Limitless Love on Two Wheels

“It all begins and ends with Mary.”

Clayton Curtis and his wife Mary, who died of metastatic breast cancer in 2015, were soulmates and road warriors for more than 40 years. The two met at Trumbull High School in 1971, where they both taught English. “Mary was the best teacher in the school, absolutely wide open to her students, all the time,” recalls Clayton. She developed and taught courses as diverse as The Adolescent Experience and Literature of Peace, Protest, and Tolerance. She loved Shakespeare and organized annual summer trips for students to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. She received a prestigious National Education Association grant to study in Stratford-Upon-Avon. She won Connecticut Teacher of the Year but declined the honor because she felt it would take time away from her classroom. Mary taught literacy in the local prison system. She was a skilled and humble educator, wholly devoted to her students.

Mary’s embrace of her work extended to all aspects of life. An avid cyclist, she bought Clayton a bicycle early on, and the two never stopped riding. One summer, they biked through Europe, their clothing and gear packed into four saddlebags. Another year, they trained for and completed a century ride – 100 miles through the rolling hills of the Berkshires. “I still can’t believe we made it!” says Clayton.

The couple’s lives were filled with love and adventure. But five days after Mary retired from teaching in 2006, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Clayton supported her through surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, and she responded well…for a while. Two years later, as part of a program to ease tensions in the Middle East, they were selected to teach at a boarding school in Jordan. A few weeks after their arrival, Mary’s headaches began. Extensive imaging led physicians in Amman to consult with Mary’s oncologists at the Smilow Cancer Center at Yale New Haven Hospital. Mary’s cancer had returned, this time in the fluid surrounding her brain.

The couple flew back to the U.S. for treatment, and Clayton believes, “We wouldn’t have made it through Mary’s chemo without the most wonderful team at Smilow.” For the next six years, Mary lived an active life, though she received lots of care at home and increasingly relied on a walker and, eventually, a wheelchair. “I never thought Mary was going to die. I just couldn’t imagine a world without her in it.”

But Mary finally succumbed, and Clayton held her memorial service in the same chapel at Yale where they had been married 40 years earlier. Six of the nine speakers were former students. “Nobody ever forgot Mary. She was an angel on Earth. She made me a better person. A better teacher. A better parent. Now, I see that it was a privilege to care for her.”

Clayton’s grief was deep, made even more intense by the death of his only daughter to melanoma three months prior to Mary’s passing. Clayton’s brother and brother-in-law had also succumbed to cancer many years before. 

So at age 76, on one of his darkest days, Clayton made a decision that would change everything: he got back on his old bike, an activity that had brought him so much joy with Mary. Immediately, he knew he needed a bicycle that was easier to balance on, so he drove to his favorite shop and found the perfect bike. On the way home, Clayton noticed a billboard for the Closer to Free Ride to benefit cancer care and research at Smilow, and he hasn’t looked back!

He completed his first ride in 2015, riding 25 miles at age 76. Since then, Clayton has lost a cousin and close friend to cancer. And in 2017 Clayton himself underwent surgery and 39 doses of radiation for prostate cancer. But he still rode – every single year!

This September, he once again completed (“a very challenging!”) 25 miles at age 86.

Clayton’s been the top fundraiser four times in his 11 rides, donating more than $45,000 annually. Much of his contribution is a disbursement from Mary’s retirement savings, a unique way of giving that Clayton knows would please his wife immensely. Their former students also contribute, as do family members and friends. His gift is unrestricted, “Let the experts do their best work with it. They know what they need.”

Even beyond the funds raised, Clayton believes the greatest value of Closer to Free lies in the connections that bind cyclists with each other, their loved ones, physicians and staff at Smilow, and patients who draw strength from riders as they pass the hospital. “This ride is the most spiritually uplifting experience, the best day of my year. It causes a little discomfort. We have to train and work for it. The tears flow. There are kids riding who lost their parents. But on this day, we can all DO something. We’re a community. One heart. All connected by cancer. That thing which brought us so much pain…it also restores us.”

We thank riders like Clayton who honor people like Mary by riding year after year in Closer to Free. We thank all our riders and their supporters. Together, your open-hearted generosity makes a positive difference.