The year 2000 was an interesting one, full of ups and downs. We faced the challenges…lived through the pain, shed many tears of joy and heartache. We lived one day at a time. Six months in, we got engaged. It felt so right. We planned a September wedding on the ice. Being the Coyotes team writer had its perks. We planned a summer vacation to Disneyland and I quit my weekend job at KEZ so we could do it right. It wasn’t meant to be. IT had come back and with a vengeance. The chemo and radiation took his hair and his vitality. He wasn’t able to do the things he normally did. Climbing into his lifted truck was no longer something he could do. Work for him consisted of struggling through the day and trying to remain positive. Most of his friends avoided him because he was a mere shadow of the man they all knew and loved. IT does terrible things to people. He almost lost his life that summer. There was no waiting until September. The cool wedding on the ice wasn’t meant to be. It was on this day, July 23, 2000, that I stood beside a hospital bed that cradled the love of my life. He was anchored to tubes and IV’s. He was as proud and as bald as an eagle. He knew that he wasn’t alone. I gave him my vow that day not to just be his wife but to give him my strength to fight IT and to do whatever we could to beat IT. I wasn’t thinking about the end result 7 months later. I was living in that moment and that moment only. We all know the end to this story was bleak and heartbreaking. I think of it as one of the greatest and most tragic love stories. I lived it. I wouldn’t have traded it for anything in the world. I despise IT and what IT took from me and the rest of the people who knew and loved Cliff. My son lost the only real father he ever knew. A mother lost her young son way too soon. Aunts, sisters, brothers, nieces, nephews and close friends of his still feel the ache of his absence. His daughter never really got to know her father the way she should have. Young babies are affected by his presence in the afterlife. He still watches over us even if we don’t see him…he is there. He was one of the toughest, craziest, hard assed, most fun loving guys I ever knew. I will always remember and treasure what he brought into my life.
Posted on: Wed, 23 Jul 2014 15:10:43 +0000
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