For Susan
I know this is the second post this year that I've written on death, but this is still important none-the-less.
A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine's mother passed away. She'd been struggling with a brain tumor for nearly 2 years, and it finally got the best of her. The memorial service was this past weekend, and my friend and his wife came out to my house to stay with me for a few nights. I don't want to go into a long homily about what an amazing woman she was to me. What I really want to echo is something someone else said about her at the service on Saturday.
There was a time at the end of the service where they gave the opportunity for other people who weren't scheduled speakers to come up to the microphone and say something. First was Susan's sister, then a close co-worker and friend, and lastly there was a woman that Susan had known professionally. I was astonished when the last speaker started out by saying, "I was never in Susan's home. I don't know her family. She'd never been to my home, and she didn't know my family either." I thought, wow, if she didn't know Susan well, why is she even getting up?
But, it turns out, that was the point. This woman said that there were two times in her life she felt she was quite brokenhearted, and Susan had called her on the phone and reached out to her, without knowing anything that was going on in the speaker's life, at both of those times. She said God used Susan as a healer, and she was there to testify to that. She said that she had gotten a chance to say goodbye to Susan, in some of her last days, when Susan was unable to talk or move on her own. The speaker had said to Susan, "I love you" and Susan had held up her hand to the speaker and nodded her head. Yes, she acknowledged this. Yes, she loved her too. The speaker ended by encouraging us to tell our loved ones we love them.
For my part, Susan was at all times a gentle and sweet woman. Her graciousness in life, as accepting me as her son and daughter-in-law's (and later her own) friend was unparalleled. The number of times I sat at her dinner table and the conversations she went out of her way to have with me were the mark of an exceedingly kind and loving person. But what moved me most, I realized this past Saturday, was how many people were so moved by her. The real impression Susan made on my life was the impression she left on other people. When that speaker at the memorial service got up to speak, it was clear beyond any words that a close friend or relative could express: Susan touched the lives of everyone she met. Susan was remembered by people who had known her very briefly, people who met her a long time ago, people she hardly knew. Her words of kindness and compassion had a place in their hearts. Her generosity and faith made huge impressions on their lives. Susan was my highest goal. Susan was a conduit of love.
May I touch half as many lives as she did.
And so, in conclusion, of course I'd like to share a poem with you, which is really for Susan's husband Dave, who has been a complete saint throughout these last two years, and who has stayed by her side constantly, nursing her through her worst times, and sharing in the joy of her best times. This is for his great loss.
from One Time
by Christian Wiman
2. 2047 Grace Street
But the world is more often refuge
than evidence, comfort and covert
for the flinching will, rather than the sharp
particulate instants through which God's being burns
into ours. I say God and mean more
than the bright abyss that opens in that word.
I say world and mean less
than the abstract oblivion of atoms
out of which every intact thing emerges,
into which every intact thing finally goes.
I do not know how to come closer to God
except by standing where a world is ending
for one man. It is still dark,
and for an hour I have listened
to the breathing of the woman I love beyond
my ability to love. Praise to the pain
scalding us toward each other, the grief
beyond which, please God, she will live
and thrive. And praise to the light that is not
yet, the dawn in which one bird believes,
crying not as if there had been no night
but as if there were no night in which it had not been.
A few weeks ago, a good friend of mine's mother passed away. She'd been struggling with a brain tumor for nearly 2 years, and it finally got the best of her. The memorial service was this past weekend, and my friend and his wife came out to my house to stay with me for a few nights. I don't want to go into a long homily about what an amazing woman she was to me. What I really want to echo is something someone else said about her at the service on Saturday.
There was a time at the end of the service where they gave the opportunity for other people who weren't scheduled speakers to come up to the microphone and say something. First was Susan's sister, then a close co-worker and friend, and lastly there was a woman that Susan had known professionally. I was astonished when the last speaker started out by saying, "I was never in Susan's home. I don't know her family. She'd never been to my home, and she didn't know my family either." I thought, wow, if she didn't know Susan well, why is she even getting up?
But, it turns out, that was the point. This woman said that there were two times in her life she felt she was quite brokenhearted, and Susan had called her on the phone and reached out to her, without knowing anything that was going on in the speaker's life, at both of those times. She said God used Susan as a healer, and she was there to testify to that. She said that she had gotten a chance to say goodbye to Susan, in some of her last days, when Susan was unable to talk or move on her own. The speaker had said to Susan, "I love you" and Susan had held up her hand to the speaker and nodded her head. Yes, she acknowledged this. Yes, she loved her too. The speaker ended by encouraging us to tell our loved ones we love them.
For my part, Susan was at all times a gentle and sweet woman. Her graciousness in life, as accepting me as her son and daughter-in-law's (and later her own) friend was unparalleled. The number of times I sat at her dinner table and the conversations she went out of her way to have with me were the mark of an exceedingly kind and loving person. But what moved me most, I realized this past Saturday, was how many people were so moved by her. The real impression Susan made on my life was the impression she left on other people. When that speaker at the memorial service got up to speak, it was clear beyond any words that a close friend or relative could express: Susan touched the lives of everyone she met. Susan was remembered by people who had known her very briefly, people who met her a long time ago, people she hardly knew. Her words of kindness and compassion had a place in their hearts. Her generosity and faith made huge impressions on their lives. Susan was my highest goal. Susan was a conduit of love.
May I touch half as many lives as she did.
And so, in conclusion, of course I'd like to share a poem with you, which is really for Susan's husband Dave, who has been a complete saint throughout these last two years, and who has stayed by her side constantly, nursing her through her worst times, and sharing in the joy of her best times. This is for his great loss.
from One Time
by Christian Wiman
2. 2047 Grace Street
But the world is more often refuge
than evidence, comfort and covert
for the flinching will, rather than the sharp
particulate instants through which God's being burns
into ours. I say God and mean more
than the bright abyss that opens in that word.
I say world and mean less
than the abstract oblivion of atoms
out of which every intact thing emerges,
into which every intact thing finally goes.
I do not know how to come closer to God
except by standing where a world is ending
for one man. It is still dark,
and for an hour I have listened
to the breathing of the woman I love beyond
my ability to love. Praise to the pain
scalding us toward each other, the grief
beyond which, please God, she will live
and thrive. And praise to the light that is not
yet, the dawn in which one bird believes,
crying not as if there had been no night
but as if there were no night in which it had not been.
I'm very sorry for your loss, Ver. I feel confident that Susan would be happy to know that she touched your life this way. I love you.
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