The Chapel Light - February 2008

I’ve read Scripture in front of lots of people on many occasions. But as I looked down at the black words on the white page this time, I had trouble finding my voice. “…And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes…there shall be no more death…nor sorrow…nor crying…”  The next sentence brought a knot to my throat.  My eyes were burning, and I couldn’t hold back any longer.  I let the grieving flow and read through my tears: “There shall be…no…more…pain.”     Those last three words were so hard to get out at my father-in-law’s funeral, because they summarized the life of the man who I had come to know and love. My father-in-law, Clarence Dunnett, was born in Toledo, OH in 1926. Conceived close to his mother’s change of life, Clarence was so small that his mother didn’t know she was pregnant.  She went to the hospital that October morning to find that what she thought was an attack of appendicitis was actually labor pains for her fifth child. His mother was unprepared to have a baby that late in life. She even gave the task of naming him to Clarence’s sisters, almost twenty years his senior, and Clarence was always perplexed as to how such young women could name a boy something as unromantic and   uninspiring as “Clarence Elwood”!     Clarence was never a big man. The Dunnett’s weren’t towering stock to begin with, and being born just in time for the Great Depression to parents on the older end of the scale, Clarence Dunnett suffered poverty and malnutrition as a child. He may have reached 5’9” at his tallest, and for most of his adult life he wasn’t much more than 130 pounds. One of our family’s fond memories from this past Christmas was an “argument” he had with my daughter Amy (barely 5’4”) about who had smaller feet. Clarence often had trouble finding shoes small enough in men’s sizes, but when Amy challenged him to fit into her high heels, he tried – and lost the contest.  Antics like this were common, and he often had the family in stitches.     Being small and poor, he was often the butt of jokes as a child, and being the butt of jokes he learned how to fight. He relished telling David & Goliath stories of fights from his childhood.  Because of his quickness and speed he ended up being a very good boxer and an even better baseball player – and coach (though it took him awhile to realize the latter).  In his seventies someone persuaded him to help coach the local Christian school’s girl’s softball team. A number of those parents were among the nearly five hundred that came to pay their respects at Clarence’s viewing, thanking us for the patient input that Clarence had had in the lives of their daughters. He also coached his children and grandchildren to excellence in athletics. You don’t want to play catch too long with my wife. To this day she can give your glove hand a pretty good beating!  (She can box too – ask her to tell you the story…).      Perhaps it was the times, or her time of life, but whatever the reason, Clarence’s mother was very hard on her son and extremely critical of him. He grew up believing himself to be stupid. But this “stupid” kid ended up doing an honorable stint in the Navy; when going through his things in the attic the family found several achievement medals which we’d never heard about. He also ended up managing a very successful business engineering and selling cutting tools to the automobile industry. When word of his death got around, letters – not cold form letters, but very detailed personal notes – were sent from managers at General Motors and other businesses that dealt with him testifying to Clarence’s engineering expertise in this precision business as well as his truthfulness, his servant’s attitude and his outstanding business ethics. My father-in-law didn’t play games – he didn’t wine and dine people – he was a straight talker and he refused to lie – even when telling the truth meant losing a sale.     One of the most amazing things about Clarence Dunnett was that he built much of this success after he had been stricken nearly to death with a devastating combination of spinal meningitis and encephalitis in 1979. He was hospitalized for a month; when the doctors released him they told my mother-in-law they were sending him home to die. Carolyn, who’s quite a fighter herself, insisted that Clarence wasn’t going to die if she had anything to say about it.      That was about the time I met Clarence and Carolyn (1980).  I’ve spent much of my adult life watching Carolyn stubbornly nurse him back to health and watching Clarence stubbornly struggle back to normal life against his own weakened body. I watched him build a successful sales business, despite his having to learn to drive again due to nerve damage in his feet (he couldn’t feel the pedals – riding with him during that time was a real hoot!), the residual effect of the meningitis, and despite regular debilitating headaches, the residual effect of the encephalitis. I have so many memories of family get-togethers where Clarence would suddenly pull back into a corner, cross his legs, and his head would drop into his hand, toughing out a headache without complaint. When the pain would pass, he’d come back and play with his grandchildren like nothing was wrong. He suffered so gracefully.     Last year a nasty bacterial infection (C. diff.) almost killed him. He was hospitalized for several months. While recovering a nurse administered the wrong medication which damaged his optic nerves, making him almost completely blind. He kept on. Once home he went back to work, and his cheerfulness masked the fact that he was almost totally blind. We would all forget about it until dinner, when he would stare at a full plate that he couldn’t see, and then would say, with a chuckle in his gravelly voice, “Would someone tell me what I’m having for dinner?”     A few weeks ago my father-in-law suffered a stroke and while in the hospital contracted several staph infections. His body battled once more with such focus that he went into a coma. On the morning of January 23rd, the family phoned us from the hospital room and said that my wife should say good-bye. They put the phone to Clarence’s ear;  Chrissy said her goodbyes, and then began to sing “I’ll Fly Away."  Just as she began the third verse, her sister came on the phone and said, “Chris, he’s gone.” He flew away.     “…No more pain…”  The many memories recorded in this brief tribute rushed through my mind in the second that I pondered those words in Revelation 21. The tears flowed, not merely because of the loss of my father-in-law, but for the memory of the heroic and graceful endurance he demonstrated in life, and the joy that we have because our hope in Christ means no more pain. No more staph infections. No more strokes. No more headaches. No more struggles.  No need to fight ever again. Just rest.  Blessed rest.  Rest in his true home – the loving arms of the Father of all spirits (Hebrews 12:9) to Whom he really and rightfully belongs.