Monday, August 8, 2022
I've been grappling for the better part of the week what I wanted to write.
It feels like words are not enough to encompass what Susan meant to the people in her life, including me.
She was a Mum, a daughter, a sister, a partner, a friend, a fierce business owner, and certainly not least, an avid lover and defender of animals.
To me, she will always be Jesse's Mum, first and foremost, as that is how I first met her. But over the years as I grew to know her more, she became more than just that. She changed from a Mum my (at the time) teenaged boyfriend and myself butted heads with to someone we(as we grew older) would both call a friend.
I remember how once, over the summer, she told Jesse to ask me to come and stay the night with them because she was fostering Lucy, a pregnant basset hound, and that she was soon going to have her puppies and she was very excited for people to see them. She woke us up early in the morning and I got to see Lucy have all of her puppies, safe and healthy, and I would return often to play with them until they were old enough to be given away to their new families. I recall many months later, seeing someone walking a young basset hound down the street and I knew it was one of the puppies Susan had sheltered, and it made me feel happy.
I think that is the best way to remember her, as someone who made many lives better. All the people who she brought joy to by connecting them with their beloved pets, animals that they would grow to love tremendously, who would have never otherwise have come together if not for Susan's efforts.
When our cat Moe (who Jesse and I had also gotten from Susan) had to be put down from illness the Summer of 2019, we were both heart broken. Susan heard about it and told us that she had recently taken in a cat who needed a new home.
"Her name is Mitzy, why don't you look after her for a few days and see if you like her, she's very sweet. But she's a little weird, she likes to lick like a dog, so I hope you don't mind that."
Jesse and I were a little apprehensive, it had only been a month since our previous cat passed away, was it too soon to adopt a new pet? What if she didn't like us? What if she was scared from the smell of our old cat and peed everywhere?
Susan insisted though, and soon enough we were bringing this hairy stranger into our home. We let her out of the carrier and immediately she began to act as though she had lived with us her entire life. She was incredibly affectionate and friendly, loved to be held, and was always near one of us, snuggling or laying on our laps, licking our hands as a sign on affection. She was a bright bundle of joy that made our lives that much better.
This will always be a memory that sticks out in my mind. Susan was like an angel that found us the perfect animal to heal the pain we were feeling from the loss of our previous pet. I will remember that moment forever.
Shortly before Susan was admitted to the hospital, she and I went out shopping together, and when we returned to my place I made a point of showing her how happy and spoiled Mitzy was.
I lifted her up so Susan could pet her, and as she rubbed her belly she said "I saved you, didn't I?" She was smiling and there was a look of happiness and pride in her eyes. She knew she had done a great thing, re-homing this cat, and every other animal that came before it. I like to think that she felt that good about herself every time she found a home for an animal in need.
Susan was a good woman, and the world is worse off without her.
Though she is gone, through her actions she will live on in the lives of the people and animals she changed for the better, and I think she should be proud of that.
