MEMORIES OF RAPHAEL CLEMENT
Although I was raised in Fairview and knew the family since I was a child, I didn't particularly know dad. I do remember of hearing him and Don singing together accompanied by a ukelele played by Dad and later Don. Dad had an absolutely beautiful tenor voice.
When Don and I were married we moved into a house that Don was buying for us in Kennewick, Dad signed for it with Don so we could get it. He let Don take the car so we could do our courting. He was good to us and tried to help us.
After we were married he pretty much just left us to our own devices. I do know that when Mother would worry about us because we had not been married in the Temple, he would just tell her not to worry because it would be o.k. He was a very focused man and very determined.
Since I cannot remember things according to their chronological order I will just mention what I remember the way I remember them.
One time I was at their house on Taylor St. and had parked in the parking lot of the grocery and drug stores right across from their house. When I went to go home I backed out into a car that was driving through the lot. Dad heard it and came out on the porch and watched while it was being taken care of. He didn't do or say anything but he would have done if it had been necessary. It was very comforting to me.
He taught me a lot about the gospel. I hadn't had anyone in my house to help me to learn about it and clear up my misconceptions. He told me that it took two people to make a divorce just as it took two people to make a marriage. My parents were divorced and all I knew about it was what my mom told me. Dad told me that I should get acquainted with my dad because he was a very nice man. They had known each other in Fairview.
Next time I went home I went to see my dad who had remarried. We visited with my dad every time I went home after that and we corresponded all the rest of the time until he died. I am grateful for his wonderful advice.
He got me interested in genealogy and we worked on it together. Every once in awhile when He was making his inspections, or whatever he did, he would stop by for lunch and we would do genealogy.
He hurt his hand on one of his power tools and cut some of his fingers. He noticed a short time later that his joints of those fingers were becoming stiff and so he began piano lessons to keep them limber. He was very diligent with his practicing.
He was very good to the Yakima Indians that he was missionary to. Together with Mother they did a lot for them and was always concerned for them and fed them and gave them clothes as was necessary.
Dad wanted to get a farm or ranch or some sort of thing that we could all work at together when he retired. He really looked forward to retiring. We all kinda looked around for a place around the Columbia River Valley and even over into Oregon where there was a nut farm he liked. He never had a chance to retire.
We had asked him to bless our second daughter, Mitzi. We then decided that because Grandpa Clement was older that we maybe had better have Grandpa bless Mitzi and have Dad bless the next one but he said no, if we were going to have him bless one it needed to be this one because maybe he wouldn't outlive Grandpa. Almost as if he knew that he wouldn't.
I was sitting next to him at the meeting when they made us a Stake. I can't remember who the visiting authority was but he was saying that now that we were a stake that we would need a Patriarch and I thought to myself, that would have to be dad, but he was just sitting there so I thought well maybe not and then they announced that it would be Raphael Clement. He went limp and just as white as a ghost. They hadn't talked to him beforehand because of some oversight.
I had never had a Patriarchal Blessing and so we made arrangements and my blessing was the first one he gave. He was very worried about it. Eventually his girls couldn't type up the blessings anymore when they graduated from high school, so he practiced typing until he could do it himself.
He got the flu. It hung on and he just didn't get better. He started losing weight and complained of pain in his back. He went to the doctor eventually and they couldn't find anything wrong. They gave him an aspirin compound P.A.C. for his pain and it helped him. The doctor wouldn't believe that he was in that much pain because an aspirin compound relieved his pain and as much as called him a hypochondriac even though we all told him that Dad was very strong and not a complainer.
He continued to lose weight and was not able to work. It wasn't long before I had a pretty good idea what was wrong. If it had been today you wouldn't even have had to think about it you would just have known.
It took a long time but finally we convinced him to go to Salt Lake County Hospital where I had trained and knew the doctors. I made arrangements for the doctors appointments and we went to Salt Lake. I can't remember how we went but I had my car and the sisters in Richland were watching my girls and Don.
They admitted Dad to the hospital which, of course, he didn't want and he was unhappy about. I thought we would only be there a few days but if my memory is right it turned out to be three weeks. There were some of the doctors that wouldn't believe him and we couldn't convince them that he was not a complainer. Finally they decided that the only way they would be able to know for sure was to do an exploratory surgery. So once they had decided, the arrangements were made for surgery. I was in the operating room with them. When they found the cancer in his pancreas it was large and had grown all around the main artery and there was no way they could cut it out.
I was so mad that it had taken so long to find it and had allowed it to get so big. I was sure all along he had cancer but I didn't have any way to know where and the only treatment at the time was to try to cut it out.
They just closed him up and told us he had 2 - 6 months to live. He wanted to go home right away but they wouldn't let him go. I was eager to get home to my family so I left right away. I drove most of the night and not very long after getting home they called and said Dad had an abscess and they were going to drain it and would have to do it without anesthetic. I couldn't go back and they did it without any problem. He quickly improved to the point that he could leave. I don't remember how he got home but I do remember how glad he was to get there.
As soon as he got home he started preparing a place that mother, Charlie and Susan and Grandpa could live in. They started the house in Kennewick. At first he would go over every day and do what he could and then gradually it just got so he could do less and less so it pretty much fell to Bud. We all went over as often as possible and did everything we could to help. Dad's sister, aunt Nancy, had come to be with him while everyone was gone to work and school, and that was good because that way he could stay at home, which he wanted so badly to do.
Mother had gotten a job as a "House Mother" and was gone in the evenings. That made it possible for them to continue living there in Richland until the house was finished.
He was in a lot of pain. He would go outside and sit on a cot so the sun could shine on his back and that seemed to help him a lot. He was determined that he wasn't going to be addicted to drugs when he died so he wouldn't have that addiction to overcome on the other side - and he wasn't. I didn't have much to do with his care because aunt Nancy and Mother pretty well took care of him. The only time I helped was when there was something they couldn't do. He was very strong and remained faithful. One time I asked him how it felt knowing he was going to die. He said he was ready as soon as the house was done. He said he couldn't complain about or blame anyone or anything but God and he sure wouldn't do that because he didn't cause it.
I had told him several times that he could come to our house anytime and I would take care of him but he wanted to stay at home as long as possible. He was worried about having to go to the hospital and spend what money he had and Mother, Grandpa, Charlie and Susan wouldn't have anything to live on. He didn't have that to do either.
He called on a monday and said he was ready to come and be taken care of. He had gotten too weak to get up anymore and aunt Nancy and Mother were having trouble handling him. I told him I would have the day to get ready. We only had a 2 bedroom house and I had to move the girls out of their bedroom, make arrangements for a hospital bed, urinal, bed pan, etc. that I thought I might need. I was sure I would have him for sometime because he was still strong I felt.
Don went and got him on tuesday. He couldn't walk into the house so Don carried him. It was really hard for Don to carry him because it was some distance to the house and there were four stairs to our sidewalk. We lived on kind of a hill. When Don got him up the steps Dad asked him if he would turn him around so he could look out over the valley. Don did, and Dad did get to look over the valley one last time. We got him into the house and into bed. He was exhausted. He rested awhile and when Mother came on her lunch break, he told her that he could see that the house was practically finished and he was very tired. Aunt Nancy was there too. During the night he slipped into a coma and he died about 9 am thursday, Thanksgiving day. I don't remember anything about the funeral and burial but I'm sure others in the family do. He was very good and kind to me. I loved him.
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