Sweet Sue

Note: I started typing this post at 5:30 p.m., on October 7, 2020. I was going to post this to my food blog, as this post does touch upon a lovely bread kit my cousin sent me, and baking the bread bear served as a distraction for me as well as a segue for me to memorialize a dear friend--I decided to post it herein as there's a lot of overlap, especially regarding losses, and most especially, my dear friend had a family just as dysfunctional as my own.

After mom died in May, my mom’s first cousin Diane reached out to me for my mailing address. Within a week, I received a very thoughtful gift—she put together a teddy bear kit (similar to what I saw on this site today: ). The bread recipe was a variation/pared down recipe of my mom’s.

Inside the homemade kit was a ziplock bag containing the dry ingredients, a piece of parchment paper, a little zip lock bag with raisins, and the recipe/assembling instructions, as well as reflections on my mom. 

Mom passed away in May due to COVID19, and her remains were interred in June. It all happened in a blur, and was so upsetting, and neither closure nor comfort was gained with mom's final arrangements. 

With the exception of mom's cousin Diane (and on occasion my sister or one of mom's brothers), I don't hear from anyone anymore--mom's legacy to me, the result of her telling half truths and horrible stories to all who would listen to her, about being abandoned or neglected. People see what they want to see. My friend Susan, despite being ravaged by cancer, saw me through the first few months after mom passed.

I received the teddy bear kit in late June or early July when it was too hot to bake. Today, I finally baked my bear, as a distraction from more devastating news. 

I have told this story to a few of my close friends, to include my dear friend Susan. Susan and I met in a MSN chatroom 22 years ago. We have never met in person—and this has bothered me for years if not decades. All the traveling I have done, no amount of begging or cajoling could convince my husband for us to make a trip to Illinois to visit her. I am not comfortable traveling solo, so this has always been an unwinnable fight between me and the Maharajah.

Despite the geography that separated us, Susan and I were in near constant contact. Initially we communicated via emails, then phone calls, and care packages. We were always in regular contact, with her dropping off my radar from time to time, as she was working every possible moment she could. Truly, when she was healthy, she was ALWAYS working--but that is one of the hazards of working from one's home, no delineation between work time and YOUR OWN TIME. Once she was diagnosed with her cancer, we were texted nearly every day—most times multiple times a day. 

Our friendship was forged at a time when each of our first marriages went belly up, with each of us struggling to recover, both emotionally and financially. During that time frame, she and I were so destitute due to our ex-husbands, we took turns sending each other a $20 bill for bread and milk or a half a tank of gas for our cars. Things were THAT dire, and we supported one another as good friends do.

After months of struggling with a lesion on her foot, which we thought was a diabetic foot ulcer, she was diagnosed in August 2019 with an aggressive form of skin cancer known as Acral Lentiginous Melanoma, a type of skin cancer that isn't from the sun, and has a genetic component to it. From date of diagnosis, the life expectancy is about 5 years, +/-.  At the time of her diagnosis, she probably had been struggling with this lesion for about a year. 

A month after getting the stark diagnosis, I asked her the same question I asked my great Aunt Millie when Aunt Mil, in her mid-80s, declined to have heart surgery and was given 6 months to live: "What have you managed not to do, which you would like to do?" Soon thereafter, Susan bought a sewing machine and an electronic keyboard. 

Susan made me a few gifts she had sewn herself; and she sent me an audio clip of her playing piano, which she loved. Sadly, I cannot figure out how to upload that clip herein.

Given how lacking her medical care was out in what I'd call "corn country," that part of Illinois that is just across the river from Davenport, Iowa, she eventually started going to Mayo Clinic for her diagnostics, infusions, chemo, etc, often times driving herself the five hours there, and five hours home.

The last week of September, the Maharajah arranged for us to go to a cabin with a view of Lake George for a few days to get away, and do not much of anything in particular, and yet be socially distant from others, but with a considerably better view than our home, where Maharajah has been cooped up since the shut down in mid-March. 

The last text I received from Susan was on Tuesday, September 29th, wherein we both were mentioning how much we both feel we have aged during the pandemic. Her last words to me that day were, "Yes, very old." 

No matter how much loss I have gone through since August 2019 to current writing, it is indisputable, how much harder were for Susan during that time frame too--so much worse than my own suffering, as she was literally fighting for her very existence--yet she always made time and space for me.

I hope I was, at a minimum, a distraction from her suffering.

Around 6:30 on October 6th, I received a call from one of Susan's sons (who lives on the west coast), informing me she was now in hospice. I sent her son a play list of songs I knew were dear to Susan's heart, and said to her son how at least if she isn't alert and able to speak, she can still hear music which was so important to her. It remains a mystery if the son played any music at all for his mom.

After the call, I spent the greater portion of the remainder of the week just sobbing.

Around 5:30 October 7th, I decided to distract myself and make the teddy bear bread, which my cousin Diane sent to me. The photo is shared above. If Susan weren't in hospice and heavily sedated, she would be the only person, other than my cousin Diane, who would want to see that photo.

Mid-day October 8th, while on a work related phone call, I checked my phone, as I received a text from Susan's cousin Diana (odd, isn't it--the Diane/Diana connection?), who informed me Susan passed away the night before at 11:30 p.m.

Even typing this, tears filled my eyes. 

For the ENTIRETY of the 22 years I knew her, I bore witness to how she struggled very hard, first with work to provide for her kids and pay for household needs, struggled through the failure of her second marriage, struggled more and gave up on life in the US for a while and went to Egypt to live with her third husband and his family. She struggled when she returned to the US when her 6th child, her 1st and only with her third husband, died not long after birth. Then the death of her brother and eventually her father.

Besides the heartbreak of watching my friend grieve for her youngest, she endured many struggles with her five remaining kids. Her eldest is profoundly autistic and now is thriving in a group home; her second oldest has cut her off completely. Her middle child was always verbally and emotionally abusive. And her second youngest was verbally, emotionally, and most horrendously--PHYSICALLY abusive to her. 

After Susan had her leg amputated this summer, she was fearful of this child visiting her, as she was afraid of being attacked in her wheelchair. Meanwhile, I know that the son (who called me) was emotionally damaging to her, too. Some of the last texts from her regarding that son she told me how she was trying to tell him that she got her leg amputated, and rather than show shock or concern, he brushed her off, saying how he had to go to work.

Pretty typical of abusive relationships, her mom and her kids (and no doubt her husband) all have very distinctly different ideas about what Susan's reality was. Her final days were filled with agonizing physical pain and despair, and feeling like nothing more than a punching bag half the time, and a human ATM the remainder of the time. 

Her youngest is now 18. All her kids are grown and onto their own paths. NOW should have been HER time to follow HER dreams, whatever they would have been. Unfortunately, just trying to survive took all her focus and energy and what resources she had.

Her viewing and burial were yesterday, and from what her cousin tells me, it was a shit show, with her husband controlling everything, making it all about HIM, and turns out, he was cheating on her with "someone special," a detail that just made my heart sank, and makes me glad Susan isn't here to endure one more indignity, one more loss. In so many ways, those closest to her, failed her.

Through the years, she held my hand (as best as one can do without being physically there), through all of my own travails, and especially all my difficulties with my mom. 

I hoped one day, I'd be there one day to hug her, perhaps have one perfect afternoon going to her favorite sandwich shop, perhaps go to a Frank Lloyd Wright house, sit and laugh. Just enjoy being in her actual, physical company. This is my solitary regret.

I am thinking of her as I listen to this song, a song my grandfather used to sing to me too. However, between Susan and myself, I think she was the sweeter of the two of us. 

I missed you before you were even gone, Susan. I love you, sweet Sue.