That night Rick talked to his mother, who was crying about her fears for the three boys. Rick told her he didn’t care about what happened to him, but that “it is the call of my life to insure the kids not live in state custody or in foster homes. I want a Christian home or school.”
He urged his mother to use all her assets to pay his brother David and his wife Julie to take the kids. “I can rot in jail. Screw bail. Screw attorneys. Get the kids to David and Julie. It’s the only lasting legacy I have control over.”
Later he talked to his dad about his other brother and sister-in-law. “Life is over for me. I’m only concerned about the kids. Use all your resources to pay off Don and Debbie to take the kids. I do not want to hear about foster parents for the kids. You need to be proactive.”
The next day, he told his mother, “I want to go to my wife’s funeral with the kids. I don’t care how many people are looking at me cross-eyed.”
But Rick was not there when friends and family of Susan McFarland filed into the First Presbyterian Church on Tuesday, January 21, 2003, for Sue’s afternoon memorial service. Throughout the gathered crowd, Southwestern Bell corporate identification badges dangled from jackets, dresses and purses.
Beneath the vaulted ceiling studded with heavy carved wood beams, attendees slid into wooden pews topped with red cushions. Light filtered through a variety of elaborate stained-glass windows—Jesus with his apostles looked with compassion on the mourners below.
Reverend Louis Zbinden announced the call to worship, and the bustling ceased, the whispers ended. The silence of the dead stole from pew to pew. The service began with a song and Bible reading. Then Gary Long, Sue’s supervisor in the accounting department of Southwestern Bell, stood at the dais. His remarks brought tears and spread rueful chuckles through the audience.
“It is hard to know how to begin to describe Susan. Do you start with her brown coffee cup that said, ‘Give Me Chocolate or Give Me Death’? Yes, that was Susan! Do you start with Susan coming in at six A.M. so she could take a long lunch for Junior Achievement or to meet a friend coming in from St. Louis later in the day? Or Susan staying late to make sure the project for the next day was ready to go? Do you start with the daily trip to the ice machine, followed by an afternoon of listening to the crunch of ice for those who sat closest to her? Yes, that was Susan! Do you start with the hours spent on the quarterly balance sheet or the days and weeks figuring out how we were really accounting for Directory operations? Do you start with the frequent trips to the cafeteria to see what the dessert for that day was and whether it had chocolate or not? Do you start with the mornings Susan brought in Shipley Do-Nuts for everyone—the ones with chocolate icing? Yes, that was Susan!
“All of these things describe Susan, but the three words that I think best describe Susan are: Susan loved life.
“[. . .] It is my prayer that we might all remember Susan’s sweet spirit and the joy she found in living. I especially pray that her family, in those quiet moments of reflection that will come, might feel of her Spirit and of her love for them and find comfort and peace in knowing that one day they can be re-united with her again.”
Friends Blanca Hernandez and Margot Cromack stepped up to run through the alphabet with remembrances of Sue. Sue’s brother, Harley Smith, followed the two women. He was 15 years old when his little sister Sue was born on New Year’s Eve, 1958. “In retrospect, it was right that Susie was born on the biggest party night of the year,” he said. “Dad called her ‘my best little tax deduction.’ ”
His final words reflected the hearts of many in the church that day. “We mourn your passing, but celebrate the joy you brought to our lives.”
In the audience, Kate Kohl of the Heidi Search Center vowed to remain stoic. She tried to practice what she preached to staff and volunteers again and again: “We cannot cry. We cannot get emotionally involved. We need to be the strength and support of the family.” Yet, when Kate saw the three motherless boys, a lump formed in her throat. When she focused on little Timmy and knew that his direct memories of his mother would soon fade away, her tears flowed. She would have loved to know Sue—alive, in charge, her arms wrapped around her sons.
As uplifting as the eulogies were, many others were also overcome with sorrow—breaking down in tears with the first refrains of “Amazing Grace.” The service ended with final words from Reverend Zbinden: “Although we celebrate her life, we cannot pretend that our world is not darker because Susan’s bright light is not shining.”
At the reception that followed the service, bright colored balloons filled the room in honor of Sue and “for children of all ages.” William, James and Timmy kept busy running around and hiding under tables. But often, William broke away from his brothers to wrap neighbors and family friends with big bear hugs.
After the service, Timmy told his Aunt Ann, “I’m just a little boy and all I have is a bag of bones for a mom.”
“You will always have your mom in your heart,” Ann assured him.
Timmy thought about that for a moment, then he smiled and said, “You’re right. I do.”
That conversation broke Ann’s heart, but other words she overheard flamed her to anger. In Ann’s presence, Mona McFarland said, “Susan didn’t have an ounce of mothering instinct in her.”
And that was not the only callous, ugly statement Mona made. She even told one person, “The boys’ mother was an evil woman.” More than once, she told others, “Rick has many, many, many reasons for what he did.”
Wesley Miller got off the school bus, came into the house and slumped in a chair. His body limp. His eyes glazed. His face ashen.
His mother Carrie asked, “What’s wrong, Wesley?”
He turned to her with moist eyes, “Did Mr. McFarland really burn Mrs. McFarland up?”
Carrie’s anger at Rick flared. No young once-innocent boy should ever have to ask a question like that. “Yes he did, Wesley. But he burned her body. She did not feel a thing.”
Thirteen-year-old Stephanie Miller dealt with her demons, too. Her bedroom window overlooked the back of the McFarland home and had a clear view into the windows now that the hackberry tree no longer stood in the way. She lowered her blinds and tightened the slats. “I had a murderer looking at me,” she said. Her blinds remained that way every day—all day long—for years.
Sue’s family held another memorial service in Sue’s hometown of Webster Groves on February 1. The start of the service was delayed by the late arrival of Sue’s Amarillo friend, Dee Ann Dowlen. Even more fanatical a shopper than Sue, she lost track of time on a side trip to the nearby Saks. It was a story Sue would have loved. It did not, however, amuse some of those who stood in the damp cold waiting for the event to begin.
Sue’s high school friend Sandy spoke bittersweet words in celebration of Sue’s life. “In the spirit of our fun friend Sue, listen to some Kathy Mattea, try a new recipe, buy some art glass, savor a smiley cookie, get your feet pampered and paint your toenails hot pink, take a spontaneous, unplanned trip somewhere and make it your own adventure du Jour. And when doing these things, most definitely think of Sue and smile.
“In my opinion, if we do some of the things suggested here, we honor Sue’s legacy to us—her love of being a mom, her generosity, and her fun nature—and we carry her in our hearts. If we do these things, think of Sue, and smile, then we pass along the joy of life that she personified so well, and she smiles right along with us.”
Goodbyes said. Tears shed. It was now time to seek justice for Susan McFarland.