My friend Clarence

[The Annoyed Man]

My friend Clarence Petit went home to glory at 6:00 a.m. today. He lived up in Fairview, Oklahoma, and he had been fighting cancer for the past year or so. He moved to Fairview from California about a year and half ago to take care of his then 89 year old mother who was recovering from open heart surgery. Not too long after he moved, he began having stomach pains. For a long time, doctors sort of brushed him off with diagnoses of constipation, or gas, and kept telling him to take a laxative and he would be fine. By the time his doctor took his pain seriously enough to order tests, it was too late. Clarence's cancer had metastasized, and it was in his stomach, bowel, liver, and lymphatic system; and his diagnosis was terminal. By the time of his death, it had spread to his brain too.

I knew Clarence from my old church back in Pasadena, California — Lake Avenue Church. We were both members with our wives of the same adult Sunday school class. Clarence was married to Deanna, who preceded him in death 5 years ago. One of Deanna's favorite praise songs was called "Jude Doxology," and the LAC worship band played it once in a while during services. One day, we played that song, as as I came off the stage at the end of the worship set and joined my wife in a pew, Clarence and Deanna were sitting right behind us. Deanna tapped me on the shoulder and, as I turned in my seat to listen to her, she whispered, "that's my favorite song! Will you play that for me at my funeral?" How do you answer a question like that? I knew that she had some health issues, like diabetes and arthritis, but I didn't think she was dying or anything. I was taken aback, and I said something like, "sure, but you don't know something I don't know, right?"

Ten months later, I performed "Jude Doxology" at Deanna's funeral.

During Clarence's illness, I made a total of five trips up to Fairview to visit and to minister to him and to his mother — the last trip being in December. On two of those occasions, another friend named Jeff, who is the former president of our old Sunday school class, flew out from California to join me. The class paid for Jeff's tickets and expenses so he could afford to make the trip and represent the class during those visits. We, the class, constitute all of Clarence's friends, since he didn't know anybody to speak of in Fairview, other than his mother.

On Monday last, we learned that Clarence had taken a turn for the worse, but being several hundred miles away, it was difficult to find out just how bad it was. Jeff was broke and the class couldn't afford to buy him another ticket, so I sprung for his airfare so that he could fly out here and join my wife and me on one last trip. Jeff will arrive here Monday afternoon, and then the three of us will drive up to Fairview Tuesday morning. We had hoped that we would make it in time to see Clarence one last time before he passed, but that was not to be. Clarence's half brother called me this morning to let me know that Clarence was gone.

So, Jeff is coming anyway, and we are going to drive up there on Tuesday anyway, except that we will be devoting the visit to ministering to Doris, Clarence's 90 year old mother, instead. We're driving back down to Grapevine Wednesday afternoon so that I can get Jeff onto a 7:00 a.m. flight from Dallas back to LAX on Thursday.

I have been asked to perform "Jude Doxology" and to speak at Clarence's memorial service next weekend on Saturday, so my wife and I will be driving back up to Oklahoma on Friday, two days after we get back. After the service, I have to drive back to Grapevine to be here in time to play at Sunday services, so this is going to be an exhausting week.

PRAISE: Clarence's long and painful suffering is over. He was a simple man, one of the "least of these," and he was a saved Christian. According to the principle that "the last will be first," I expect that when I go home to glory, I will be reporting to someone like Clarence.

"Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?"

1 Corinthians 15:55

PRAYER REQUEST: Please pray for Clarence's mother, Doris. She is 90 years old, lives in her own home, but is increasingly frail and has nobody to look after her. She is cherished by her local church, of which she is far and away the oldest member, but increasingly she needs help. On Friday, she woke to a busted water heater and a flooded washroom. And now she has to bury her son. She needs comforting in the worst way.

Please pray for travel mercies for my wife and friend and me as we make the trip up there during freezing bad weather; and then again as my wife and I go back up there for his memorial service. Please pray for energy and focus.

And please pray also for me that the Lord would give me the words to say next Saturday. This will be the third time in the last five years that I have been called to speak and provide music at a friend's funeral/memorial service. I accept the call with humility, and I realize that it is a privilege, but I don't have a lot of friends, and I am not fond of having to eulogize them.

Thank you in advance for your prayers.

[buffalo_speedway_tx]

I will remember both his mother Doris and your friend Clarence in my prayers. May he rest in peace.

[MasterofFajitas]

I'm sorry for the loss of your friend.

You, your wife, and your friend will be in my prayers. I will pray for Ms. Doris as well.

[BobCat]

Hang in there Chris. Thinking of you and your wife, and Clarence, and Doris. Keep the shiny side up and the rubber side down. My hat is off to you for all your are doing for your friend and his family.

Warmest Regards,
Andrew

[CompVest]

I pray for your safe travel and for Doris that she will find strength,comfort, and continued good health so she cna continue in her home. That her church family will take care of her needs as your friend Clarence would.

[Kevinf2349]

Please accept my deepest and heartfelt sympathy for loss of your friend.

May the Lord protect you and all those travelling with you to say farewell to your friend and give thanks for his life. My the Lord soothe those left behind and give you the courage and strength that you will need in the coming days.

Stay safe

[Crossfire]

We will pray for Doris, and for you and Mrs. TAM as you travel.

[carlson1]

We will add you to our prayer list as well.

[Tregs]

TAM,
With deep sympathy and fervent prayer.
James 5:16

Tregs

[Keith B]

Prayers added here as well TAM. My condolences for the loss of your friend.

[cougartex]

All are in my prayers.

[The Annoyed Man]

Thanks everybody. I just got back from Fairview last night. I'm exhausted. I am driving back up there tomorrow, with my wife, and will spend the night there so as to participate in Clarence's memorial service on Saturday. I'll be playing some songs and giving his eulogy. Then it's a hammer down drive back to Grapevine, so I can be at a 7:45 a.m. rehearsal at church on Sunday. I'll be taking a long, well-earned nap on Sunday afternoon.

[Crossfire]

Drive safe, my friend.

[The Annoyed Man]

Drive safe, my friend.

I will. It's snowing like crazy, as you undoubtedly know, and I just hope the roads are clear tomorrow.

[The Annoyed Man]

Here is the eulogy I wrote for Clarence:

I am here to speak for my friend Clarence Alton Pettitt, Jr., whom you all knew as "C.A.," but I knew as simply as Clarence. And in a larger sense, I am also speaking for my friend Jeff Leonard, the “other guy,” and for the Galilean adult Sunday school class of Lake Avenue Church in Pasadena, California.

We are here today to memorialize Clarence’s life. As when examining anyone’s life, there are the bare bones statistics — the dates of birth and death, the date of marriage, the names and ages of children, and more — but what do those statistics tell us about the person? Was he a saint, or a reprobate? Was he brilliant, or dumber than a bag of hair? Sweet or foul tempered? What was the essence of the man?

In the past few months, Jeff and I have been asked several times to explain how it is that a couple of guys would make repeated trips from southern California and Dallas/Fort Worth to visit a guy who came here to Fairview, as a relative stranger, in his time of need.

A friend of mine recently put it like this, “During the worst of my husband's illness, when my cross seemed too heavy to carry, a good priest friend said to me...’Sometimes you don't just carry your own cross; God willing, you carry the cross that another cannot. Think of the wonder of it all...helping another carry a cross.’”

But Jeff Leonard answered the question best when he said, “I am here because I loved Clarence; and I loved Clarence because he first loved me.” And that is the truth of it. So I want to tell the story of Clarence, as I knew him, and maybe I can flesh him out for you; change him from being the guy who played here in the lumberyard as a boy, only to move away for most of the rest of his life; the guy who returned to Fairview for the last year or so of his life, purposing to take care of his ailing mother, who instead spent most of that time in and out of hospitals himself, only to die a hardest of deaths. God willing, we will memorialize Clarence in such a way that you would all know him a wee bit better, and raise up an Ebenezer Stone in your minds to mark that here, in the life of this man, God did a great work.

Clarence just showed up one day in our adult Sunday school class at Lake Avenue Church. He had been attending a different church with his wife, Deanna, but that church was no longer meeting his spiritual needs. And so even though Deanna could not yet bring herself to leave the church in which she had grown up, Clarence came to our church, on his own, because he instinctively knew that he needed to be fed God’s Word. Jeff met Clarence in the church pew and invited him to visit the Galilean class. Clarence never left. He stuck to it. And soon enough, perhaps a few months later, Deanna began to accompany Clarence to Lake Avenue Church, and to the Galilean class. And because Clarence stuck, we came to know him and Deanna, and we were blessed by that knowing.

He stuck. That was part of the essence of Clarence. He was a stayer. He was true, and loyal, and loving. And he was humble; and he served his wife. Not as a slave, but as a humble servant. When Paul wrote his epistle to the church at Philippi, he said (chapter 2, versus 4):

Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

And from Ephesians 5:25

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her.

That is how Clarence lived his life during the time I knew him, which was for perhaps the last 15 years or so of his life. He was obedient to God, and he loved Jesus. He was a servant to his wife. And he was a good and loyal friend.

One of my favorite memories of Clarence is of an afternoon that he, my son, and I spent together at a shooting range. Many of you might not have known this about Clarence, but he was a crack shot. He worked as an armed security guard, and so it was professionally important to him to be good at it, and he had to qualify regularly to maintain his certification. So we go to the range, and my son and I bring along all these different guns and boxes of ammunition. Clarence shows up with a little ol’ .38 caliber revolver wrapped in an oily rag, and a clear plastic bag full of loose, unboxed “boolits.” And then he proceeded to humble the two of us because he was good. Really good. He methodically worked over that target, holding his tongue just so, and shot a ragged hole into that bullseye. I was suitably impressed.

But it didn’t end there, because now, we didn’t just have “churchy” fellowship, but we had a hobby in common; we were both “men of the gun.” Our friendship continued to grow, and I came to really appreciate his friendship. At Galilean retreats, my wife and I would seek out the table he and Deanna were seated at for dinner. We broke bread together. We worshipped together. We held our tongues “just so” and shot the center out of targets together.

And that is such an apt metaphor for how Clarence faced life. He shot the centers out of the targets. He loved Jesus. Bullseye! He loved Deanna and served her. Bullseye! He honored his mother and was devoted to her. Bullseye! He loved his friends. Bullseye!

He shot nothing but bullseyes. He was my friend, and I am going to miss him.