Tuesday, September 19, 2023
(This short piece was meant to be read at Suzanne's service on Sunday, but a conspiracy of events, including Hurricane Lee, made it impossible.)
It’s the second day of Rosh Hashonah, the Jewish New Year, the day of creation, the birthday of the world. It seems fitting to celebrate Suzanne on this day; though Judaism was the religion of her father, she celebrated with our family and shared our heritage with joy and panache. Her home was a sanctuary, a place to feel a little less lonely, to mix with all sorts of interesting people who found their way to her door—to eat good food and talk far into the night. Sometimes to fall asleep on the living room rug.To walk along the river and watch the deer, the birds, the stars. To think big and to see beauty wherever we looked. To pay attention.
I can’t begin to eneumerate what I learned from her—to sum it up would be to say that nothing is mundane or ordinary if you look closely—each person has their inner light, every food is nectar and ambrosia with the right spice and setting, the natural world is glorious. She had the ability to make something out of nothing and to teach us how. In high school theater she had us under her spell and we sang and danced and dressed and made ourselves over in ways we hadn’t imagined was possible. She saw the good in each of us, the characters we were or could be. It was exciting to live up to her vision of us.
I miss her smile, her infectious laugh, her love of gossip that would catch me up with the North Creek world when I came home from far away. I miss her dinners—wow—and the fountain of warmth and pleasure that was her home. I miss the worlds she created around us and within us.
I run out of words but not memories.
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