I always tear up, in a happy way, when I hear the familiar refrain of Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy” – it was the recessional hymn at the blessing ceremony at my church a few weeks after my dear wife and I were married in 2014. I remember us squeezing each other’s hands as we practically levitated down the center aisle past the packed pews of friends and family smiling their faces off. But my tears were bittersweet on Saturday morning when I heard it– this time as the processional for my friend Susan’s memorial service. She died on June 21st from cancer – the beast known as glioblastoma – a brain tumor. She was 54 years old.
If you’re thinking about bailing on this post as a downer, please don’t. Susan Jean Gies Conley Link was many things – a mom, a wife, a daughter, a sister, a non-profit fundraiser, a social advocate, a singer, and a lover of bunnies to name a few. She was brainy – a proud Wellesley alumna – and had a wicked sense of humor which never deserted her – even during the last year of her life. And she possessed a faith that was as strong and deep as her Midwestern roots. You really should know her.
Susan and I weren’t social friends – I met her at church, so I saw her often and we became Facebook friends. I will admit that I have many social media “friends” that I could not identify in a police line-up, but Susan was one of those primo Facebook friends – the kind you look forward to seeing posts from. And her posts this past year, especially the months near the end of her life, were remarkable. They were profoundly honest and often staggeringly beautiful in their celebration of the extraordinary ordinariness of our daily lives.
I began taking screenshots of some of her posts this spring. I didn’t want them to get lost in the abyss of doomscrolling and food porn and narcissisms that Facebook spews 24/7. Yes, I know I’m guilty of all of that, too, but at least I know good Facebooking when I see it. As her death became more imminent, you could see that posting had become difficult for her – there were typos and sometimes incoherent thoughts and that made her posts all the more achingly powerful. They have become gratitude prompts for me. And God knows, we could all use some prompting these days. So, I decided to share a few of them. I think Susan would be okay with that, although, as she made very clear in one of her last posts – she didn’t need to be anyone’s hero. No, Susan would tell you she was simply a woman with well-organized priorities. She loved her family fiercely, valued her friends dearly and didn’t suffer fools with an appetite for drama. This was a woman who found out she had a brain tumor on Easter Sunday and made posts from her hospital bed reassuring friends the next day.
I want you to know Susan a bit through her own words – she certainly had a way with them.
Susan’s mother posted the message below on Facebook on June 17th.
Susan, a lovely soprano, was a long-time member of the choir at St. Anne’s Episcopal Church and she also sang with the Winston Salem Symphony Chorus. So, it was fitting that her memorial service was a concert of sorts with as many hymns packed in as she could negotiate with her priest. And, of course, she had personally selected each one. The Sequence Hymn before the eulogy and homily was “How can I keep from Singing” by Pauline T. and Robert Lowery.
I wasn’t familiar with the hymn but as I listened to it, I couldn’t help but smile. It seemed to perfectly capture Susan’s spirit and her taste for irony.
Of course, Susan Conley could never keep from singing – in all manners of ways – in this life or the next one. And we are all the better for it.
Amen.
Bookends 