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More Memories of a Great Man

May 21st, 2008 · No Comments · Character, Friends, Spiritual Journey, Values

Radio Flyer
In many ways Clyde Cook’s life was defined by a little red wagon when he was just six years old. It was December 1941, the damage to the U.S. Fleet at Pearl Harbor was done, and the Empire of Japan had turned its attack to Hong Kong. His father, a merchant ship captain, was away at sea, and he was home with his mother and siblings on one of the hills of Hong Kong. The bombing began on December 8, and by December 11 it was clear that Clyde, his brothers and sisters and their mother needed to move to safer ground. All they could take was what would fit in Clyde’s wagon.

The family, spirits kept healthy by prayer and the singing of hymns under a stairway as the bombs fell all around them, was picked up by a British military truck that drove them to safer quarters in the heart of Hong Kong. But after Hong Kong fell on Christmas Day 1941, the family was taken to different internment camps. Clyde and his sister were allowed to be with their mother in the same camp.

Clyde, a six-year-old with no small amount of energy and enthusiasm found ways to have fun in the camp, despite the fact that food was scarce, often bug infested, and sometimes rotting.

The lessons little Clyde learned in what some might call frightening, dire or even horrifying marked him for life. Not for evil, but for good. He learned early that possessions are subject to loss and therefore not what’s most important in life. He learned that God loved him, protected him, and saved him from an early death. And while these were not lessons that led him to faith in Jesus as his Savior, his lessons were profound nonetheless.

Clyde Cook told me the story I’ve just told you over dinner in Dallas, Texas in 1984. The next morning we
were to meet to kick off our new contract with Biola University. The goals was to help reverse negative trends in fundraising that had dogged the first two years of his presidency. A second goal was to restrategize and en energize student recruitment. But the meeting was cut short before it began when Clyde looked at me across the conference table and said, calmly as can be, “Jim, I think you’d better take me to the hospital. I think I’m having a heart attack. And he was.

Three days later the doctors at Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas deemed him well enough to travel back to Southern California for a follow-up visit to a cardiologist. Clyde made it as far as the Admirals Club at DFW International Airport. There he nearly died from a massive heart attack, one they call “the widow-maker.” He was rushed back to Presbyterian Hospital and spent weeks in recovery. I remember well visiting him once he was out of the woods. They had moved him to a very modest hospital suite with an adjoining room where Anna Belle spent her nights. I brought an autographed copy of Chuck Swindoll’s then-new book, Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life. Clyde and Chuck were friends then and their relationship continued to bear fruit for the rest of Clyde’s life — and even in death as Chuck brought Clyde’s memorial service message. Meanwhile, through all the trials, Anna Belle never left Clyde’s side.

A couple of months later I was at Biola University to provide creative direction for a series of photo shootsClyde after Heart Attack crop
to support a new student recruitment campaign we were doing for the school. One important adjunct was as series of new portraits of Clyde in his office and on his balcony which overlooked the growing campus. Clyde, always a big man, had lost an incredible amount of weight. It was especially striking because he didn’t appear to be overweight for his size on the day of his first heart attack. The weeks of hospitalization and recovery had made him what seemed to me to be too thin. Always one to spend little on himself, Clyde had not been able to return to Hong Kong for new suits that would fit him, and he was not about to pay U.S. prices! We had to use huge clamps on the back of his suit coat to make it appear as though it fit. We probably gathered six or eight inches of cloth!

But two very memorable things had not changed about Clyde since the physical trauma and near death: his rock-solid faith and his sense of humor. He wed the two like very few people I’ve ever known. And the combination got even better over the years of his presidency.

Clyde gave me a copy of his mother’s book that visit. It told the story of their internment by the Japanese. What an incredible story of faith and attitude triumphing over evil and the most trying of conditions. Clyde confessed that as a little boy he even managed to have some fun, and one day said to his mother, “Don’t you wish we could stay here forever!.” I don’t recall her exact answer, but it was the equivalent of a very tactful, “No.”

Clyde & Anna Belle cropPerhaps it was the foundational relationship with his mother that helped prepare and equip Clyde for his beloved Anna Belle. I’ve never heard anyone speak so collectively of life with his or her spouse. Phrases like, “Anna Belle and I . . . “ constantly rolled off his tongue. They were partners in life, partners in ministry, and most of all, partners in faith. What a great partnership. My heart hurts for Anna Belle; I cannot imagine how much she must miss Clyde. It’s at times like these that faith sees one through the darkness and into the hope of the Light.

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