No, Bock Bock in this case wasn’t actually the name of a chicken. The kids gave this name to a good friend by the name of Paris Cloud who passed away in January from brain cancer at the young age of 59. His celebration of life was just last week so I decided I better write what we knew of him down before I forget. But really, I don’t think he can be forgotten.
Who was Paris, and was that really his name? From what I understand, he got his name from an ancestor of his. He told us of many stories of having relatives who were of Indian descent (Feather not dot). Paris was the son of the legendary Tampa Police Sergeant Richard Lee Cloud, who was assassinated by the mob at the age of 33 because of his relentless pursuit of the drug dealers and criminals of the Florida mob. There is an entire book written about the events surrounding his death and it will blow your mind. Find it HERE: The Last Lonely Eagle! Paris and his brother Paul were just 10 and 8, respectfully, at the time of their father’s death.
How did we come to meet Paris? I feel like it was divine intervention. For starters, Paris lived in Bellville, Texas with his mom Wanda. Bellville is about 2.5 hours away from us. So it’s not like it’s just down the road.
A customer of our business (Matties Auto Repair) actually recommended us to him after my husband Matthew was able to fix his truck when the dealers couldn’t figure out what was wrong. The sad part is that same customer still owes us like $2k. 🤐 But if it weren’t for him we would’ve never met Paris. Knowing Paris was definitely worth the 2k our former customer owes us.
I remember one of the first times that I actually heard of Paris was when we were on a family camping vacation in June of 2022 at McKinney Falls State Park. He called Matthew often to get some advice on what to do with his most prized possession, his 2003 Ford F-350, which kept getting close to overheating. He would talk and talk, his signature phrase was “I’m gonna let you go now” followed by another 30 minutes of talking. Matthew would let him talk and throw in some recommendations here and there and would just listen while he went about whatever he was doing…I think that day while camping, he was getting ready to cook over the fire. He wouldn’t hang up until Paris did.
Pretty soon after this trip, Paris was driving his truck down from Bellville to get Matthew to look at it. This continued just about every month getting different things looked at and/or fixed on his truck. He even rented a hotel room for a couple nights if his truck took longer to be fixed than scheduled. He was really dedicated to Matthew being the only one to work on it. He didn’t trust anyone else because if you know my husband, he is an honest mechanic and will give it to you straight without beating around the bush. Alot of people admire this about him, and Paris was one of them.
One of these times he was getting something overhauled on his truck, instead of getting a hotel room, we offered to let him stay in our camper for free. Shortly after, he volunteered to drive down from Bellville during the week to help Matthew catch up on all the mechanic work he was behind on. Paris said he was retired and was bored out of his mind. He said mowing his moms small yard multiple times every week to keep him busy was getting old so he told us he needed something to do. He would stay in the camper for a few days and help out in the shop, and then usually on Thursdays, he would drive back to his mom’s house before he was back again the next week.
We offered to pay him for working but he wouldn’t accept it. We offered to pay him for his diesel for driving down here but he wouldn’t accept that either. In fact, the only thing that he would accept was a homemade lunch and dinner everyday which I gladly provided. I found out after the fact that he loved my homemade sourdough bread (and now his mom does too!)
He even brought us deer meat to cook one time which the kids have always loved! And he would always stop by the store on his way in and buy his own drinks, and sometimes Caprisuns for the kids. There was no way we could repay him for everything he helped with and all the work he was doing, which was immensely helpful to Matthew.
Months went by like this, with a few breaks here and there for family vacations for us and doctor’s appointments for Paris(he didn’t know he had brain cancer at the time). Pretty soon, Paris became more than just a customer, more than just an employee, he became a really good friend who was basically family.
The stories he told us of his dad, of growing up, and of his adventures in his different jobs across the country and the world were irreplaceable. Oh and the stories of his near death experiences…he had so many of them, he practically had nine lives.
From his Evil Kineval stunts as a kid which broke multiple bones right after his Mom literally told him to not do something stupid on the dirtbike 🤦🏼♀️, to his work accident with crane rigging causing him to almost lose his leg, and even to the incredible rollover wreck in what Matthew called a beautiful truck was destroyed and he doesn’t know how he survived.
I remember him telling the story about his truck rollover accident and I remember it vividly because he told us he had worn a necklace with a cross on it for many years. When he was in the hospital after this accident was the first time he realized it was missing. Maybe God was the one who saved him and he just didn’t realize it. Maybe He traded the necklace for Paris’s life so that one day he would be able to meet us. We will never know the reason.
Like I said earlier, Paris was great with the kids and they loved teasing him in return, which is why they started calling him Bock Bock. They would say goodnight Bock Bock everytime when he would go out to the camper. This led to Paris calling our youngest at the time, 1.5 yr old Adelaide, “Bock Bock” as well. She would wake up every morning and walk outside and say “Hey, Bock Bock, look at my pretty dress.” And then he would respond with “Good Morning, Bock Bock, yeah I see your pretty dress!” Her nickname was further solidified when one day she started picking up one of our chickens by the tail and carrying it everywhere around the yard that way. And then the chicken wouldn’t even try to run away! Paris tried showing her how to hold the poor chicken nicely but she wasn’t having it. It was so much easier to grab it by the tail.
Adelaide also loved cooking meals for him in her play kitchen and he would always pretend to play with her, pretending to drink the tea she had made or eat the pretend food she had brought him.
There are so many stories similar to this. One of the first times Paris was here, Matthew was running around the goat pen trying to chase after the goats to give them some de-wormer. Paris was watching and laughing his head off. I can still hear his distinct laugh. He was also known for hitting his head on the car lift often while helping in the shop. We joked we were going to buy him a helmet. There was one day that Matthew was wishing he would have had a camera on to record the incident. He was walking back from a car in the yard to the shop with a car battery. Paris offered to carry it and Matthew said, “are you sure, it’s pretty heavy!?” Paris insisted but he underestimated the weight. Matthew said he grabbed it, didn’t realize how heavy it was, and did a somersault and landed on his back. They were cracking up for days after that incident. Paris said it really helped loosen up his bad shoulder. 😆
In June of 2023, Paris was diagnosed with stage 4 brain cancer. He had surgery in August to have some of the tumors removed and then refused chemo stating that his uncle tried chemo for cancer and it just made the last year of his life absolutely miserable. The doctors couldn’t guarantee that it would help either. In fact, they were extremely the opposite of helpful when Paris refused chemo but that’s a whole other story. Obviously at this point, he could no longer drive down and help us out in the shop like he had been doing. We told him he needed to rest anyway. He insisted that once he was better he would come back and help as much as he could.
He always had a generous heart and gave more than he could even when his health couldn’t keep up. We spent the following months visiting him as often as we could, especially with the kids whom he loved seeing. In December, we visited him on the way back from our camping trip to Fredericksburg. This was the last time the kids and myself saw him as his health declined rapidly after that. In fact, it was the last time Paris even went outside. He didn’t want to miss a chance to see the kids. They brought him so much joy.
In January, Matthew and I had our 10th anniversary cruise we had planned for many months. We had actually been worried that Paris would pass away and we would need to cancel our cruise. But he held on.
In the week after we got home, Matthew actually spent most of his time with Paris and his mom since she had noone close by who could be with her to help. He would drive 2.5 hours to Bellville, stay the night and help however he could so Wanda could get some rest, drive back for a day or two, and then do it again.
Wanda knew that Matthew was the only one that Paris would talk to. They had become such close friends in the previous year that Paris basically treated Matthew like his son. Wanda and his family said that’s all Paris would ever talk about…he was always talking about Matthew and our family.
Matthew spent his time there saying the prayers of St. Joseph for the Dying for him as well as praying many rosaries. He passed away on January 31st early in the morning with both his mom and Matthew by his side, wearing a scapular and Miraculous Medal.
We never did have a chance to find out what religion he actually was, he didn’t talk about it much. All we know is he did get married at the cathedral in Houston at some point. So of course, we didn’t stop praying for him. In fact, to this day, Paris and his mom are mentioned in our rosary intentions every night. We can’t pretend to know or to judge where he went after his death. We pray that all of his good works and generosity earned him a spot in Heaven.
When Paris started helping us out in the shop, out of the goodness of his own heart, I often wondered why. Why was he helping us when he didn’t need to and when he barely knew us at first? What did we do to deserve such kindness? Why was he here when he could be at home with his mom even if he had to mow the lawn 3 times a week? As the months have gone on, especially since meeting his family just a week or so ago and with them saying that we were all he talked about in the last year of his life, I realized that maybe he needed us more than we needed him. Maybe God put him in our life so he could spend the last year or so filled with more joy than he seems to have had much of his life, especially with losing his dad as such a young child. He also had lost his brother about 12 years ago. His wife had left at some point and took their only son with her. The son didn’t even have it in him to come back and visit his own dad when he was sick before he died.
But we were always there. Matthew would spend hours on the phone with Paris anytime he called, just because he needed someone to talk to. Even if he was repeating the same things over and over again. With the signature “I’m going to let you go” followed by another 30 min or so of talking. The kids would color him pictures of different saints, different scenes, a picture of his favorite type of truck etc and he loves receiving every one of them. Both Wanda and Paris absolutely loved the pictures of our family that we sent them at Christmas time along with our Christmas letter. In fact, all those pictures made it into the back of Paris’s picture scrapbook since we were such a significant part of the end of his life.
I think it was divine intervention that he died the day before our actual 10th anniversary. I had planned our anniversary cruise vacation a few weeks earlier in January for different reasons but looking back on it, we realized God probably had a hand in it all so we could be home and Matthew could be with Paris the last week of his life. We don’t usually see God’s Hand in the moment, but after the fact, it often becomes clear that He was always there, always watching.
Please keep the soul of Paris in your prayers as well as his mother, Wanda. We keep in touch with her as much as possible and visit when we are able. She has come to love the kids like Paris did.
Owning a family business has allowed us to meet some amazing customers who have become like family. Paris was definitely one of those customers. We are so thankful and blesses to have known someone like him even if just for a short time, he will never be forgotten.
In memory of Paris Lee Cloud: January 23, 1965-January 31, 2024
