Cynthia Kay Wofford Acciarito

Cindy, a beloved wife of Andy, was born September 8, 1956 in Arlington, Texas to W.D. Wofford and Valta Turner Wofford. She Was born just in time for lunch, which seems appropriate to anyone who knows her, because food was one of her favorite things in life. Cindy was the oldest of four children, along with her brother Willie and sisters Tonya and Tisha. Cindy’s nature was to love them, mother them, and watch over them through childhood and much of their adulthood.

Cindy was a beautiful, loving and joyful child and woman. She had an exuberant and outgoing personality. She was a cheerleader in elementary school, junior high school high school and 4’11 95 pound college. She was elected to the student council in junior high. Cindy was voted most beautiful, homecoming queen, prom queen and when her family was living in Athens she was voted Miss Athens. And in Athens, the local businesses would have Cindy model for their newspaper ads.

Cindy earned her business degree with a minor in economics from Sam Houston State University. Cindy was working on her masters degree when she was hired by Holly Tree Country Club which was being built in Tyler, Texas. Cindy’s responsibility was to build memberships in the new club. That personality made her successful bringing in new members. Later Cindy was hired by Maxus Energy in Dallas, and held a trusted position there. In the 1990s Cindy and a group of others started a non-profit organization. She started in the spare bedroom of her house, and built it into a multi-national, multi-,million dollar a year organization.

Cindy and Andy’s life together was a masterpiece of God’s lifelong creativity and management, even if you pay attention you never fully recognize, until decades later, all the circumstances He created, put into place and managed. All the people, all the events to create a masterpiece of His plan which He created to show His glory and for which He specifically chose you to be a teaching tool, to be a sign among His people of His work.

Think now how God choreographed all this over a lifetime. Think how He brought two kids together in junior high in 1969 who didn’t know each other. The girl was outgoing and extroverted who thought nothing of walking right up to a boy she didn’t know and start talking to him like they’d been friends forever. He made the boy quiet, but strong, so quiet that he can’t remember if he said a word to her the entire semester. But he didn’t need to talk to her to have memories of her. God had made that girl so beautiful that the vision of her was seared into his brain. He never forgot her, and several times over the next decades, something would take his mind back to her.

Think then how God quickly took them apart because it was important in making them who they would become. Then think, how God quickly took them apart. Think also how his sister and that girl were in the same class together. But never knew each other. Then later they become professional friends, then close personal friends. In a completely different city than the one they grew up in. A city with millions of people. Thirty-three years later. And how God used His sister as the means to bring them together and how they were both now in their mid-forties, but God had kept both of them from ever marrying anyone else. So that when He did marry them it would be the first time for both of them.

Now consider the religious choreography. As far back as the first few centuries after Christ, the Byzantine Catholic Church and the Roman Catholic Church celebrated September 8 as the birthday of the Blessed Virgin Mary. In 1956 God chose – and Andy believes it was at the request of His Mother Mary – to have Cindy be born on Mother Mary’s Birthday. In fact, Cindy told Andy, in their early days together, that she was supposed to be born significantly earlier that September 8th, but she wasn’t. She was late. But God gets what He wants, and so does Mother Mary. Cindy came right on time.

Then many years later God perfectly choreographed all the circumstances necessary to cause Cindy a Protestant to walk into a Catholic chapel. A chapel with Jesus on the Crucifix, and a statue of His Mother beside Him. That’s when God took a hand – a strong hand- in Cindy’s life. Cindy had a spiritual experience that moment in that chapel and was devoted to Mother Mary for the rest of her life. Remember that Cindy was Protestant. She had no way of knowing that she had been chosen to share the same birthday as Mother Mary. Not until many years later. After she became Catholic.

More years later God choreographed bringing Cindy together through Andy’s sister Cathy. They start to date, and then one day Cindy asks to go to Mass with Andy. She’d never been to a Catholic Mass before, but she watched what Andy and the other Catholics did and she did the same. Then, kneeling at the Priest’s Prayer of the Eucharist, Andy looks over at Cindy. Her hands are folded in prayer, her head is lowered over them, and she’s crying, that’s tears running down her cheeks. That is when Andy knew God had touched her soul, again.

Now, look at the medical choreography. God knew, of course, about that tumor in Cindy’s brain, which would grow to be huge. He needed someone to take care of His daughter. He arranged, Andy believes, from the beginning – even before their birth- for Cindy and Andy to be together. He arranged for them to be born in the same year, within 5 months of each other. That way they would be in the same school, class or one right behind the other, and would be able to meet each other. He had Andy be born and given the first name Joseph, so that St. Joseph would be his patron. But, Andy would go by his middle name and very few people would know that his first name was Joseph. A hidden Joseph.

God had Cindy be born on Mother Mary’s Birthday so that Mother Mary would be her patroness. But Cindy’s family was Protestant, she was raised Protestant, probably everyone she knew was Protestant. So no one ever knew this, not even Cindy, until she was in her late 40’s, and became Catholic. A hidden Mary.

Joseph and Mary. Cindy was Andy’s Mary, Andy was Cindy’s Joseph. As Joseph took care of Mary, Andy would take care of Cindy.

Andy’s major in college was microbiology/pre med, God didn’t want Andy to become a doctor, for reasons that would become clear and meaningful in those years with Cindy. But he did want him to have that education. The next step was to get Andy started in the financial field while he was still in college. But for God, it wasn’t the finance that was important. It was the professional experience that God was going to arrange for Andy over the next few decades.

It was the professional experience of being the President of the Fort Worth Chapter of one professional organization and the Vice President of the Fort Worth chapter of another professional association. It was being on the Board of Directors for the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce’s West Area Council for the West Side of Fort Worth, being on boards and committees for the Chamber, The Fort Worth Catholic Diocese, The Charles Schwab Corporation, being hired to do the financial planning for the top executives from all over the world for a major corporation, being interviewed regularly in the newspaper and on television, owning his own firm, being a Certified Financial Planner with a specialty in managing investments.

And don’t be mistaken. None of this was about pride or ego. God didn’t make Andy that way. Remember, he made him quiet. To make that point, none of these things in his career were things he asked for, sought, or campaigned for. They were all asked of him.

Why this was important for God and for his daughter, Cindy, was that it gave Andy decades of relationships with colleagues who were among the best in his own field, but also with those who were among the best in other fields. He became comfortable in that environment and was not intimidated by it. This was important for God and his daughter when they were given her diagnosis, and told to go home and die. Others might have done just that. But Andy’s experience made him know that there was always someone better. You just had to find them. And just as important, you had to know where to look. And when you found them, because they were going to be one of the best, you could not be intimidated by them. You had to be able to carry on a professional relationship with them, at their level. And there would be times, with them and with others over the years, when you would have to manage them, and you couldn’t be intimidated, or lack the experience to do this. Andy didn’t understand this part of God’s plan until years later, but God knew what he was doing.

Andy is the spiritual son of Joseph and Cindy is the spiritual daughter of Mother Mary, chosen to be born on Mary’s own birthday. Because of that, Andy has always said, “I had to marry her!” Cindy was Andy’s Mary, and Andy was Cindy’s Joseph. That relationship would be brought to great prominence in later years.

The first two and a half years of marriage were glorious. The joy of newlyweds, their strong love for each other, some travel, nice restaurants, and hours in the kitchen cooking recipes of their favorite chefs. Their ritual every day was to make dinner and watch old movies, preferably from the 1930’s and 1940’s. When they traveled flight attendants would tell them they were the most beautiful couple, and talk to them, hover around then, and do special things for them. In restaurants waitresses would do the same thing. After a while, Cindy and Andy would look at each other and smile, whatever it was about their love for each other, everyone saw it.

Then doctors found a massive brain tumor in Cindy. It was so huge, they couldn’t even guess how many years it had been there. It would certainly kill her, but they believed that doing surgery would also kill her. Cindy and Andy asked, “What can we do?” “Go home, meet with your lawyers and advisors, and start making your plans,” the doctors said with pained looks on their faces. Cindy and Andy’s world stopped. And then turned upside down. This was Andy’s 50th birthday present. Neither Cindy or Andy were sure she would have another birthday.

Andy put Cindy in bed for a nap. Then he knelt down by the bed next to her and prayed to God. He had researched this kind to tumor, read cases of people who had it, learned the progression of it, and the manner in which it ended their lives. It was not pleasant, and he couldn’t bear this for Cindy. Andy knew that with Cindy’s previous medical issues she didn’t like pain and would sometimes complain and get angry. But pain never bothered Andy much. But, he couldn’t stand to see someone else suffer. Kneeling there at Cindy’s side he asked God to take the tumor from Cindy and give it to him. He offered his own life to God in exchange for Cindy’s. Andy made this offer to God again near the end, but neither was in God’s plan. Andy later realized that God had chosen to give each of them a cross that was difficult to bear. For Cindy the cross of pain and suffering. For Andy the cross of watching her endure pain and suffering. Andy was also remembering now some thing that happened not long before this. One day, during intense prayer and meditation on Christ’s passion, Andy asked Jesus to allow him to share in his suffering. He hadn’t expected Jesus to choose Cindy to share in it also.

What happened over the next 19 years would literally take an entire book to write. Many have heard parts of the story. Andy has told it hundreds of times, when people asked, or people in the medical world needed to know. They have seen, and been seen, by hundreds of doctors, both at world famous institutions around the United States, and those in the DFW Metroplex. They have been told that Cindy is famous at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, a world-famous neurological center, and at M.D. Anderson in Houston, the world's top cancer center for decades, as well as at U.T. Southwestern Medical Center I Dallas, currently the 15th ranked medical center in the United States.

Cindy bore the cross of being told she was going to die, without complaining. She accepted the suffering and pain of the surgeries, radiation, chemotherapy, and headaches every day for the rest of her life, the removal of her bladder, the heart attacks, the strokes, the pain of going through withdrawal from all the painkillers doctors kept giving her for years, the neuropathy from the chemotherapy drugs that worsened to the point that she could barely walk or stand up, the corneal ulcers that took what was left of her eyesight, all the days in hospitals and care facilities that added up to several years of her life. She just kept going on.

This was who she was now. This was the person God had changed her into. Cindy had always been strong, but not this accepting and resilient. She had survived Stage 4 breast cancer in her 30’s and her oncologist said, “If I could bottle what has, I would save a lot more patients.” Andy’s caregiving for Cindy began only a couple of months after they started dating. A difficult break in a bone in her foot required a cast up to her thigh, and she wasn’t allowed to walk or stand on it for months. Andy had to do everything for her. Then, a couple of follow-up surgeries related to her previous breast cancer surgeries. Cindy wasn’t always the easiest patient for Andy to take care of. She didn’t like pain, and she didn’t like the inconvenience she had to deal with.

After they were married and Cindy became Catholic, Andy noticed a change in her. She was more peaceful and joyful. Her strong Catholic faith, her love of God, her deep devotion to Jesus and Mother Mary changed who she was. And her security that Andy loved her deeply, gave his life for her, always took care of her, and always protected her, left her without worry. She called him her Rock, and would often grab his hand and kiss it. This was who she was for the rest of her life. And near the end, Andy would tell people that through all of it, he couldn’t remember her complaining except when one of her pains became so excruciating it was unbearable.

Andy bore the cross of being told his beloved wife was going to die. But, since God created Andy’s nature to be one that never quit and never gave up, he didn’t accept that there was nothing that could be done. He told Cindy that when counseling his financial clients he always said whatever they needed done, they should only work with the best in that field. When telling this now, Andy remembers that the nuns used to teach the kids, “If you want to be the best, associate with the best.”

So, they spent six months searching the United States. They were referred to a world-famous neurosurgical center in Phoenix, Barron Neurological Institute, and their world-famous neurosurgeon who had patients come from all over the world for him to do their surgeries. They found out about proton-beam radiation, which was brand new at the time, and went to M.D. Anderson in Houston, the number one cancer center in the world, where Cindy was one of the very first patients for proton beam radiation. They lived in Houston for four months for that treatment. They went to M.D. Anderson a few times, and had Cindy’s second brain surgery there, performed by their top pituitary tumor specialist. This meant living in Houston for another four months. While they were still in Houston, that surgeon attended a medical conference in another city, and arranged to have a personal meeting with the head of neurosurgery at U.T. Southwestern Medical center in Dallas, another top ranked medical institution in the United States. They discussed Cindy’s case, and when Cindy and Andy left Houston, their neurosurgeon at M.D. Anderson sent them to Dallas for the head of Neurosurgery at Southwestern and his team to take over care of Cindy and her tumor. Cindy and Andy quickly discovered that the new neurosurgeon’ s assistant cared more about patients than anyone in the medical field they have ever met anywhere in the United States. They became good friends, and consider him part of their family. The two of them began referring Cindy to other specialists at Southwestern to serve other medical needs for her care. As the nuns taught Andy, and Andy taught Cindy and everyone else with would listen, the best people know, and work with, the other best people, in their own specialties, as well as other related specialties. So, over time, Cindy had a team of specialists who were heads of their departments, and superstar doctors providing her care for the rest of her life.

After Andy bore the cross of being told his beloved wife was going to die, he continued to bear the cross of fighting for life with Cindy. They kept fighting together, and they kept moving on together. Cindy bore the physical suffering in her body from her sickness and treatments. Andy bore the suffering in his heart from not being able to take her suffering away from here. Through Cindy’s surgeries and treatments, and her recovery from them, and the pain and suffering they caused, Andy took care of her and nursed her, and carried on with her. The more suffering she endured, the more meek she became, and accepting of it. And Cindy kept accepting what she was given, and kept living the life God had chosen for her. Of course, she had to endure the surgeries, the treatments, and the suffering, but she never lost her joy, her love, her happiness, because she never lost her faith in God and her comfort of security that Andy always protected her.

Over the years people always talked about how sweet she was. When someone would visit with her, or when she would meet with someone, whether she knew them or not, she would radiate joy. Joy would fly from her to you, and you would be graced with her smile, the smile of God’s angel. A dear friend and neighbor commented one day, “Is she really that sweet?”, as if no human creature could be like that. After Mass one Sunday, a good friend at church just stared at her and said, “She looks like an angel!” Their friend in neurosurgery always called her “Sweet little thing”, with love in his voice. Andy always told her she had the most beautiful smile God ever made. And yet, this wasn’t the same smile as her earlier life. Yes, it was just as captivating and radiant, but this smile exuded God’s joy and God’s peace. He had filled her with Himself, and He glowed from within her. Whenever Cindy blessed Andy with this smile it melted his heart. Sometimes, if she just kept gracing him with this smile, the vision of God’s love radiating from God’s angel would cause the tears of Andy’s own love to well up in his eyes, and he would have to turn away before she realized he was crying.

Not many people knew, and many who did know often forgot, that not only did Andy take care of Cindy for twenty-three years, nine of those years he also took care of his father, and seven of those years he also took care of his mother. For a while, he had all three of them in the house at the same time. Just as God had said to him, “Andy , this is my beloved daughter. I need you to take care of her,” He also gave Andy his father and mother to take care of. Andy had to close his professional practice 14 years ago to take care of them all. 14 years is a long time to live without income. Two decades of little sleep, and even less rest, because he didn’t always rest when he slept. His brain was trained to wake up at the slightest sound, because someone might need him. So, just as God asked Cindy to be the witness of His Love by the suffering He gave her, He asked Andy to be the witness of His Love by the care he provided. Cindy and Andy both answered Him, “Yes, Lord.” God’s mercy of redemptive suffering lived out in their sacrificial love.

Early on God had made Andy understand that, “This is my daughter, and I give her to you, and I need you to take care of her.” Over the years he would remember this, but it wasn’t until the end that God would arrange things in Andy’s life that give him an intensely clear realization of the parallel between St. Joseph and the Virgin Mary, and Andy and Cindy. Cindy was Andy’s Mary, and Andy was Cindy’s Joseph.

In the early years before Cindy was homebound, people would talk to them about what they were going through, and they’d say how terrible it was. Andy was always so proud of Cindy when she would say, “There is always someone worse off.” She had been told she was going to die soon but she still said it. They went to M.D. Anderson three of four times, the last two times they had to live in Houston four months each time for radiation and surgery. Spend eight months at M.D. Anderson you will see patients you will probably never witness again in your life. There’s always someone worse off.

Sometimes, Andy would simply say, “God gives you what He wants you to have. And you do the best you can.”

Later when Cindy was homebound, people would sometimes say to him how hard or terrible their life was. Often, his response was that he and Cindy believed that God had chosen them specifically to live this life, their mission, among His people. And that they prayed that others’ experience of Cindy and Andy’s deep love for each other and dedication to each other, how they bore their suffering, how they loved God and never lost faith, would in some way have an impact upon others and upon their lives that would serve God’s Divine Plan. Perhaps even change those people’s lives. Cindy and Andy knew that these might not even be people you actually interacted with or even saw, but they witnessed you as they walked past your hospital room or saw you out in public. God doesn’t always need much help from you to change someone else’s life. Sometimes He just needs you to live the way He asks you to live, and that will be enough.

In their early years of suffering, people often said to Andy that he should write a book. Those who said this were mainly focused on the series of all the bad things that had happened to them, up to that point. Andy always said that if he wrote a book, or if a movie was made of it, no one would believe it. They would say that that many bad things could never happen to two people, one couple, in an entire lifetime, or even in multiple lifetimes. All that could never happen in just a few years. Andy never cared for the term “A perfect storm.” Yet he had to admit that that was exactly what had been arranged for them. As good as he was at management, there was nothing he could do to stop any of it, or even control it. The best he could do was hunker down with Cindy, bail water, and pray.

But you know, God has arranged so many unbelievable things, perhaps He would arrange a book too. And it would also be filled with God’s love and God’s mercy.