“Jan texted and told me her dad wasn’t doing too well, so they wouldn’t make it,” Lib said.
Jan Taylor Clark is the type of person to let you know this so those seats could be used by someone else.
Seeing as I had all sorts of sentiment, because of the season we are in, and because of the reminiscent nature of my Christmas shows, my head went swirling in a dance of tenderness for Cliff and Bea. I texted Jan and told her how sorry I was to hear her dad was not well. It’s been decades of them being at this event, and I knew through my church calling that Cliff had lung cancer, so the thought pulled at my heart. I asked her if it would be helpful or harmful to have us come sing to Cliff and Bea in their home. It was Sunday, and there was no concert that night. Nurturing through song seemed a perfect thing to do on a day set aside for holy things. So our day of rest last week ended with a divine little gathering in Cliff and Bea Taylor’s living room. Hugging Bea close, she whispered in my ear, “Your mother sold us this house, you know.”
“I know! And aren’t we all so grateful?”
My mother, twelve-years in Heaven now, was then a very active real estate agent and found this spot in our own neighborhood for this wonderful couple thirty years ago.
Cliff tried to rise from his chair when I shifted over to him. I interceded and bent down to throw my arms around his neck.
How ya doing, Cliff?”
“Oh, I’m dyin’.”
We both giggled, that kind of giggle that comes in spite of the pit in the belly.
Dave and I spent less than an hour there, playing guitar and singing songs that they had missed the night before. I sat on the piano bench there in their elegant living room. The space spoke of the people, refined but accessible, and so full of love and good humor. Cliff and Bea sat in that circle with us. It reminded me of other holy circles. Their beautiful, devoted, faithful daughter Jan and her husband Steve right there with them, and then the next generation of Jan and Steve’s girls, and their husbands and children. There were stories, and laughter, and an abundance of reverence. Tears made their way down the grand-daughters’ tender cheeks. Little ones snuggled up to their parents and grandparents and great-grandparents. I was conscious of the vast rippling circles of life as I sang.
At one point I reminded Cliff of the time he showed great love and tenderness for us by the gentle comfort her brought to our daughter Sarah when Dave’s mom died suddenly in a car accident. Helen, Dave’s mom, had dropped us at the airport in Michigan after a two week visit at her cottage on the lake. As we flew home she was in a car accident driving back to the cottage. I’ve always imagined her pausing on her way up to heaven, peeking in the airplane at her son and his kids, blowing us kisses as she passed.
The loss to us was quick, and shocking, and tragic in the way it happened. There was serious grieving over here in the Connors house. That was on a Saturday. On Sunday evening there was a knock on our door. It was Cliff Taylor. He asked if Sarah was home.
“I just wondered,” he said to her, “if you’d like to take a little walk with me. She was thirteen years old and Cliff was her Sunday School teacher.
When Sarah got home, I asked her how their walk went.
“He asked me to tell him about Grandma.”
I drive through the streets of this blessedly familiar neighborhood and let my imagination recall all sorts of memories. I do this all the time. I call up old feelings when I do this, and it’s a sweet exercise. One of those images is of Cliff Taylor when he was younger than I am now, walking on a warm summer evening with a teenage girl, letting her recount the loveliness of her grandmother. Not many adults would put themselves in that risky situation to have an evening walk and conversation with a hormonally driven teenager who was in a family crisis.
Cliff, up until maybe a year ago, was our church membership clerk. He would walk the aisles of our chapel during Sacrament meeting, keeping count for church records. There was a gentle whisp of air that always brushed my cheek when he passed down the aisle, his clipboard in his hands, dressed in his well-made suit and crisp white shirt and tie. He was such a staple in my church experience that when his cancer pressed down on him and he had to stay home, church just plain felt different.
In spite of the fact that Cliff’s spirit was completely itself last Sunday night when we took some music to his little family, his body did not agree. Cliff took the mighty leap to Heaven in the early hours of Saturday morning.
I’m grateful it does not hurt for him to breathe anymore.
But I am indeed sorry for the rest of us. It feels impossible to imagine he is not here right now. And Bea will be so lost without him.
Cliff Taylor was warmth and light and intelligence and kindness in human form. He was a gift to humankind, and we who knew him have been blessed by his presence.
There are, less and less common these days, real honest to goodness gentlemen who enrich our world. And there are gentle men who touch our lives.
Cliiff Taylor was both.
https://www.russonmortuary.com/obituaries/clifford-a-taylor/12548/
