Remembering Susan

In Memoriam

As I drove to the funeral home to meet Pastor Dave to arrange for my mother's funeral, the car radio sounded the alert that the space shuttle Columbia was missing as it reentered earth's atmosphere. Unusual contrails had been spotted right over Dallas, and a local newstation was speculating that a fire in Plano might have been caused by falling debris.

Thus, I will forever link in my mind these two events: the shuttle tragedy on Feb. 1, 2003 and my mother's passing on January 31, 2003.

That week a year ago had been a particularly bad one for us. After frenetic activity to get Susan into a clinical trial at M. D. Anderson, we were all set to journey to Houston. But Saturday afternoon, a day before we were to leave, Susan came down with severe abdominal pain and was admitted to Medical City with an intestinal blockage due to the return of her cancer. The surgeon decided to operate on Wednesday. I spent all my waking moments with Susan in her hospital room, and her recovery seemed to be going well. Several of us were in her room Thursday evening when I received a call on my cell phone from Appletree, where mom had recently taken up residence, saying that she was having a heart attack. Mark and I immediately drove there from Medical City and stood on the bumper of the ambulance as we peered in through the rear windows to see the paramedics working on her. Then she was taken to the ER at Richardson Medical where the doctors gave her little chance--at age 99--to pull through. After she was transferred to the ICU Paster Dave urged me to go home and get some rest while Peter stayed to watch over Grandma. She died quietly while he held her hand at 6:44 AM the next morning on the last day of January.

I came across the above photo of Mom while going through some of Susan's picture collections recently. It seems to capture her essence better than some of the more formal poses in front of a professional photographer. I'm not exactly sure the date of the photo, but she was certainly in her upper nineties when it was taken. Yet her sharp mind, her genial sense of humor, her youthful outlook on life all seem to shine through complimented by her favorite pink dress. We always marveled at how she could contort that sweet face to win the "scary face" contest. Even today Mark will bid Susanna to "make a Grandma Tex face" and Susanna will comply by puckering up her lips and dropping her chin, to look remarkably like her great-grandmother doing her scary face impression. Those Flanery genes have certainly been passed on to the latest generation!

In the previous blog about Susan's passing 6 months ago I noted Shari's observation about how Susan was a part of each one of us who knew her. The same could be said about Mom. Her warm and loving personality touched many. I'll always remember her favorite expression: "That'll be nice..." said in response to an offer to do anything for her. It was her Southern way of expressing her desires while being very careful not to be demanding or "too much trouble."

Someday when it comes my turn to "cross the Jordan," I'm sure standing next to the Lord Himself to greet me will be these two incredible women waiting to meet me. No doubt with all the time they've had to spend together on the other side, they will have something really interesting cooked up for me.

In the meantime, in memory of my wonderful and much beloved mother, Peter has restored the original links to the eulogy and sermon given at her funeral a year ago. They are on our homepage.

Posted by John Dishman at January 30, 2004 09:03 AM