Her name was Marcella Carolyn; her friends called
her “Luke”. I knew her as “Aunt Sue”. She was twenty-seven years old when I was
born. She died last week at the age of seventy-two.
In those forty-five years, she stood in the gap as
my mother and later when my children were born—as their grandmother.
She was a high school physical education teacher
and a (very famous) girl’s basketball coach. She spent her life investing in the
lives of others, but I knew her best for the deep investment she made in my
life.
My grandparents raised my two sisters and me after
our family was shattered by the common tragedies of life. They were wonderful,
godly people, but they were rather aged when we were small children. My aunt
and uncle stepped up during that time and became like parents to us. They never
had children of their own—because they intentionally invested their time into us. I never realized how costly this commitment must have been until
I had a family of my own.
Aunt Sue lit the fire of wild, untamed adventure in
my heart and fed my love for the outdoors with bountiful servings of God’s most
secret places in creation. One of those secret places was the Big Rideau Canal
in Ontario, Canada. It was there where she (and my uncle John) taught me the
essentials of developing boyhood masculinity, like how to tie a fishing knot,
how to shift gears on a motorcycle and how to keep the rod tip down so the big
bass wouldn’t get away.
I slept in a canvas tent overlooking the Rideau
Lake for nearly three months at a time, throughout two consecutive summers, put to bed every night by
the symphony of the Katydid and the lullaby of the loons. I bathed in the lake and
played in the woods. I developed skills that every boy should have, like
splitting firewood, building a campfire, skipping rocks, cleaning fish,
catching frogs and telling stories. This was the proving ground of my
adolescence—the stepping-stone into adulthood, manhood and eventually
fatherhood.
Away from the Big Rideau, my Aunt’s home was always one of my favorite places
to visit. There was always the hope of a wood burning fire in her living room insert or a campfire in her back yard. Some of my earliest childhood memories are lying by a glowing fire, falling asleep to the sound of her voice singing an
old country music tune (I believe it was a Willie Nelson song) in the tone of a lullaby. She told tales that I knew
were more fiction than fact, but they were real to my imagination and fueled my
future passions for storytelling and writing.
I think I will miss her more than anyone I have
ever lost in my life. I will miss her laugh and her singing; her jokes, pranks
and antics. I will miss her encouraging words and her genuine interest in my
life and the lives of everyone around her. I will miss her tenacity for living
and her passion for adventure. I will miss her faithful presence in my family
and her love for my children, especially her care and compassion for my son
Jake, who she most affectionately referred to as "Jacob G.G."
I will miss her greatly, but her legacy will live
on in so many ways. It will come alive in the sounds of the summer nights and
the crackling of the campfire. It will bring laughter as her stories are passed
down and retold many years and even generations from now. It will breathe with new life each
time I tie a hook on a fishing line, feel the tug of the rod or the rumble of my motorcycle.
Even greater, her legacy will live the fullest through the presence of
my own motley tribe as I look with wonder at the children God has sovereignly
gathered to my side and realize that love, more than anything, is an investment
in the brokenness of life and “family” is not always conventional—but always
intentional.
Thank you Aunt Sue.
Thank you Aunt Sue.