Rooted & Rising: Growth from the Greenhouse

About Getting Back Up

• E's Greenhouse • Season 1 • Episode 24

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A made bed, a deck of cards, and a quiet morning turned into the unthinkable: the day after saying goodbye to their puppy, Hazel, Tracy lost her husband Rick suddenly. What followed wasn’t a neat arc of resilience, but a raw, real journey through grief, anger, faith, and the small mercies that kept her moving. We talk about the moment her brother told her, “You cannot be a victim,” and how that sentence became a handrail when the ground fell away.

We share how gentle faith changed a marriage—no pressure, no berating—just consistent love that eventually led Rick into church life and service. Tracy opens up about seeing providence in ordinary moments: a honk that pulled her eyes from a phone before a car ran a red, and the teenage crash where a voice said “Let go,” and she walked away without a bruise. These aren’t tidy miracles; they’re reminders that purpose and protection can be threaded through messy, everyday life. We also sit with hard questions—why some are spared and others aren’t—and how honest anger can be a form of prayer God can hold.

You’ll hear about work as a calling, not a distraction: helping neighbors find their nest as a realtor, showing up for a small town through burgers and service, and choosing to carry hope into other people’s homes. If you’ve ever wondered how to grieve without losing yourself, how to love someone into change, or how to find meaning after the floor gives way, this conversation is a steady, compassionate guide.

If the story resonates, share it with someone who needs light today. Subscribe, leave a review so others can find it, and tell us: where did you find your handrail when life fell apart?

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SPEAKER_01:

My special guest today is Tracy Scudder. She's a good friend, a Wimberly local. She has um business in town. You want to talk to us about your business?

SPEAKER_00:

I have uh my mom and I, uh, our family has oldies burgers. It's the best burger in Wimberley. Yeah. Voted six years in a row. I also am a realtor. And she sells full estates, so she finds you your perfect like your nest.

SPEAKER_01:

And I love that.

SPEAKER_00:

I've been licensed since 1996. And um I also work for AJA Electric.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh my gosh. This woman is busy, and she has a daughter and a daughter, son-in-law, and three grandchildren. And three grandchildren. I'm excited today because it is the day that we are recording is the one-year anniversary of my great-grandson. Lilo. I'm so happy. They're such a blessing. I love the grants.

SPEAKER_00:

I love the grants.

SPEAKER_01:

Let's just begin. Like, uh, talk to me about maybe some times in your life or a time in your life that really was a hard season, and how you handled that.

SPEAKER_00:

April 30th of 2018, Rick and I said goodbye to our um dog, um, Hazel. She was our Rottweiler, rescue. We loved her very dearly. And the next morning, Rick had a heart attack and died. Oh my gosh. He had what was called the Widowmaker. Very unexpected. Except he did complain that he hurt a little bit, but we had a doctor's appointment that afternoon. He um, you know, it was like one of those things where it was very surreal. I had showered, he had made the bed, and he was playing solitaire with his cards. And I looked at him and I said, We had a really hard day yesterday. I said, I'm just gonna work from home today because I didn't want to, I just didn't want to be away from home and him and memory of the puppy, and that's where we had her put down was in our den. And I mean it was just a really hard day. And anyway, and I looked at him and I said, I love you, and he said, I love you too, sugar. Then I looked at my phone and my peripheral vision made me turn and he had just slumped over.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00:

And I tried CPR, but he was gone. You know, and and a lot of it was a blur for a long time because your body has been, by the grace of God, able to shut that out for a little while. I think it's to, you know, what is that, fight flight or flee? Or flight or flight? And so you kind of suppress it all. It was the day of or the day after. Um, my brother called me from Dallas, Todd, and he got me on the phone and he said, I want to tell you something. He said, I know this is horrific. I know you're hurting, I know this is a hard time for you. He said, but you cannot be a victim. He said, You have to get up, you have to get out every day, you have to do what you can do. Don't let this define you, you're not a victim. You're you're God called him home. Rewinding though a while, four years before he passed, his family were fourth generation scudders that attended at Chapel on the Hills. And one day, and he just really didn't want to do it. He he was like, no, you know, and he believed in God, but he didn't really go to church. You know, and um I've always believed in God and Jesus. I wish I'd found him, uh not found him earlier, but thrown myself a little bit more to his into him, yes, earlier in my life.

SPEAKER_01:

But it's all a journey, right? It is a journey. And we don't like there's no condemnation. No, even more if you're in the worst situation right now with your choices, there's no condemnation. No, there's no because and we believe that, and we're not the ones that are judging for sure, because we should be judged when we don't get judged. That's it.

SPEAKER_00:

So I saw something. Yeah, and I, you know, I've I've worked through that, maybe shame in my own right that I didn't come to him earlier to Jesus. Years ago, I said, Well, I'm going to church this morning. And he's like, Okay, have fun, you know, go to church. Came back, he said, How was it? I said, It was great. We had a great time. I sat with your your dad and Janet, and I love everybody at church. And next Sunday get up. I go, Are you gonna go? And he goes, No, I'm not gonna go. I said, Okay, I'll see you later. Went to church, went to lunch after church, didn't go straight home this time, went to lunch with everybody after church. And so I went home and goes, Well, what take you so long? I said, Well, went to lunch with everybody from church. And he's like, Okay, was it great? Next Sunday I get dressed and I'm putting my outfit on and go, What are you doing? He goes, I'm coming to church.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, please gone! And see, what a great witness! Because like I I I really want women to know that like berating the husband into something doesn't ever know I wasn't gonna do that. I was just lying. Listen, I did it. I was I berated Lee for years to try to get him to stop smoking, but when I started praying for him and shut my mouth, then all of a sudden he stopped smoking. Yeah, it's it's one of those things. Like those are the things that we we tend to do as women is we think we can change our hearts that we can't. You can't, and so being peaceful, that's awesome. Like, I didn't want to go to church about Lee, and it was hard every single time I went to church about him. Uh, but I did for years.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, no, I this is just a just took a little while, and yeah, we went and became members, and we were fifth generation members now of of the chapel on the hills. Well, then it's interesting because I'm like, where are you going? It was a Sunday afternoon. He goes, Well, I told the church I'd come and do da-da-da-da-da-da and help him do this. And he's like, you know, it's so it it just got to me then when he became ushers, and then I became where I spoke, you know, read uh scripture, and so I know Jesus was in his heart um when he passed.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh, we don't grieve like other people. And the thing I've thought about a lot lately is we grieve. And still it's hard to be here, but with this hope of seeing them again and knowing that that's the that's the future, it's a lot of people. It takes us a little stay away. Well, yeah, so that we can keep walking. Yeah, you know, because otherwise, like there are so many people when I've lost them that I mean just have stayed on the floor and really it would have just not I couldn't have gotten up. We couldn't have done like your brother said, you know, yeah to be a victor. Yeah, and that is what we are. We are victors because we know the truth and we know we're here for just a short time.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, and I tell people this all the time literally could not have gotten out of bed without God. There is absolutely no way. And I think you and I talked about it the other day. About I was at a stoplight and I was on my phone on Facebook and somebody hawked behind me. I was on 290, and I was about to go, but I put my phone down, and then a car zoomed through the red light. Like, okay, so I was on my phone, which people are gonna be on your phone. But that saved you. It did, and I believe that there was that angel.

SPEAKER_01:

And this is the thing, but the thing that I know is that our days are ordered. There will be a day when we go home, right, and it'll be okay because that's really where we want to be. Yeah, but while we are here, we are here for work still to do. And I know like what you do every day out in this community matters. Like, I'm not saying that to make you feel better. I'm saying, like, you are here because God sent you, He sent you to encourage others to show God's light, Jesus' light in this earth, the love of God that's in Christ Jesus. And I've had the chance to see you with some of your clients for real estate lately. And what a joy that is. Yes, God provides through that for you, but that's not why you're out there, you're out there to find their nest. Yeah. You know their lives, you know their needs, you're praying for them. Absolutely. Like that is so critical. So I have a story. Um, when I was 16, my mother told me, so this is just an example of where I was not where I should have been. Right. But God had the bottom of his hand, didn't you? Yeah. So my mother told us we had a pool and it was a heated pool. It was the middle of the winter. Uh-huh. And it was Ledo, so it wasn't too bad, probably. But um, it was cold, and uh, we were swimming, and she said, Don't leave the yard. Okay, and it's night. And Jesse Jacobin, my great friend, uh from growing up, comes by with this two-wheel sports car, a convertible. We did not listen to my mother. We got in this uh convertible. Me and uh my sister and another friend were sitting on the top. Uh, my other friend uh was dating Jesse at the time, and so she was sitting in the front with him. There was a Whataburger in our town, yeah, and there was a back, so you could circle around the Whataburger, so it was a hangout joint for our throws, you know, and it was like maybe two miles from our house. It wasn't far. And he said, just let's go, we'll drive around Whataburger and come home. And I was like, Oh, okay. Yeah. So we're sitting on the back in the keys, okay? Like we're in a parade or something. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, we drive around Whataburger, we come out, and I and there's a light right there, Pat, when you're coming back to my house, but just like right there by Whataburger, everybody can see us. I the girls, oh, so the other two had gotten down on the floorboards because they were in there between me, so I did not. Sorry to say. I was just a mess. But so I'm still sitting up there and I see this car coming towards us. I see the light. It's green. I mean, I don't have time. I and I might have screamed, but I knew it was gonna hit us. Oh my gosh. So this guy ended up, the guy that hit us was drunk, and so he never put on his brake ever. Yeah, uh, he hit us, and I remember spinning, holding on to the car. So I remember saying, one, two, and then I heard a voice say, Let go. And I let go. And the next, and everybody saw me fly out of the car, and people had been killed on that corner before. Oh my god. I flew out of the car, and the next thing I remember is standing next to the car. Everybody else had injuries, not terrible, terrible, but uh injuries. I didn't have a cut, I didn't have a bruise. I just believed that an angel saved my life.

SPEAKER_00:

I know.

SPEAKER_01:

And I said, why? And then my brother died the next or a couple of years later in a car accident. And what I said was like, why? Yeah. But I really do know now that we have a job to do where we are. Yeah. And they have jobs to do where they are. And until we're done, we are gonna go, we are gonna be back. We are gonna live this life. So I love that he's protecting you still because you still have a lot of things to do in this world.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I'm I'm lucky we didn't have young children. I mean, I was 47. I was widowed at 47, so was my grandmother. Very strange. Um, but we didn't have any young children, and I I have such deep-rooted compassion for these young widows that have children. All of a sudden, our world was wrong.

SPEAKER_01:

And all of a sudden, you're responsible. Even if you are a widow and draw watch so many of my friends do that, and you're like, oh my gosh, I have to do everything myself.

SPEAKER_00:

We have a three-story home. It's one of those things where I'm like, oh my gosh, I've got to go all the way back upstairs because I forgot whatever. When I used to be able to just text Rick and say, Hey, can you throw it down to the laundry sheet?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_00:

I know that. Now I have to go. But so that so, and and we did have many wonderful years together. I knew he was the one when he put his hand on the small of my back, and then it was like like electrified. And we were just friends. I mean, there was not, you know. So we we had we had a really good relationship. We Which is like not the whole world guess. No, and and and it was one of those things where he was 16 years older than me. But he was active like a 12-year-old. Well, yeah, and he didn't look small. He didn't look small, he didn't really. And so, but we we traveled together, we laughed, we weren't even married yet, and uh I had had a surgery, and he was taking care of me, and my grandmother died. I was completely out of it, but he got me on a plane with him to Dallas, to the funeral, to the hotel, back to the airport, yeah, back to. And he, yeah, and he took care of me. And I don't remember really remember that whole trip because it was grief and surgery.

SPEAKER_01:

So, like that's God says he gives us a priest and king and our husbands in our households, and that's like the the image right there of somebody that will just stop everything to care for and make sure you don't miss something that meant a lot. It is sure because we're all shortcomings.

SPEAKER_00:

I mean, yeah, but for the most part, you know, the good that he did and how he took care of me outweighed all that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I'm not perfect in so many ways. I'm not, I mean, and our husbands are just human too, and they have to come to the same knowledge of Jesus and and the father's love for them. And it's hard because a lot of them had fathers that didn't teach him about the love of God. And that's the thing to go into that.

SPEAKER_00:

That's the thing, too. Because his dad was the best father-in-law I could ever ask for. But you have to remember, too, that Rick was married prior to me for 32 years.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_00:

It was not a good marriage for him, and his mechanism to communicate was to fight it out. Well, yeah, that's not me. And so we we worked together on that, and he changed. That's good. And he did it because I kept saying this is not the nerd. We just we're sorry, you were part of I was part of his uh revelation of who he's gonna become. Exactly. I think about him every day, but to think about us sitting on the porch and listening to after his dad died, his dad died on uh Christmas Day in uh 2017. So Rick died four months after his dad. After that, we were, you know, we were listening in uh Mercy Me. Oh I love that and so we would just listen to it and the only you know imagine. And I would always be like, God, I can't even imagine what it's like to see Jesus like to like hug him. I mean, and there's this one picture that I always see where the girl is running up and she was hugging on him. Like, God, I just I just bet that's the best.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, you know, and so did you ever go through a time where you thought, great, are you really even there or do you care about it?

SPEAKER_00:

I had words and I had uh lunch with Becky Ball. I told her, I said, I've I've been kind of angry, you know. And I'm I wasn't angry at Rick. I was angry at God. Yeah, yeah, because I knew Rick wouldn't want to leave. Yeah, and that's that's my anger towards God, was was towards God. Yeah, but God can always take it. He knows my inner thoughts, he knows my heart. Yes, he knows that me getting angry at him is not well and denying him.

SPEAKER_01:

What he desires more than relationships. Yes, yes, that's what he wants.

SPEAKER_00:

And so Becky told me, Becky said, Oh, he can handle it. Yep. I was like, you're so right. Because I'd be like, I'm so mad at you. What are you doing about me? And then I'm like, I'm sorry, but we know you know, but then Becky's like, no, he knows your heart, he knows that you're grieving, he knows that you're sad, but he also is glad you're turning to him in anger or praise.

SPEAKER_01:

And it's a comfort to me that Jesus came and lived in the earth because he lived like we lived. And when his best friend died, he cried. He knew that even though you know they everybody says he knew he was gonna rise again, and I'm not even positive of that. He knew God had sent him right for that time, but I don't think he knew. I don't think he knew right then he was heartbroken at the pain in the sisters and the pain he felt like that. He felt he felt the pain. He felt the pain. And we feel pain.

SPEAKER_00:

We love, we love, and he wants us to love what he does, you know, and so that got me through, but and that gets me through still every day, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

So um I hope that um if you're listening in, that you've gone to the website eastgreenhouse.com and uh signed up to be part of our community of women that support one another. That's what this is all about. Yes, because we need one another, because we need to be lifted up on those days when we just feel like crunch. We just don't know what to do. We want to be reminded that God still is good, God still is on our side and

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Denise Jackson

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