I watched one star all night long it is the morning came I said OK God I don’t know what you’re doing but I’m gonna trust you that I can do this so we went to the cemetery I mean went to the funeral home we picked up the casket and we picked out what he was going to weird to be buried in and you know 13 years ago social media was nonexistent pretty much texting you still had to hit the same number four times to hit an A whatever you know what I’m saying or say so texting really wasn’t happening so it was people calling each other oh my gosh well he just graduated so like a bajillion kids start showing up at my ex-husband‘s house because he lives there and so people start showing up and he really are and we’re spending a lot of time with my ex-husband and his wife and Jake did not have a great relationship with her so you have a lot of things going in your mind what why are you not nice to my kids so I had to like keep all that in check

BURYING YOUR CHILD

KA your heart is broken

TH Broken is not even the word it is so there is nothing and I have buried cousin father to uncles all the same year my dad and his brother all got killed in the same year my first husband friends I Buried a lot of people I’m a grandparents I Buried a lot of people there is nothing like burying your child

As a mom I’m sure is a dad it’s hard to but as a mom we grew them inside of us so it is an extension of you he was my first love he was my first true love other than that addiction to his dad He was the first one who loved me back and never did and left making no I’m saying there was never a time that I didn’t did not think my child love me he was mad at me sometimes but never not loved me 

 so anyway we picked out the casket and we picked out his clothes and we decided where he was going to be buried and And you know what Pastor Steve’s wife Marsha and maybe Lydia they came and got our boys and they kept our boys because they were little and gated down syndrome and I did not want that to be their last memory of Jake I didn’t want them to see him in the casket I didn’t want them to but also I didn’t think about that one day all the sudden your brother never comes home again so that was just a hard time as a parent like how do you decide who goes to the funeral who doesn’t go to the funeral my ex-husband I can’t remember if he brought his stepdaughters or not because he was raising one of them and she was little and I told him I said I just don’t think I want my kids to remember Jake this way and I said you have to do what you have to do so Jerry is in the music industry at the time he was a promoter and Robert Earl keen was in town to do a show for Jerry and they contacted as if Robert Earl could come sing at Jake’s funeral and I’m pretty sure it’s the first first time he’s ever sang  amazing Grace But we got there and I’m telling you they were probably almost 2000 people there the day after Christmas it was actually he died on Monday and then we buried him no we buried him on Monday no we buried him on Monday they were probably 2000 people there and I can remember just a couple of faces as I was walking down the isles to get to the front of people that I recognized and they weren’t people I don’t know why I just some faces you remember during that time and so anyway the funeral was long and it was long enough some of the kids want to talk and I felt like I needed to talk and I couldn’t even tell you what I said at this point but his youth pastor over at the church that he had found himself when he moved to his dad because his dad didn’t go to church He had his best friend Mark found a church and this kid had told me he said I can’t remember his name but he said I got to church with Jake and I said you did he said you know how I found it I said no he said I had a flat tire one day and him and his friend Mark stopped and picked me up they stopped and helped me and they told me they change my tire if I go to church with him and he said he goes it was a cool group I was like oh my gosh things you don’t know about your child you find out later so anyway you have to pick out tombstones and things that you never in 1 million years dreamed of and I’m sitting in the funeral home before I buried him and it’s just me and Jake and the funeral director comes in and he asked me if he could get me anything and I said no and he said I cannot imagine your loss we lost a baby but you had 18 years with this guy and he said he said I can’t imagine your loss that guy was like he was stand up he was a good guy because funeral homes want to sell you something that’s their job They tried to upgrade everything they were very pushy and this guy stepped in for me over and over again and his boss finally stepped in and said they deal with nobody but him from here on out because he was very call me the other guy was very you know this casket is much better grade blah blah blah I was like it’s going in the ground anyway I was just uh I don’t know why remember all that but I do The days after it’s a mean I can remember walking to his room every morning now just walk into his room which at that point he’s only coming home once every other weekend but I just needed go to his room every day literally just needed to go to his room every day so 

KA So did you feel like I can’t get up or I mean like I said I would just if I were in that position

TH Of course let me just tell you this we buried him on Monday you know we go to church on Saturday night on Saturday morning I woke up the same week and I told Tom I said we’re going to church tonight and he said I think it’s too soon and I said I’m just gonna tell you right now if I don’t go to church tonight the devil get a foothold and I said I’m going to church tonight and he said OK so our posse and I mean our posse I don’t even know how many there were I just remember it was Kevin and Stephanie Black I want to say the bird songs and maybe the phthisis it was a group of people and my mom we got to church they had already made a plan because Stephanie Black makes a plan and so we were going to sit on the back row and I didn’t know any of this at the time but we go go sit on the back row and I don’t remember what the sermon was about or anything but apparently I said amen during the service so when we were leaving we left a little bit early this lady who tends to be a little annoying to a lot of people is running down the hallway Terryi Terri and everybody was trying to keep her away from me because we didn’t know what she was gonna say anyways she she rushes up to me and I said it’s OK it’s OK and she gets to me and I turn around I said what and she goes I’ve been praying for you I’m so sorry I can’t even imagine your loss and she said and when I heard you say amen tonight I know it’s going to be OK and I was like you’re right it is and you know she had me and she went on about her way and wheel left and and I thought about that a lot it is going to be OK I’m gonna leave I remember my grandmother burying all three of her sons, and she was a strong believer, in a year and she’d still she survive you know what I’m saying she was never the same you’re never the same after that but she still loved Jesus in her life went on and do you know and I just told Tom I can’t stop going to church because it would be so easy to let Satan get his foot in the door and turned me against everything that I had believed for the last few years and that I know the only peace I’m ever going to have at this point comes from and so in that I just latched on to God I just said oh God please don’t leave me and I latched on and my prayer life went from ground level two I’m in prayer almost all day Day for the first few years after Jake was killed and I will say that was my sweetest time in my relationship with Christ in the last couple of years I’ve had this prayer going on and I’m like Lord I’m  terrified because I really wanna be close to you but I don’t wanna lose anybody and so he and I’ve been having this  i’m sure he’s not having any kinda Conversation but I’m having this conversation Lord I love you and I want to be close and I will be closer to you than I am right now but I know the sweetest time I ever had with you was when Jake  got killed

And I’m just not I’m not willing to go there so

KA Wow Terri that’s intense

TH Because you do want that relationship you want it to be That’s sweet it’s just terrifying

KA He was your every breath in that time period 

TH Oh my gosh yes I mean before my feet hit the floor and still to this day and that’s when my relationship with Christ change when Jake got killed because at that point that’s all I had that’s all I had I mean Tom could not make me feel any better my other boys could not make me feel any better nobody could make me feel any better but when I went to the Lord and completely surrendered to him every morning then I got that peace now and there’s days that I’d have to go back 1000 times I can remember drive another road I got pulled over about two weeks so after Jake got killed and I was doing about ninety and I had Jake’s picture in the front seat I was sobbing I don’t even know what I was doing you know the first few months literally I drove around sometimes all day long and I get home in town would go where if you been and I go I don’t know I don’t even know where I went anyway the guy pulled me over was young kid and he pulls me over and he says man do you know you’re doing 87 or whatever in a 55 and I was like up and I’m sobbing and he said is something wrong and so I told him a story and he said oh my gosh you have got to slow down he goes I’m sorry I know that this is a hard time for you and I said please wear your seatbelt and he said and call your mama he said yes ma’am and he didn’t give me a ticket

TEENAGE DRIVING 

KELLY

Teenagers have the lowest rate of seat-belt use among all age groups. As a result, motor vehicle accidents are the number one cause of death among teen drivers. Eight people between the age of 16 and 19 die every day from car wrecks.

Terri experienced what it was like to be the mother of one of those eight. She couldn’t stand for anyone else to go through this pain. So she decided to do something about it.

TH about a year after Jake got killed I had a dream About a billboard it was just a weird dream I had and I could see Jake’s face on this billboard and so I kind of put it out of my mind and so then I had another dream and then I just couldn’t quit thinking about Jake Jake’s face on a billboard so I thought about the fact that Jake was not wearing a seatbelt when he was killed and he of course there are other variables to his wreck  I mean Jake was trying to get to his girlfriend bought her a this little dog for Christmas and he was leaving my grandmothers house and he was going to go pick up the dog and go take it to Lesley‘s house and so he thought he was going to be late so he was speeding and the highway patrol got in but hand him to pull him over and he decided he would out run the highway patrol so he tried to run had a blowout doing 90to 100 and flipped his vehicle and he went to cross all four lanes on highway 80 in the median and landed on the roof he was ejected at some point and so that’s how Jake was killed I couldn’t do a billboard hey don’t run from the place and check your tires and so I had to figure out what it is so I started investigating and I realized that 40% of young people between the ages of like 14 and 21 are not wearing their seatbelts when they get killed 40% to this day and that’s what I’m doing first of all how does a dinging not drive you crazy well guess what Nick at Poteet high school told me he said you just turn the music app he’s like and then another kid in the class said well my car doesn’t ding like that because we just disconnected it and then another kid said big boy like 6 foot tall said Miss Terry was your sons name Jake and I said yes now at this point we’ve been doing billboard campaign for 12 years 11,12 years and I said yes and I said how do you know that and he goes because there was a billboard by my house when I was a little kid and my mom and I would talk about it every day and I just always wear my seatbelt my mom told me she wants me to come home every day and I was like so

KA you have made an impact

TH So Nick sitting on the front row I was like so why don’t you wear your seatbelt and he said I don’t like it my mom didn’t wear hers and he goes you know it just wrinkles your classes and you know he had 1000 excuses and I said Nick are you and your mom close and  he said yes we’re e very close and I said do you want to see your mom cry the rest of would you like your mom to cry the rest of her life and he said no and I said well you know what Jake’s mom cries every day of the rest of her life because he didn’t wear his seatbelt it’s a really easy fix but on your damn seatbelt and the teacher was like whoa anyway Josh sent me an email like two weeks later Nick tell me to tell you he’s been wearing a seatbelt

KA So tell me about your campaign what is it called

TH it’s called Click It the number 4 life some people from the church got together with me and we started this foundation and we put builder boards at we just started around Dallas and Fort Worth because Jake’s dad lived over in that area so we started there it’s now the last round was all the way from Austin to Abilene and I’ve had them in Arizona I’ve had them in Portland so well it’s just a connection I have with this lady who donates a lot so I’m just put them where my donors are I try to put them close to colleges or high schools it doesn’t always work that way sometimes it’s on roads close to Lakes or some other kind of event center or whatever I try to put them close to places where kids are gonna be in the car and I use Jake’s face I have used we’ve had two other cousins that were killed the same year when was killed texting and driving in the other had just gotten a ticket for no seatbelt the week before and she was killed not wearing a seatbelt and they found the ticket at the scene of the accident those are cousins on Tom side the family and they’re both 18 I think and so we lost all three of those in one year so I have used one of the mom said I just can’t I can’t I just can’t see my child’s face on a billboard the other mom has let me use her child’s face and so we’ve done hers then this year before last one of my former employees posted how this is the anniversary of my wreck so I did some investigation she had had an accident texting and driving ran I think into the back in of an 18 wheeler and she was in ICU for a long time and anyway she got married so she had posted pictures of her wreck and  her wedding day and I thought oh my gosh what a huge distracted driving is off the charts these days it’s as big as drinking and driving so I contacted her and I said can I use your story and she said yeah and now we have that you know it’s basically Lesley in the hospital bed where she’s just almost dead and a picture of her and her new husband and it says almost missed it don’t text and drive

CLICK IT 4 LIFE

KA Wow so where could we find that

TH Well I have a website it’s called click it for life.net and you can donate there to help me get the word out I try to do it during the summer time because most kids are on the road in the summertime sometimes I do it during spring break if I have enough money but I always do it during Christmas because everybody’s home for the holidays and they’re trying to sell their friends and everybody’s partying and hanging out so I try to do it those times because those are more highly traveled by youth and so you know

KA so your life took a direction that you did not plan

TH I did not plan

KA but you are using all of this for good because people will wear their seatbelts and people will pay attention

TH You know young people wear their seatbelts if parents will not only model it but if they’ll talk to them more about it kids kids resonate more with like real life stories that’s why reality TV is so big that’s not our generation but it is that 30 that millennial kind a 30-year-old they need to face to resonate with so it is it’s just putting the face and death date out there and say this can happen to you and I had a client and her oldest son I think was just starting to drive and it was supposed to only drive in the neighborhood so he had a billboard up on 635 and Brian comes home and he said he was just in tears and the mom said what’s wrong and he said I just saw Miss Teri sent on a billboard and he said I just didn’t realize he looks like me and she said well I’m so glad that that has hit you like this what were you doing on 635

KA That is not your neighborhood 

TH But it caused a lot of conversation and so anyway Bryan has told me numerous times over the years you know where my seatbelt I’m not good

But it caused a lot of conversation and so anyway Brian has told me numerous time over the else you know where my seatbelt  good Brian 

KA well looking back tell your 15-year-old self

TH my 15-year-old self who put down that needle put down that bottle focus on school you know build your foundation build your foundation before you do any of those crazy things and don’t do any of those crazy things 15 years old gosh I was such a mess at 15 x 15 I was such a mess I’d go back to 13 and say you know get a good group of friends doing the right thing go to church you know find a court group of people that are going to support you and love you through things – I don’t now don’t burn all your bridges 

KA you didn’t  burn one bridge ever

TH With Jesus

KELLY

When a good God allows pain into our lives, it can be hard to see the end of the tunnel. Sometimes all you can do is get in your car and drive, even if you don’t know where you’re going. But Terri made a choice in the middle of her pain. Her choice was not easy, but it was simple.

She didn’t burn her bridges. Not like she used to.

Not with people, not with Jesus. Even though she couldn’t understand what God was doing, she kept her relationship with him. 

KA he wouldn’t let you burn that bridge so what is your hope

TH what is my hope well I’ve got Gage is still at home with down syndrome which I say that all kind of going and change because Gage won’t be home forever because he doesn’t want to be at home forever Gage we’re just trying to help Gage figure out what his next step is my youngest one went to the army in May and so he’s finishing up Boot Camp and is headed out to Germany I think that could all change that’s what it is 

KELLY

Now Terri’s ears are open, listening for others who are in pain like she was.

 MY HOPE IS GOD

TH this point my hope is that I can just plugged in where God wants me to be plugged in to be aware of my surroundings meaning when somebody’s crying out for help that I hear it because sometimes they don’t use words 

KA oh absolutely your life is amazing no it was awesome thank you and we sure appreciate you so make you sure you check out click it for life.net and the Artistik edge hair salon thank you with a K thank you so much Terri Hoover

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