My cousin Susie passed away, unexpectedly, last month. I think it was September 16, 2024. I had arrived in Prague on the 9th and had made very exciting plans to see her in December, in the Baltimore area, enroute to home near Seattle. Susie was my age and I expected to grow old together. Not together geographically but held together by our mutual family, affection, values and appreciation for each other. We were from the same era and only became closely acquainted after her move to Olympia, WA to take care of her aging parents. I saw her through a lot of that loss as she saw me through my losses. One in particular was a person who had made my life miserable. She is the only person who told me she had a tarp and a rope in the trunk of her car – “Where is he?” That was said because she had a gift for humor and empathy. She was a widow with more friends than most. She had only moved to Baltimore a year earlier but I was so excited to see her in her mother-apartment in the basement of her son’s house. Her dream was to be near her grandkids who she doted on. Susie was a crafter. I have a beautiful lap blanket she made to comfort me when my life felt miserable. So the trip will happen but with a different agenda. I hope to grieve a bit with her family and share many of the lovely stories I have of Susie. She was actually a second cousin (I think) as her father and mine were first cousins. She lived her life with me as if she had been my sister. We laughed a lot and never ran out of stories at our ~monthly lunch dates at the Cheesecake Factory at SouthCenter plaza. Because I’m not living my usual life doing the usual, this has not sunk in. The world without Susie does not compute. The last thing about Susie is that her love language was gift giving. We would always remember each other in small ways because we share that gift. What I can’t know is that I talked about Jesus all of the time and she did not say much. She was too good to not be a believer in the love of God. Do I assume too much or is God much bigger and more real to her than I had known?
