“Clock leaves legacy of faith” By Rhonda Moore, Staff Writer Castle Rock News Press
wdaytonco May 23rd, 2008
The following article appeared in the Castle Rock News Press, 5/15/2008 from Colorado Community Newspapers. Many thanks to Rhonda Moore, Staff Writer at Castle Rock News Press for preparing this!
http://www.zwire.com/site/tab4.asp?brd=2713
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05/15/2008 |
| Clock leaves legacy of faith |
| By Rhonda Moore , Staff Writer |
When Darrin Clock was diagnosed with cancer, his first thought was for a winning battle.Clock was diagnosed with Leiomyo Sarcoma, a smooth muscle cancer typically found in children.
His team of medical specialists immediately began aggressive treatment, which included removing his pectoral muscle – where the disease was originally discovered, followed by aggressive radiation and chemotherapy.As he followed doctor’s orders for his medical treatment, Clock found his best medicine in a heavy dose of old-fashioned family love – the kind that would sustain the man his wife calls “a warrior” through his final days.
Before Clock would lose his battle against the deadly disease at age 42, he would build a legacy of faith in a family that can never ask, “what if?” As Clock approached the inevitable door to the afterlife, his family watched a man who left no stone unturned in his journey to the end, where God’s hand carried him in every way.
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“Darrin never wavered from his faith, he believed surely there’s something I can do in 40 more years,” said Kim Clock, his wife of more than 20 years. “He never wavered in his belief in his faith or hope, never.”Clock endured months of treatment between his diagnosis in May 2006 and one day in July 2007, when doctors at the Mayo Clinic advised him to enjoy his final days with his family. He and his bride held each other as they wept at the news.“I said to my daughters, I’ll give him a week before he goes back to chemo,” said Kim Clock. Kim had married Darrin when the two were 19 and 20 years old. The two had no way of knowing fate would soon send Darrin another reason to live.
On Aug. 1, 2007, the couple’s oldest daughter, Katee, was diagnosed with colon cancer. The news led Darrin back to a new oncologist, who would treat father and daughter as Darrin set a fighting example for Katee.
The decision would open another window of hope, with different kinds of miseries.
“It was horrible,” Kim recalls.
The doctors tried chemotherapy treatments new to Darrin’s system, all the while cautioning the family the effort would, at best, prolong the inevitable. Indeed, Darrin’s tumors continued to grow as he and Katee, then 20, underwent treatment. By Dec. 2007, Darrin endured surgery to remove tumors that would no longer respond to most of the chemicals, Kim said.
Darrin continued to work at the Town of
Shortly after Katee’s uplifting report, Darrin’s doctors discovered the source of pain in his hip bone. The cancer had spread to his bone and lower-body muscles. As Kim would say, “it was spreading all over.”
On March 19, at the family home, Darrin suffered mild seizures. A brain scan the following morning delivered the hardest blow.
The cancer had reached his brain.
“That news devastated him to a point I never …” Katee lost the words as she recalled what came next. “Everything else would hit him and he would say ‘we can beat this.’ When it went to the brain you saw not a fear but maybe an acknowledgement that ‘I might really lose this battle.’
“We would talk about the future, he never quit talking about it – that he was going to have a future and he was going to be OK,” she said. “He did not accept he was going to die in any way.”
Darrin underwent gamma knife surgery on April 9, a procedure Kim describes as a “new age halo” that looks like a “medieval torture device.” A scan revealed the brain tumors had grown 33 percent in little less than three weeks. The doctor told the family the effect of the cancer would soon begin to impact Darrin’s mobility.
When hospice came into the family’s life that month, Darrin asked what was expected of him. The response was “your job is to be comfortable.” When he asked what was expected of his wife, the response was “to love you.”
“That’s all I want her to do,” Darrin responded.
Kim will celebrate her 24th wedding anniversary this November without the husband she calls a “big man with a big personality and a big heart.”
“That’s a lot of man to lose,” she said. “My true love.”
Darrin chose April as his month to go to avoid Katee’s 21st birthday on May 10 and Ami’s high school graduation later the same month, Kim said. He passed peacefully April 22, with his wife, daughters, father and brother by his side.
Katee celebrated her birthday with a full day of swimming and dinner with friends while the family plans another celebration at Ami’s May 23 graduation. Her graduation day is the same date as Darrin’s birthday.
The celebrations must continue for a family whose leader wouldn’t have it any other way.
“You can’t be a weak family with such an amazing man,” Kim said. “Because of that we don’t have those ‘what ifs?’ You know everything he could have done, everything the doctors could have done, is done. You can’t be wimpy when you have such a strong person leading you, otherwise you wouldn’t survive very long.
“It’s very hard to be here without him but I know he would be really mad if we let this stop us and we didn’t go on with every day,” she said. “He would say ‘hey you woke up today, you have something to do.’ ”
Kim said she is eternally grateful for the support, prayers, kindness, generosity and love the family has received from the circle of friends and coworkers who filled Darrin’s life, she said. She counts on her faith, a presence she learned has grown in her life, to pull her through the coming years.
“I learned how big God is. He’s faithful and he is a provider and a comforter and He is just amazing,” Kim said. “Darrin and Katee learned you live today … you don’t want to put things off. We want to enjoy life and live today. That’s what we learned too, you have one day, today.”
303-663-7162 | rmoore@ccnewspapers.com