The high temperature in Milwaukee on January 1, 1974 was -4 degrees. For whatever reason, Clarence often liked to make note of the weather in his journal. This day was cold, but no different from past winter days. The night before he and Carol had once again hosted their New Year’s Eve party, another well-attended, if slightly tamer, affair. Clarence was 57 years old now and adjusting to retired life. Wendy had graduated from UW-Madison and moved out on her own, beginning her career as a social worker at Luther Manor Senior Retirement Community in Wauwatosa. Diane, too, had moved on. She was a flight attendant with Delta Airlines and was stationed out in Boston. Kent still had a ways to go before leaving the nest – he had just turned 13, officially becoming a teenager. The beginning of a new year seemed a good time to take stock of things.
“I was never much of a sentimental cuss,” Clarence wrote, “but I was pretty darn proud of my entire family. Guess I was always too tied up with the VA and neglected some of the more little intimate thoughts I should have mentioned.”
The next day he had an appointment at the VA clinic to get a cortisone shot for an ailing knee. Like with everyone, the years had crept up and taken their toll with aggravating little aches and pains. Still, he felt plenty strong enough to get around town or enjoy his hikes in the neighborhood or the nearby park. Now, too, he had the time to resume correspondence with old friends, and “putter around” in the basement with his home movies, stamps and civil war records. At least one project he wanted to start was the writing of a family memoir based on the journals he had kept over the years. It was going to be an active retirement.
In February C.J., Carol and Kent flew down to Atlanta to attend the wedding of their cousin Gail McDaniell. It was the same festive and happy gathering that it always was when a trip to Georgia was involved. However, on Monday, February 18, while still in Georgia, he had a tough, uncomfortable night trying to sleep. In his journal the next day he noted: “Just didn’t feel right.”
Two days later, on the 20th, Clarence, Carol and Kent arrived back home and that’s when he first noticed blood in his urine. On the 21st he was admitted to the VA hospital. While in the hospital on the 23rd he wrote: “Feeling OK, but there’s something wrong.” And indeed there was. A malignant tumor was found on one of his kidneys. On the 27th he was admitted for surgery and the kidney was removed. In the span of ten days everything in his life was turned upside down.
Initial reports after the surgery were good, and doctors spoke guardedly yet optimistically that all cancerous cells had been removed. Such was not the case, however, and on April 24th Clarence underwent another operation to remove malignant cells growing on the outside of his lungs.
The cancer was spreading.
It would be difficult, if not impossible, to pinpoint exactly where C.J. was in terms of his diagnosis and his thoughts on June 16, 1974, but a telling sign might well be the passage he quoted that day in his journal. It came from political journalist Stewart Alsop’s memoir, A Stay of Execution, a detailed, if not gloomy, account of his final battle with leukemia.
“A dying man needs to die,” wrote Alsop, “as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong as well as useless to resist.”
When it comes to cancer there are fine and delicate lines one must walk. The balancing act between optimism, pessimism and reality is a tricky one. Clarence still had fight left in him in June of 1974, and reason for hope. But clearly he knew what was at stake.
From there things only got worse. His chest was still hurting from the April surgery. In July he started suffering severe stomach pains. On August 13th he was spitting up bits of blood and having his side incision drained again. His elbow was causing a lot of pain, too. By this time he was taking up to 30 pills and vitamins a day. Then on October 24, 1974 a Dr. Lawinka from the VA staff laid the cards on the table and told him there may be “bad trouble” ahead. The word ‘cancer’ is never once mentioned in his journals, and was hardly spoken of around the house, but the finality of what he was dealing with was coming more into focus with every passing month.
By the beginning of 1975 Clarence was feeling increasingly anemic and listless. “Just don’t have any zip,” is how he succinctly put it. His red cell blood count was falling. Almost daily trips to the VA clinic meant more x-rays, more prescription refills, even blood transfusions. Radiation and chemotherapy, advanced as they were at the time, were the decided forms of treatment. In between the pain and discomfort the significant dates rolled by. On April 9th he underwent another chest surgery. In July the problem was his intestines. On the 31st of that month he had several polyps removed. October 10 marked the thirty-sixth straight weekday he had bussed down to the clinic for treatment.
Somewhere about this time he came home one day and shook his head. “Carol,” he said softly, “I’m not going to make it.”
