Remembrance of Susan Hunter Suggs
A surprising number of people have asked to read the eulogy I gave at services for my mother in Austin and Atlanta. I don’t normally share much personally online, and certainly I don’t discuss spiritual issues, but if this gives someone hope, solace, or comfort, I’m happy to share it.
There’s a scene in Ferrol Sams’s book Whisper of the River in which Sambo, the main character, is summoned to the room of his grandmother. She is the matriarch of a family that lives in a plantation house in Middle Georgia between the Wars. Sambo is headed off to college, and Meemaw fixes him with a steely stare and says, “Remember who you are.”
My mom was fond of using that line on me. Dr. Sams had visited her bookstore and signed a copy of that book for me when I was about 10, and we both loved the story of Sambo.
“Remember who you are” meant a lot of things to her, probably not exactly the same as it meant to Meemaw and Sambo. She meant to straighten up and fly right, but she also was reminding me of how blessed Darby and I were to have family that loved us, educated us, and worked very hard to give us the opportunities we hard. The corollary of that message happens to be one of her other favorite aphorisms: “To whom much is given, much is expected.”
She expected a lot out of us.
Because she expected a lot out of herself. She was a minister’s daughter, with all that that entails. Her parents, with the occasional help of the southern Presbyterian Church, found ways to educate her and help her out and inspired her faith, her love of education and books, and her rather irreverent sense of humor.
Mama took all of that to heart, and she became her own woman at a time when that wasn’t the usual path. She found a job after college, decided she wanted to go to library school, and moved to Atlanta, where she met our dad. When Darby and I were toddling, she opened the Williamsburg Bookstore, which was much-loved but never particularly remunerative. When it closed she reinvented herself as a legal librarian and worked for a white-shoe firm before beginning a long career with the Coca-Cola Company’s legal department.
We were always in and out of her work life, and we got to see how she handled herself. She was gracious to everyone. She found friends with whom she could share jokes and make common cause. She never wanted to be a leader, but by dint of how her colleagues treated her, we got the impression they knew how far up the creek they’d be without her.
Mama also was a champion for anyone who needed one. She delighted not just in Darby and me but in our friends, embracing them as they found their way in the world, neighbors whose families had rejected them, and people who had fallen on hard times and found their way to Central Presbyterian’s Outreach and Advocacy Center in Atlanta. She told stories of the hatred her father experienced for championing civil rights in New Orleans, and was steadfast in learning about, teaching us about, and calling for social justice in all of her communities.
So it wasn’t just that Mimsy remembered who she was, but that she also reminded everyone else who they were.
That was true even in the toughest times. As Darby and I were truly becoming grown-ups, she lost our dad. As she prepared to retire and start a new chapter of service, she was diagnosed with Parkinson’s. And when her grandchildren were toddlers, her symptoms grew too parlous for her to manage living on her own. So Mimsy moved to Texas.
Mama had every chance to despair, to become embittered by the strokes of misfortune that took Dad and took her faculties. But she didn’t. She kept her cool, her sense of humor, and her interest in other people. When she moved to Longhorn Village, she loved connecting to people, especially her tribe of “secret Democrats.” That continued — regardless of political persuasion — even as she declined, with friends and caregivers on staff.
A few weeks ago I had a moment to say to Mama, I don’t think we’ll see each other again, and that this is the time to say good-bye. From her bed, she asked me to read that passage from Romans [Romans 8:31–35, 38–39], in which the Apostle Paul proclaims that nothing can separate us from the love of God. She had recited it in the hospital just after Dad died. It’s the distillation of the Good News, that God loves us and has called us to live by his greatest commandments. Mama did that in the expectations she had of herself, of Darby and me, of all of us.
She also asked us to sing the hymn God of Grace and God of Glory. She had the wisdom, and the courage, to face this hour. I hope I do, and that all of us do.
Every year, she wrote Molly and Alex a Christmas letter, with expert input from Darby. This is how she closed the 2017 edition:
As you grow and find your way in this world, I have a few wishes for you:
Be well rounded. Play sports, stay curious, keep a sense of humor, and surround yourself with like-minded people. I know you’ll go far and be successful in whatever specialty you pursue. But keep a good perspective of your career, achievements, family and spiritual life.
As W.H. Auden wrote, “Read The New Yorker, trust in God; And take short views.”And always remember who you are.
