Forever and Then Some: Memoirs of a Caregiver with Her Love

By Dr. Sue Clifton

Woody and I almost made our fiftieth wedding anniversary—a marriage filled with adventure: fly fishing, backpacking in mountains; living in exotic locations like New Zealand and Alaska; and retiring to a beautiful cabin high in the Beartooth Mountains of Montana. But the last two years proved traumatic when the monster Glioblastoma tore apart our dreams for retirement by stealing Woody's memory and sense of time and place, zapping his energy, stamina, and balance until standing and walking were impossible. The beast ravaged my love and instilled indefatigable fear in my heart and mind—the one who loves and cares for him beyond the bounds of human compassion and marital devotion. "If you need me, call me!" was his oath to protect me, and all I could give him in return was my promise. "I WILL LOVE YOU FOREVER AND THEN SOME!" Together we fought but in the end, my Woody grew weary and wanted to "go be with the Lord." Now I sit alone in silence, surrounded by a shrine of oversized pictures of my handsome cowboy and I yearn for "Then some" which is heaven. Soon, my love! Soon!

• Language: Unknown
• Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
• Release date: Sep 29, 2021
• ISBN: 9781509240418

Dr. Sue Clifton

Dr. Sue Clifton is a retired educator, fly fisher, ghost hunter, and published author. Dr. Sue, as she is known, can't remember a time when she did not write beginning with two plays published at sixteen. Her writing career was placed on hold while she traveled the world with her husband Woody in his career as well as with her own career as a teacher and principal in Mississippi, Alaska, New Zealand, and on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana. The places Dr. Sue has lived provide rich background and settings for the novels she creates. Dr. Sue now divides her time between Montana and Mississippi and enjoys traveling with Woody as well as with her 13,000 plus outdoor women's group Sisters On the Fly. Dr. Sue loves all things vintage, especially her vintage camper Delta Blue. Dr. Sue also enjoys traveling with sister Nyoka researching for their new paranormal mystery series "Sisters of the Way." Dr. Sue is the author of nine novels, five in her series "Daughters of Parrish Oaks" with The Wild Rose Press plus two in a new series "Sisters of the Way" written with sister Nyoka Beer. She is also author of two novels, two nonfiction books, and one children's book elsewhere. Dr. Sue supports Casting for Recovery (CFR) and St. Jude's Children's Hospital with a portion of the profits from her books.

Book preview

Woody and I almost made our 50th wedding anniversary—a marriage filled with adventure: fly fishing and backpacking in magnificent mountains; living in unique locations like New Zealand and Alaska; and retiring to a beautiful cabin high in the Beartooth Mountains of Montana. But the last two years proved traumatic when the monster Glioblastoma tore apart our dreams for retirement by stealing Woody’s memory and sense of time and place, zapping his energy, stamina, and balance until standing and walking were impossible. The beast ravaged my love and instilled indefatigable fear in my heart and mind—the one who loves and cares for him beyond the bounds of human compassion and marital devotion. If you need me, call me! was Woody’s oath to protect me and all I could give him in return was my promise: I will love you forever and then some!

Together we fought but in the end, my Woody grew weary and wanted to go be with the Lord. Now I sit alone in silence, surrounded by a shrine of oversized photos of my handsome cowboy and I yearn for Then some which is heaven. Soon, my love! Soon!

Dr. Sue

Forever and Then Some

Memoirs of a Caregiver

with Her Love

by

Dr. Sue Clifton

Forever and Then Some

COPYRIGHT © 2021 by Dr. Sue Clifton

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: [e-mail]

The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

PO Box 708

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

Publishing History

First Edition, 2021

Trade Paperback ISBN 978-1-5092-4040-1

Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-4041-8

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

To Woody,

My fly-fishing partner,

My consultant in western/cowboy terminology,

My mentor in writing steamy scenes (Woody once told his co-workers,

I taught Sue everything she knows),

My travel guide who took me to places to live, places I never even dreamed of visiting,

My financier and backer of crazy woman ideas and dreams,

My man who keeps me sane—while driving me crazy!

My husband.

My best friend.

My love...

FOREVER AND THEN SOME!

Safe Pasture: Purpose

FIND THE SAFE PASTURE!

THE HARDEST PART OF WRITING A BOOK IS THE FIRST LINE. With fifteen books published, I should have this hard part mastered but as I begin writing this most important book, I struggle once again with the first line. Tonight, exhausted from another day of grieving over the loss of my love Woody, coupled with an attempt to make this first inadequate line adequate, I go to bed early and fall into a deep, restless sleep that soon becomes shallow and useless.

Wait upon the Lord, I try to convince myself until finding I am wide awake at midnight. At this point, I begin rereading social media posts and public and private messages from the last twenty months, praying something will jump out at me. And jump it does—a message from ART BAILEY!

Art is one of Woody’s high school best friends and one Woody was quite proud of since Art worked thirty years with Billy Graham. Woody would have been thrilled—was thrilled—when Art’s voice echoed through the historic tombstones of Chapel Hill Cemetery in north Mississippi with Art giving Woody’s eulogy entitled The toughest guy I’ve ever known!

No surprise here it was Art giving me the first line! In several private messages to me after Woody’s death, Art encouraged me by quoting Bible passages—messages from God to guide the rest of my life before I join my love in the presence of Jesus. The biggest encouragement was letting me know more life for me is possible, something I struggle with daily. Art’s first message:

Find the safe pasture, Sue. God has more life for you. My Word from the Word for you is Psalm 37: 3-4 NIV: Trust in the Lord and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture. Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.

Now it is 2:23 a.m. and I sit at the keyboard pecking away, explaining the purpose(s) for writing Forever and Then Some. The first purpose is a selfish desire on my part to recap those special moments and events—the adventures, joys, not-always-joys and sometimes traumatic circumstances that shaped this fifty-year-long love story, a story worthy of retelling. My hope is couples of all ages, including my children and grandchildren, who read our story will find the desire and tenacity for making their marriages the best they can be. Don’t get me wrong! Ours is no pattern for a perfect marriage. That would be something best sought within the pages of Billy Graham’s Autobiography Just As I Am or in watching Nanny Clifton’s favorite old movie Love Story. Ours is simply the story of a blended family led by a couple who begins their marriage with more imperfections than are allowed—usually.

As an author, I have written in many genres but contemporary western romance (fiction) has been the genre most identifying me until now. Forever and Then Some fits well in the romance category except—this story is entirely true and is the most important book I have written or will ever write. It is also predictably the last book I will write.

SYNOPSIS: A man and woman, each already having a son, meet in their mid-twenties, marry after a sinfully short courtship, have a baby girl together nine months and three days after marrying, and form a blended family. From the beginning, their individual idiosyncrasies are stacked against this couple like barriers made from boxes stacked high in a warehouse forming a maze—daring each reader to try to decipher the best route to happiness and marital longevity but hitting a warning sign DON’T COUNT ON IT! The young woman’s own mother warns her about this new guy. But this young couple proves they are intent on making their marriage work. Heavenly Father knows they need each other and the need will increase tenfold as their years together move them from being a young couple in the prime of life to a senior couple in their seventies. When they announce they are getting married, many of their friends predict, It’ll never last! But Heavenly Father smiles down rebuking these naysayers with, Watch!

As Sue Nelson, I suffered from delusions of matrimonial bliss, something which more often exists in the romances I write later in life than in the reality of my early marriage to this cowboy in black hat Woody. From the start, ours was a marriage of bad tempers, fights over children who did not always blend, loose spending habits of both, and too much time spent apart. Throw in a competitive nature not conducive to compromise, excessive drinking and swearing on the part of one or both, and it appears NOT to have been a match made in heaven. My sitting here writing this story is the miracle of all miracles.

Ours is the greatest love story told, according to many who follow my posts on social media, especially the last two years. Many tell me our story has made them work to make their own marriages more loving. But truth is, our first twenty-five years encompassed some tough periods as you will learn early in these chapters but neither of us ever had any thought of throwing in the wedding rings. Woody and I were different and yet we were exactly alike in so many ways. Our anecdotes are unique, opposite, the same, and are often counterintuitive and counterproductive to marital success. A match made in heaven? YES! ABSOLUTELY! Only God could take two individuals such as Woody and me and turn ours into an unconditional love transcending time and trauma. Is our marriage over? Not while one of us remains on earth and intends to continue counting each anniversary as another year married, even if she is a couple of ONE. Woody always liked to go ahead when we moved to a new job, to sort things out and ready our place. Our separation is but a nanosecond in God’s time, and I am comforted by the fact I am seventy-six and can be with my love, as they say in heaven, SOON.

How will we spend this time apart? We will both study God’s Word, but Woody will be taught by the masters, perhaps even Jesus and/or His disciples, while I will be taught by those who are already teaching me: Pastor Paul and Bev Lindley; Dr. Mark and Lauretta Langley; Art Bailey and others who suggest Bible passages and other valuable resources such as Randy Alcorn’s books Heaven. Mark’s book Tyler’s Heaven was a gift from Mark and Lauretta and was the first book to give me the comfort I needed — the will to live without Woody temporarily.

I can only write our story from my point of view, but where I can, I will try to think like Woody, react like Woody, be like I think Woody would be. But whatever the point of view, I will write with the following purposes—to help other couples be loving companions for life—and then some; to help them each be to his or her spouse—A BEST FRIEND, LOVER, CAREGIVER, RESEARCHER FOR MONSTER DISEASES SUCH AS GLIOBLASTOMA, AND GRIEF BEARER—all with the understanding the ultimate finale will be HEAVENLY!

Dr. Sue (Sudi) Clifton

August 14, 2021

(Our 50th Wedding Anniversary)

NOTES:

1) Sue and Sudi are used interchangeably throughout the book and are the same person.

2) Throughout Woody’s illness, I created many videos and long posts for social media to keep family and friends updated on Woody’s diagnosis, surgeries, and treatments. I will be using some of these posts since they are timely written and are much more accurate than what I could write now.

Dr. Sue

Chapter 1

Wild Woody

As told to Sue by Woody during an early, as before 5:00 a.m., morning chat,

February 2021

I decided I had enough high school long before my senior year. My goal was to hunt and fish, which required a little skipping school to improve my aim whether shooting or casting. Getting my limit in game—not good grades—was what challenged me most. Teachers told me I was smart and I could do so much better but I’ve done all right and probably made more money in life than a lot of my teachers.

As a teenager, I had a little wild streak—OK, a big wild streak. Some of my buddies called me Wild Woody. David Presley, Shelby Gibson, Butch Anderson, Linder (Frog) Taylor, Jimmy Hartsfield, Jerry Young, and Sykes Haney all knew the wild part of me well but the one who sees me in my adult life as more strong than wild, especially with my health problems, is Art Bailey, who often responds to Sue’s posts about me and always stresses my inner strength and courage, my toughness as he calls it. I love all my old friends but appreciate Art characterizing me this way in life, especially since Art retired with Billy Graham. Art would appreciate the new Woody who prays aloud every night with Sue and sometimes through the day. But I’ll save that for later in these memoirs, as Sue calls them. She’s the writer. Good thing! I can’t spell a lick!

I had good work ethics in high school, just not for school work. I began working at Ole Miss Texaco at a young age—pumping gas, cleaning up cars, fixing flats, or anything my Uncle Alec, the owner, asked me to do. I also worked for local surveyors in Oxford, Mississippi and learned a lot from them. As soon as I graduated from high school and took a few classes at Northwest Junior College, or Community College it’s called now, I got a job with Bethlehem Steele surveying and blasting door rails in North Dakota. My Uncle J.H., a long time construction superintendent, got me the job. Next I went to South Dakota to work for Paul E. Hardeman Construction as a surveyor, something I taught myself for the most part, like I did most of my construction skills. I am one who learns best by doing, not reading textbooks and certainly not sitting in class.

When I went to work for Hardeman, I had to put Mississippi in my rearview mirror and head to South Dakota and Colorado, surveying and laying out power towers, sometimes in dangerous areas. Every day after work in South Dakota, I’d head for the bars but would stop by the cornfields and swipe a few ears of corn. I love corn on the cob and the restaurant there would boil it up for me before I headed to the bar. The bar was a place of fond memories—good food, laughing with the guys, and free beer! The locals wanted to hear me talk and learned the more beers they bought me, the more they could satisfy their appetite for a real southern accent. I, along with a buddy or two, also killed pheasants and the restaurant cooked those for us, too, and never charged us. I guess they also liked to hear me talk. While I was in South Dakota, I bought Mother a hat made out of pheasant feathers. I loved my mother and in her last months, I was able to prove it to her. Sue says I was a good son.

My work in South Dakota ended when an open wet excavation caved in on me one day. Every part of me was covered up by heavy mud—all but my head. When they pulled me out, they pulled my boots, pants, and everything off in one big suction. The company boss wanted me to go back the next day, but I refused and drug up which means I quit my job in non construction terms. The boss warned me I’d never work with the company again. By the next day, I headed to Colorado to work with, you guessed it, Paul E. Hardeman Construction. I just picked up the phone and called the project manager in Steamboat Springs, and he told me, Come on! Don’t worry bout them som’-bitches! Sorry bout the cussin’. Sue’s been helping me to quit but we both slip sometimes with all we’re goin’ through. I hope Jesus can look over a little of this. Sue says if I pray and ask forgiveness, He will. She once told me if I saw I was going off a cliff or bout to die in a wreck or something, to remember to say Forgive me, Lord. That’s probably good advice for cussin’ and everything.

As a good ol’ Mississippi boy, I eventually returned to my roots and worked with my dad in his business Ole Miss Recapping. I traveled North Mississippi selling tires, managing to get my work done with plenty time left over most days for huntin’, fishin’, and drinkin’ beer. I started competing in rodeos, planned a few rodeos on my own since we didn’t have much of this in Oxford, and even rode a few bulls when no one signed up for the event. By rode I mean I hung on til I got out the gate and then made a quick dismount, mostly the bull’s doin’. I traveled to cutting horse shows a lot and to rodeos and got to know some of the big names in the rodeo circuit. Sue was surprised one day when I told her I knew a certain big name bull fighter we were watching on the Cowboy Channel. Folks used to call em clowns but not anymore thank goodness. Terrible to call someone a clown with that kind of athletic ability, especially when the bull rider’s life depends on the bull fighter’s ability. I even rode to some events with this bull fighter and his first wife. I have loved horses ever since I got my first one and kept it at Papa’s barn and pasture in Ecru, Mississippi. Me and the Ecru boys would ride horses all over creation. Later, our kids and I showed horses and won lots of trophies. Sue didn’t ride, too scared of horses, but she sure could tell if one of us missed a lead or didn’t sit up straight. That was a good time but I’m getting ahead of my story.

When I came home from the Dakotas, I met and married my first wife, Susan, and together we had a beautiful little dark-haired boy, Woodrow Wallace Clifton, III, who we nicknamed Tracy—you know, tres for three in Spanish. Our marriage did not work out and soon I was traveling every other weekend as far away as Louisiana to pick up my son and bring him to Mother’s. Mother was a better cook and I had to work a little and hunt and fish a lot and drink a Bud as Tracy called it. I never missed an opportunity to have Tracy with me but in the switchin’ about, he became a spoiled little boy, a little Wild Woody, III.

In the summer of 1971, I met my long-term wife Sue. Her friend Linda introduced us after I prodded her. Linda had told me all about Sue and somehow I knew I had to meet her. We dated just a short time before marryin’ and Lord willin’, we will celebrate fifty years of marriage this coming August. She’s my love and I bout drive her crazy checkin’ on her. I guess I’m more overprotective the older we get. We’ve had a good marriage and I thank God every day for Sue and she thanks Him for me. We do this out loud when we pray at night. We both have mellowed in our seventies and become real sweet on each other. We rarely are out of each other’s sight. I told her not long ago, I just want to sit in my recliner, hold my little dog Josee, and watch TV with my wife beside me. Now that’s a good marriage.

Chapter 2

Bubba

No, Linda! I don’t want to meet Woody Clifton! Dating for me never works out and you and I both know it. I am content to just come to the beach and bask in the sun with you and watch Jeff and Tracye play in the sand. I trace the tiny footprints with the careful eyes of an overprotective, loving mother, although in reality, I am a single unwed mom, teaching school to provide a meager income for my son and me while living the biggest lie ever told.

It’s my station in life you know. Besides, you said this Woody guy had a reputation. Wild Woody, you called him? Neither you nor I need ‘wild’ at this point in our lives. I motion toward our two cute children building mounds in the wet sand at water’s edge. Let’s just sit here and talk about our annual trip to Pensacola Beach when school is out in a couple of weeks. Tracye and Jeff love that beach and so do we.

My high school friend Linda, also a single mother, adored her daughter Tracye just a year older than Jeff. Linda was always playing matchmaker and had told me about this guy from Oxford several times but I did not bite. I tried to avoid wild which at one time would have acted as a much-desired calling card. I was trying hard to live up to the new reputation I had concocted, or rather my mother had created in order for me to secure a teaching job and be able to support my son.

I looked past Jeff at the waters of Sardis Dam and wondered if I would ever find someone who would love me. The man who fathered my son refused to marry me and was leaving me alone to give birth to and raise my child—somewhat understandable since we had not dated long. At the beckoning of his mother, he did go before the probate judge after Jeff was born and claimed him as his, giving him the last name Gentry. Legitimizing was what my lawyer called it as opposed to my son being illegitimate. The lawyer tried to talk me out of doing this but I did not want my son thought of as an unwanted child.

As I watched my little boy, my mind drifted to the emotional torture I went through being unwed in Mississippi in 1967-68. I was only twenty-one when I started teaching, having finished my B.S. degree in three years, and I taught my first year in Huntsville, Alabama where my sister Minnie, or Miki as her husband called her, and her family