Cancer takes wife, who ‘never did complain’

“I’m 83. Been married four times. Divorced twice. The other two passed with cancer.

“I lost my wife, Jewell, on Jan. 19 last year. She was 69. She dealt with that cancer for many years. It spread all over. But if you had seen her walking around, you never would have thought she had cancer. She was always happy.

“Then one day, me, her and the daughter went to the funeral home. I said, ‘Why are we going there?’ My wife said, ‘Hush, you’ll find out later on.’ She didn’t want me to know that she had only six months to live. She didn’t want me to worry. And I tried my best. But sometimes at night when that cancer moved, man, she’d go to hollering. I didn’t know what to do for her. There was nothing I could do but sit there and look at her.

“But she never did complain. That was just the kind of person she was. She was jolly, happy, all the time.

“When we were at church for the funeral service, that’s when I broke down. I couldn’t take it no more. But that’s all right. It’s best to cry. Best to get it all out. Because if you keep it in, it gets worse and worse.

“At the cemetery, oh man, my chest locked up on me. I thought it was my heart. But it was all that stress. I didn’t know it could be so strong. They had to rush me to the hospital. I wasn’t there to see them put her in the ground. I haven’t been back to the cemetery. It’s too hard. I try not to think about the bad stuff, all I’ve been through. I try to keep my mind off things like that.

“Before she passed, my wife told me, ‘You don’t have to worry about me. Because I know where I’m going.’ And that’s a good blessing. Yes, indeed.”

— C.J. Edmond

C.J. is a deacon at Mt. Calvary Baptist Church in Baytown, where Jewell also was a long-time member. “I used to have dogs when I was young. I had one that I called Bozo. My mother would say, ‘Both you Bozos, get out of that bed.’ Then my sister started calling me Bozo the Clown. It stuck. Everybody at church calls me Bozo. Even my pastor.”