MEMORIAL SERVICE AT SEA FOR SUSAN

Speaking at a memorial service needs to hit home.

Or don’t do it at all.

I’m doing a short speech on a long boat three miles off shore.

It’ll go like this:

Too often we save our feelings about others until they can no longer hear them.

Not so with Susan. She knew how we all felt about her.

From the first time I met her she was different.

Or maybe she was just more tuned in than the rest of us.

First off, she had a car during a no car time living in the same apartment building in Northwest Portland.

It was a big blue Ford Galaxy and we knew she was going places.

To where, we didn’t know, but we knew where ever it was, she’d get there.

Susan reminded me of the pioneer women from old photographs. She was an anchor in high seas.

But this isn’t a memorial service for an anchor.

When Susan Called

After most everyone moved out of Northwest we kept track.

I liked visiting Susan at the duplex she bought in SE Portland.

We did small projects together. One summer we put screen doors up.

Another time we worked in her garden and got things shaped up.

While life choices take us different directions, Susan always seemed in step.

One of the most amazing things she did happened when I came down with neck cancer.

While I was struggling to accept the idea that getting poisoned by chemo and radiation was a life saving step I needed to complete, Susan came to the rescue.

Literally.

It made the biggest difference in my recovery.

She explained medical marijuana and left a batch of brownies, which I ignored.

Memorial Service For A Difference Maker

Me: Do you think the weed brownies will have any effect on my cancer?

Susan: Your what?

Me: What?

Susan: Did you say, “My cancer?”

Me: Yes. I asked if you thought the brownies would have any effect on my can . . .

Susan: That’s what I thought you said. “My cancer.” Isn’t that special? You have your own cancer.

Me: Well I don’t know about special, but . . .

Susan: Do you think you’re the only one dealing with cancer? I’ve been in the industry for a while now, and you know that. And no one says, “My cancer.” At least no one says it twice.

Me: Yeah, but . . .

Susan: It’s cancer, yes. But ‘your cancer?’ No. Hospitals are full of cancer patients. Homes are full of caregivers for cancer patients. Not one of them embraces it as ‘my cancer.’

Me: I’m new to this.

Susan: Not any more. These brownies are what I make for cancer patients to deal with the struggle. It helps them the same way it will help you.

Me: I’ve always thought medical marijuana was an excuse stoners used for free weed.

Susan: The science was explained to me like this: the weed effects get transferred under trauma. Instead of the usual results, there is no high, no euphoria, but a calming effect for the harsh changes going on in your body.

Me: I can feel something going on in there.

Susan: They are cooking the cancer out of you. Medical marijuana is like an oven mitt. You can deal with the heat without getting burned.

Susan Was Right About Things

It takes a brave person to jump into the deep end of the pool while learning to swim.

Call if confidence, or just being fed up with the same old same old.

Susan left a corporate environment where she could have spent her life the same way countless others have done.

But she had a higher calling to help others and made a plan.

I found myself included in the plans in more ways than one.

When she came with her brownies I was ready for my own memorial service.

I was cooked from the inside out.

2

Her words changed the course of my recovery from cancer.

If I didn’t have a bag of brownies in the freezer things would have taken a severe turn for the worse.

I was laid up in bed a few weeks later in a nose dive of not eating or drinking because my throat was scorched raw.

My wife and kids gave me the halftime pep talk I needed to finish the game a winner.

But I was losing. Getting stomped. If I couldn’t get a handle on my condition I was getting shipped to either the hospital, or a nursing home.

I can’t imagine how that might have turned out. But I was ready to go, one way or the other.

My last ditch effort to get anything past my neck was a cup of tea and a cancer care brownie. I nibbled and sipped for two hours on what usually takes ten minutes.

My attitude got readjusted and things changed.

I called it the Susan Difference then and I call it the Susan Difference now.

If you give a memorial service for someone you care about, be sure to practice.

Even better, tell those you care about how you feel. You don’t have wait until they can’t hear you.