Still, the predictability of my back requiring adjustments kept Marcy and I in semi-regular contact until she eventually had to quit working on me, but even then, she gifted me with two others who are mine today to see me through.
To anyone who has lived in the Brazos Valley, who arrived from somewhere else, you know for certain that a community is blessed when you have medical and health professionals who embrace the field of healing, as not simply confined to those with M.D. and D.O. and other initials following their names. In Bryan-College Station for over five decades now, we have been a community abundant in healing professionals. And fortunately, many of these professionals willingly and openly recommend healing professionals as making valuable contributions to a person’s well-being as part of a caring medical team.
Marcy Halterman was distinguished and qualified in several areas. It was never that she was a professional student. She simply loved learning, reading, discussing, exploring, and wanting to know more about how she could help others on her journey here.
We first met in the office of the late Dr. Kevin Schachterle, my original chiropractor here. Kevin introduced me to Marcy with a glowing but gruff description—"if I’m not here, she will take just as good care of you as I do.” Marcy and I both burst out laughing.
I asked him, “Did you warn her about me, that I try to do my own adjustments first and then come crawling in here to put me back together?” He smiled knowingly and I figured he had. Still a young man, Kevin was delighted at the prospect of business continuing while he hacked around 18 holes at Pebble Creek.
In our first adjustment session, Marcy and I found out just how much we had in common. Birthdays close together, a lifetime appreciation of music, love of reading good books, a great shared sense of humor and relying on chiropractic, virtually all of my life (another story for another time).
Over the years, we were both still in school, graduate school for both of us, and she gave great adjustments. Besides Kevin, Marcy was the only one I’d ever let work on me.
During our sessions I learned over the years that she had become a certified yoga trainer, and she was constantly interested in learning new things. While she did that, she figured she’d challenge herself to master the profession and that’s where a one-shot appearance as a lawyer’s witness in a personal injury case piqued her fascination with the law and she earned her law degree at night from South Texas College of Law in Houston.
Later on, when I had need of discussing a legal topic, I discussed it with her and found her amazingly proficient. When Texas A&M’s School of Rural Public Health came into being, she thought that was brilliant and ultimately earned her M.S. in Public Health.
She was self-deprecating about her additional credentials, but I urged her not to be and not to apologize for simply wanting to know more and then have the credit for spending the time and making the effort.
It would be a while before Marcy met the man of her dreams, Russell Cox, and they were a terrific team. Adding children to their family was beautiful as they are both compassionate caring people, perfect to be parents. I had the distinct pleasure of meeting her dad when he came to town one year to visit his daughter. I was lucky enough to have him give me a few adjustments “old school” and they were exactly like the ones my original hometown chiropractor used. Marcy had the same gifts.
Long before the TENS units were ever invented or before the massage guns were thought up, there was a simple technique using your hands (and elbows) to go up and down your spine and release the calcium that had collected there and allowed the muscles to knot up and nerve endings to yell.
Ultimately because business relied on the number of patients you could see in a day, chiropractors began adding massage therapists to their referral list or brought them on in their offices to get your body ready for an adjustment that would last a lot longer than your not having the vertebrae ready to relocate.
If you’ve never had a chiropractic adjustment before, there’s nothing to fear and it feels better, not worse, after you’ve had it. If you know, you know how helpful it can be. Going from nerves on end to calm and relaxed is worth an adjustment, bigtime.
Marcy never yelled at me for waiting too long to come see her; she was so patient, fun, and we really enjoyed our sessions, sharing good news about mutual friends or catching up on life progress each time. She had great regard and respect for our community’s aestheticians, massage therapists, and fellow chiropractors.
One day life changed for both of us, in ways we never expected it would. Sadly, Kevin Schachterle suffered a debilitating heart attack at age 48 (or so) and he was in the hospital with not much time expected. She called me and said, “Now’s a good time for us to go up there if we want to say goodbye.” We met up there and went in the room and gave him a good rendition of what it was like when we were all at his clinic in College Station. Telling stories, laughing, and remembering when. Kevin laid there unresponsive, but we liked to think he could hear us.
We sat together at his funeral, mostly in disbelief as he was only 48 years old; he had so much left to live for, a loving companion and her daughters, and brothers and mother in Iowa…and now it was all gone. Although a formal funeral was slated for Iowa, the family held one here in town at the funeral home for local friends to pay repects.
It was indeed well attended but the minister who officiated struggled a little to realize that his middle name was Gene, so it was not his first name. The minister kept referring to him as “Gene,” and Marcy and I kept elbowing one another in disbelief. You’d have to know Kevin to know he’d have found that hilarious.
Well, he found a way to let us know. As the minister went on about the things written in the obituary, we noticed that there was a little music coming from up near the front of the room. Kevin’s sweetheart had placed a little automated bear that beat a cymbal and danced a little on top of the piano there near where his photo was displayed.
Without anyone touching or moving anything near it, the bear just all of a sudden came “to life,” and started whirring and twirling on the top of the piano and the gentle snickers in the audience came to life with laughter and it was a great break in an otherwise solemn, blue occasion. After it was over, I specifically told Marcy, may our names always be known, even to strangers, so they get it right at our funerals!
Subconsciously that day I determined to be more involved in “getting things right in funerals,” as a dear friend asked me to help her get an obituary written for a loved one. That was the beginning of my frequent trips to Callaway-Jones to take them copies of tributes I’d written for what became a large group of parents of my friends, hand-carried before I owned a fax and had only a typewriter.
Through the years and the adjustments were the only times we had to carve out time to share what was exciting and important in our lives at the time. She listened, we laughed, we planned, and we encouraged one another to keep striving for what was possible in our respective careers.
Eventually Marcy had cofounded a chiropractic clinic that changed locations and personnel a few times but at each point along the way, she affiliated with individuals who possessed that same determination to heal, encourage, and instruct patients on being good to themselves, to put themselves as a priority for care. She (and they) held space for us until we had time to do that ourselves.
Marcy was a lifelong learner, not a professional student, and every time something interested her, she studied it and went all-in to earn credentials for the field. She was a lovely young woman, outstanding personality, never met a stranger, and kind. She was selective though about those in her world. One day she spoke of “Russell” and her faced glowed.
I knew he was “the one,” and she had truly found her soulmate, one who cherished her and created a world where they flourished together. Then came the addition of Aine and Eva and their world was perfect.
Beyond her office, you could often find Marcy out and about in the community as a volunteer who loved and supported the arts—from the Arts Council of the Brazos Valley, to the Brazos Valley Symphony Orchestra, to the American Heart Association and Hospice of Brazos Valley, she supported the organizations that benefited our community with her gifts of time, talents, and resources, but did so very modestly.
Another of our mutual friends was quite a dynamo in the world of the arts and despite her senior age (at the time we were veritable youngsters comparatively), we marveled at her ability to keep on going like the “Energizer Bunny.”
It mystified both of us as anyone else would have simply stopped being so giving of their time when they were undergoing several health challenges as she had been. She was a role model for us, unquestionably and the three of us would occasionally check-in for news of the other.
Another turning point came in my world when our mentor died unexpectedly and had made no plans for any arrangements, nor had her husband. I was at my desk one morning when the doorbell rang and it was our local JP, telling me I’d be receiving a call shortly as he had heard that I was going to be making all the arrangements for our friend’s funeral.
He’d heard that conversation when he was officiating at their home. Sure enough, my phone rang, and it seemed that (despite my not having seen our dear friends in over a year), the husband decided I’d know exactly what to do to plan her funeral and create two separate services for local and out-of-town friends.
Since someone else had that much faith in me to do what I’d only done once before, I went ahead and did it. Marcy attended one of the services and we were both bemused that I was chosen to fill this special role. I said, “Well, it’s different than Kevin’s service for sure!” We smiled.
Life changed and yet life was consistent. I’d been busy in my church and Marcy and her family were delighted in their church home and being a family. Each time she showed me the latest pictures of the girls, I marveled at how she was able to “do it all,” and make it look easy. That was on par for a Cancer crab; her birthday was July 9th, just 66 fast years ago.
We never discussed her health challenges in all the years I knew her. The time came when she could no longer work on me as she had some unspecified (to me) condition where she was not as strong as usual. Happy to just see her and visit in the hallway, I received my adjustments from her colleagues, who now have their own practices, and we’d catch up in between.
She’d been active in yoga and had been teaching sessions at local facilities and was always interested in the whole-body healing and treatment. She then became interested in rural public health, in nursing in general, and cupping, as just three areas of interest. By finding treatment areas where she could remain active, Marcy was always at full speed, it seemed.
Fast forward to Hospice Happening a few years ago; it was there that she told me, finally, that she was recuperating from battling cancer. Her attitude was lovely; she smiled brightly, and projected both bravery and the faith in God that kept her steadfast all of her life.
I wanted to cry to think she’d battled that disease without my knowing it. That’s ego talking, but I would have at least wanted to offer more prayers in her behalf, if only to reciprocate the level of care and compassion she’d shown me as her patient. Or at least a chance to thank her for a friendship I had cherished all these years. Somehow I thought there would still be plenty of time for that.
Again, I’m only one of longevity rather than daily contact. Yet, everyone who was Marcy’s patient can attest to that feeling of close, dear friend that she made each of us feel irreplaceable in her world and in her heart.
That confirmed my worst fear. The cancer would not let go. Those born under the Zodiac sign of Cancer are by nature lovers of family, spiritually driven, dedicated to healing when they can, and devoted friends.
The “moon child” is often in tune with the people and their surroundings to be able to have great empathy. With a strong sense of humor and a positive attitude, the idea of new challenges to conquer always presents an exciting opportunity to those born under the sign of the crab.
Thinking how we lost Marcy on Friday, followed on Saturday by Rhodes Scholar Kris Kristofferson, led me to think of one of his greatest movie roles in “A Star Is Born.” And, in that movie is a Paul Williams-Kenny Asher composition that somehow captures the spirit and heart of Marcy Halterman-Cox. Appropriately titled, it seemed custom made for her, it’s called “The Woman in the Moon.” Farewell for now, Marcy; keep shining your light and guiding us on our paths and thank you for so often showing us the way.
