| 21. | CHILDS Susan Mary  (13.Margaret3, 7.Mary2, 1.Jannette1) was born on 26 May 1939 in Badoura, Hubbard Co., MN; died on 04 May 2019 in Vadnais Heights, Ramsey Co., MN. Notes:
Written and read by Pamela Freeman (Brustman) - Daughter 6-23-19 at Susan’s memorial
Words.
There are never any words to sufficiently express sorrow.
Never the right words to adequately express what it is you feel when someone passes from
this life, and summarily, out of yours.
See, it isn’t the space that is now there, where there used to reside a person. The place
setting that will never be set again, the book we will never read to them again, the birthday
card bought ahead of time, and now not given, nor received. It isn’t even that we now use
past tense rather than current or future when we speak of them.
It is that the mind forgets and allows you to think they ARE. That there is a still, still. Seeing
something, a new bird, or the cat doing something silly, or tasting a new dish at a
restaurant, or wanting advice on a recipe, you reach for the phone, forgetting. It is that
forgetting, like that, when you have to remember anew that they are, in fact, now gone, and
grieve afresh.
The sudden wash of tears when you thought you were done when driving home because
you thought of something they did or said, or that you would have liked to share with them.
What words dare to claim they can articulate such?
None.
And so we cover our tracks with Those words, there aren’t enough words… there are no
words…
And yet, I stand here, and am going to attempt to put into mere words what my mother was,
to me.
She was, as you all know, my Mother. My writing has this capitalized.
Because she was, at the heart of my world, my mom.
Can I say that again? She was the heart of my world.
We had our scrimmages, our battles, our not so puppies and rainbows times.
Sure.
But we ended up being not just mom and daughter. We were best friends.
So I lost not only my mom, but one of my very best friends,
I lost her grievously slowly, little by little, due to Alzheimer's Disease.
But I am going to back up a bit.
My mom was smart, educated, well-read, a life-long learner, and witty. My mom could be
silly. I view this as a virtue or attribute just as being generous and educated are. And it was
a part of who she was.
She was extremely talented, she was famous amongst friends and relatives as both cook
and baker.. At various holidays she would commence baking, pans and pans of caramel
rolls, and then deliver them to friends and family. She would make Christmas cookies and
candies and give those out, known for her italian anise cookies. She made hundreds and
hundreds of them. So she gifted me her talent of cooking, but also, she taught me to love to
cook. She taught me that cooking is a form of love - it is a gift, that you create for those you
love. Food is not just substance on a plate, it is carefully crafted, color and texture and flavors
chosen to all work together, just as an orchestra plays together,
I grew up with food made from scratch, and nearly anything you can think of made at home,
jam, salsa, sauces - spaghetti bbq sauce, whatever, my mom made it. Thursdays were bread
making day. She would time it so that the bread would come out of the oven as we got off the
bus so we could cut thick slices of bread so warm it hardly held together flopping and draping as
we covered it with butter and ate it greedily.
To my mom, food was a gift, something she could give. So this is what I learned beside her
and amongst my aunts in the kitchen, that food is part of the joy of living, and it is part of
giving that joy and love to others.
When the extended family, and by this I mean primarily the Childs family, gathered, we
would often clump around the kitchen. The kitchen was where the laughter and voices
blended into what to me was the music of my childhood. And so too, came song, as the
Sisters and their Mother would sing. Singing was something that seemed to just flow out of
the Sisters and my grandma. They would spontaneously break out into song, harmonizing
and blending.
She sewed, just about anything and everything. I grew up wearing clothes she sewed,
including making the patterns. She painted and drew. I don’t know if there was much that
she tried and failed at. Now, I am not saying she was super-mom, though, she was. And i
AM and was biased. But, she really did do all those things, she really was incredibly
intellectual, she read higher mathematics and mathematical philosophy books for fun.
She loved to learn.
As a mom, she got up every morning early to make sure we had a hot breakfast before
going to school. Regardless of whether she was working, which she did not, when we were
very young, but as we got older, she went back to work. She made sure we had hot
breakfast every morning. Mondays were fried or soft boiled eggs, toast, and bacon.
Tuesdays were pancakes from scratch, Wednesdays were either cornmeal mush or
oatmeal, Thursdays were scrambled eggs, and Fridays were either waffles or French Toast.
We were also read to and helped to learn to read when quite young. My entire family, dad,
brother, mom, and myself were and are voracious readers. Books introduced me to new
worlds and adventures, encouraged my own imagination and seduced me with a love for
words.
We had amazing family vacations throughout childhood into adulthood, usually camping in a
tent, when we were young, because that is what we could afford. It engendered my love
and appreciation for the outdoors that is a large part of who I am today. Later, my mom’s
work with the Mn PCA introduced me to the politics and work of environmental regulation
and sparked my own interest and concern for the environment.
She had an amazingly beautiful voice and she LOVED to sing.
Some of my earliest memories involve her singing. We would go camping, pretty much
every summer after school let out. And at night, my brother and I would be tucked into our
musty smelling sleeping bags on the ever-leaking air mattresses that would be flat by
morning, and she would sing us lullabies. Hush little baby don’t say a word, momma’s going
to buy you a mocking bird… I loved that. I still hear her voice in my head singing it.
And as I said, she and the Sisters and my grandma sang. It was like spontaneous
combustion except with song. She sang in church choirs, i remember. I don’t think though
that she was so much wanting accolades or attention for her singing so much as she just
loved to sing. She was even known to sing Sentimental Journey, in Oppish I believe there
are people here who have heard her do that. Perhaps at an MPCA party? She sang at
Gable Pines, and i heard that staff and residents there loved her singing. To my mom,
singing was an expression of being alive, she sang as a bird will sing upon a branch. She
sang because song was in her.
I mentioned the Sisters.
My mom was the middle of five sisters. I remember hearing her sing some little ditty she
had come up with about them, the song named them, in order, and their mother, its a good
thing there is no brother. Something like that.
The Sisters, we capitalize it, are a formidable force in the family. Their mother, Margaret,
before she died, was the center pole of the family. But the Sisters are what have held the
fabric of the family together for so long after sub-families began to have families of their
own.
There are traditions that came down in the family. Sunday nights watching Mutual of Omaha
wild kingdom and then Disney as a family, with popcorn, made on the stove, with butter and
salt on it, and home made cocao, and peanut butter toast, maybe apple wedges.
We would say snitch when we passed by a cemetery
Christmas Eve family gathering, dressing up for it, with a fancy dinner, and then a family
photo before the gift opening.
And at every gathering, the Sisters and grandma would do Bowling Green.
We’re the girls from Bowling Green, but you can’t bowl on our Green… This is a women’s
only thing, done in a line, with gestures. It was a Child’s women thing, and it was demanded
by the men, with much teasing and laughter. It began as the Sisters and grandma only,but
eventually drafted all of the younger and married into the family women, also.
There are some photos in the back that depict Bowling Green.
These are gifts handed down, passed down as family heirlooms.
So my mom sang Oppish for her comrades at the PCA. It was my mom’s job at the PCA,
information officer, public relations, that made me want to look at this type of work myself. I
graduated with a communications degree with an emphasis in public relations.
I remember her time at the PCA. She felt the gravity of that job. But she had fun, too. I
remember her talking about wearing a fake nose and mustache and having Good Morning
Vietnam as her computer boot up. She talked about her work and her co workers in ways
that made me want to work there. And she made friendships that lasted through her
retirement and even her days in the memory care center.
So my mom gave me motherly advice, as mom’s do. She taught me the important things,
such as good table manners, that food, although a gift, really ought to not be seen or heard
once in the mouth. She told me that “Girls who expect to date, shouldn’t expectorate.” I
believe that was a quote from when she was a girl, from her schooling. I don’t. Expectorate.
She taught me that spiders are scary. And it is ok to scream when you see one.
She taught me to not be too serious.
My mom, loving mother, once planted fake ants in my brother’s kitchen cabinet for him to
discover. My brother was afraid of ants.
She thought it was pretty funny.
She once made, when they were not so ubiquitous as they are now, a dirt cake. This was
very early in my brother’s dating with Sue, who he married. My mom made a cake in a clean
terra cotta pot, covered the top with crumbled oreos, and put a small plant or flower, I don’t
remember what it was, in it, protected from the actual cake, of course. She use a clean
small garden shovel to dig into it and serve it and we have the most wonderous photo of
Sue leaning back and looking absolutely horrified that my mom was serving this.
My mom had a great sense of humor.
Her eyes would sparkle with laughter and glee.
So.
One last thing.
She gave me a last gift. Or someone did.
Some of you know, probably, that she died when I was away.
I was in Europe.
Well. The day before we were to leave, I took the day off, so that I could run errands, do last
minute stuff, and most importantly, see my mom.
Now, up until then for the last month, maybe two, she had not recognized me when I went
to see her. See, before she stopped recognizing me, when I went to see her, she would see
me and her whole face would light up and she would say, often very loudly, Pam, that’s
Pam, my daughter! But the last couple of months, I would go, and she would acknowledge
that I was there, but her eyes were blank. She didn’t know who I was, just that I said I was
there to see her and perhaps she knew me.
So, that Thursday I stopped in, and she and my dad were in the upstairs dining room,
listening to a woman with a guitar sing. And I came round the corner and was in front of
everyone and she saw me and her face lit up. She knew who I was.
And so I went to go sit next to her, and she said, did you think you lost me? And I said no, I
just found you. And she looked into my eyes and beamed. And every few minutes, she
would look into my face and eyes again, and beam at me, locking eyes and smiling with a
light upon her face, or more, within her, shining out. And when the concert was done, and I
had been there longer than I was meant to, but I just didnt’ want to tear myself away from
her. I stood and said I had to go, and I was going to go on a trip, but that I would be back in
two weeks and would come see her when I returned. She lifted up her arms then, to hug
me. She had not done that for I don’t know, maybe a half year? More?
I walked away thinking and feeling like I had been given one of the world’s best gifts. I had
been having a difficult time with our leaving on teh trip, knowing she was in hospice now,
and didn’t have that much time left with us. She didn’t seem close to dying, but it was just a
matter of time, after all. So I felt heavy about that. But that gift, that made me feel as if it was
ok. She said goodbye to me. I didn’t know that she really said good bye to me.
That that was the last time I would ever see her alive.
But she knew me. She looked into my eyes and smiled, and she hugged me good bye.
Her last gift to me was the best and biggest gift she could ever give.
So…
In honor of my mom,
Nancy, her sister, is going to sing Sentimental Jouneys.
Birth:
26 MAY
Died:
Susan Mary (Childs) BRUSTMAN Obituary
Passed away at age 79 on May 4, 2019 in her sleep at Gable Pines, Vadnais Heights, Minnesota from Alzheimer's disease. She was the loving wife of Edward who was devoted to her and visited her daily while she resided at Gable Pines. She was preceded in death by her son, Robert (Bob, 51); and sister, Patty (82). Susan is survived by her daughter, Pamela (56); as well as her sisters, Peggy, Nancy and Kathy, of whom she was the middle child, and grandchildren, Eleanor and Zak. The Childs sisters formed a formidable sisterhood that has remained and weathered years and distance. She also leaves behind her adored cat, Ginger. She graduated from the University of Minnesota and was an avid reader, and lifelong scholar. She loved mathematics and excelled at writing and creative pursuits. She was an environmental advocate, and retired from a position as an Information Officer with the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in 1998. Susan's hobbies included gardening, painting, gourmet cooking, reading, playing bridge, singing, sewing and attending cultural events. She had a beautiful voice and sang and harmonized with her sisters since childhood, sang in church choirs, and was known for her singing until the end, at Gable Pines. She contributed as a reporter to the New Brighton Bulletin when residing in New Brighton and was the president of League of Women Voters and advocated women's rights and the passing of the ERA. She shared a winter home in Arizona with husband Ed, until Alzheimer's forced her residence in a memory care center. Donations in Susan's name to Alzheimer's Disease Research, Clarksburg, MD 20871 and Children's Foundation, Edina MN 55436 are welcome and appreciated. Friends and family are invited to the memorial service which will be at a later date. Date and venue to be determined.
Published in Pioneer Press from May 10 to May 12, 2019
Susan married Living [Group Sheet] [Family Chart]
Children:
- 39. Living
- 40. BRUSTMAN Robert Edward was born on 23 Aug 1965 in Shawnee Mission, KS; was christened in 1965; died on 11 Mar 2017 in Ann Arbor, MI.
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