As I introduce you to my family members yesterday, I introduced you to Charlie. Today, I want you to meet someone very special. My daughter, Suzanne. She was my little pink angel. Suzanne was born on May 8, 1988—Mother’s Day, on a Sunday. Of course she was. Because Suzanne always had to do things big.
She couldn’t just pick an ordinary day to be born. She had to take one of the most special days of the year for her mama. And then, sixteen years later, she took another one. Suzanne was called home on November 28, Thanksgiving weekend, just six months after she turned sixteen.
So Mother’s Day will always be Suzanne’s birthday. And Thanksgiving weekend will always remind me of the day I lost her. Although to me she isn’t lost because I think of her each and every day and I thank the LORD for the time I had with her.
She never got the chance to drive. She never got her driver’s license. She never got to finish high school, go to her Prom, go to college, join the Army, become a kindergarten teacher, or live the life she had already started planning.
One thing Suzzane did even though she was never going to get married was pick out her Wedding dress out of a magazine and it cost $10,000 dollars. Don’t ask me where that money would have come from but if she wanted it I would have done my best to get it for her because that’s what moms do.
But two weeks before she died, Suzanne told me exactly what she wanted to do with her life. She wanted to go into the Army and become a cook, like my Uncle Chuck. She wanted to serve in the Army like my dad. She wanted to work in a kitchen, and eventually get out and become a kindergarten teacher.
She wanted to go to OU in Oklahoma. And she wanted to live in Oklahoma because that’s where my dad was. I believed her. Because if Suzanne decided she was going to do something, she usually found a way and that is why if she had lived I would have been living in Oklahoma and Charlie might not be here. But that’s another story for another day.
Even as a child. I remember working at the mall when I’d get a phone call on a Friday. “Mom, can you be home at 5?” I’d ask, “Why?” “I’m going to Oklahoma.” I’d say, “You’re going where?” “Oklahoma. I already have my train ticket.”
“How did you get a train ticket?” “Well, Mom, I have your credit card. I know how to use it. I’ll pay you back when you get home.” So I’d leave work, fly home, and take her to the train station. And she’d tell me, “I might stay a day. I might stay a week.” Sometimes it was a month. Sometimes it was the whole summer. I never knew when she would be home.
But I knew she was safe with my dad. And I knew she could do her homeschool work just as well up there as she could here. That was Suzanne. Tiny. Petite. Kind. Independent. And sometimes just a little bit crazy.
She was one of the kindest people I have ever known. If someone needed something and she could help, she would. She would give somebody the shirt right off her back. That is why all the kids in the Daycare she worked at loved her.
She was in ROTC, and when she was buried, she was wearing her ROTC uniform. No, overalls but she did have her flip flops she wore 24. Summer, Winter and Fall. She loved Tigger.
She loved the color pink. She loved music.
And, for reasons that Angie her other mom ie step mom but wasn’t ever called a step mom just another mom and I never completely understood, her favorite song was “Save a Horse, Ride a Cowboy.”
That was Suzanne’s song. We still laugh about it. Now we say, “Pick up all your clothes! It’s getting hot up in here!” Which is another song she loved by the singer Nelly and a song I still listen to. Have you heard of it?
I never said my daughter made sense. I just said she was hilarious. She once told me she needed to be “cameraized” because she was the beautifulist. And you know what? She was right. She was beautiful.
She also loved horses especially Pinto’s —or at least, she loved the idea of them. Instead of horses, sometimes it was hisses. That’s another Suzanne story you would have to have been there for.
Then there was her dog. The most perfect German shepherd in the world. His name was Samuel Tigger Ice (my dad’s last name and her’s. My mom, my ex, Suzzane and I found him as a rescue dog over around the Ridgemar Mall area, and Suzanne wanted him desperately.
She tried to climb into the dog pound to get him. And he tried to climb out of the dog pound to get her.
I had wanted a St. Bernard puppy that was also up for adoption, so I thought our dog story was probably going to end differently. But my mom surprised us. We ended up with both dogs. And even after Suzanne passed away, I still had Sam for a while. He was one more piece of her that I got to keep.
Suzanne and I loved watching television together. We watched 7th Heaven and Full House. Her and my nephew David M. especially loved Full House. My nephew would want to spend the night, and sometimes he wouldn’t have any clothes with him.
So he’d wear Suzanne’s clothes. He didn’t care. He just wanted to spend the night. They were inseparable. She would paint his nails, and he’d let her. They laughed together. They played together. They made memories together.
They were more than Cousins and they didn’t need sister’s or brothers because they had each other and that was more than enough for them. And today, my nephew carries one of those memories on his arm. He has a tattoo that says RIP Suzanne and the date she passed away. That is how much she mattered.
Suzanne was also an avid reader. We were always sharing books. Chicken Soup for the Soul. The Christy series which was a teen romance series. Books were something else we shared, and even now, when I see certain books, I think about her.
I wonder what she would be reading today. I wonder what movies she’d be watching. What shows she’d be talking about. What music she’d be listening to. What she would look like. What kind of woman she would have become. Would she have moved to Oklahoma or somewhere else and why.
The last movie she ever saw was The Notebook. She was also part of Big Brothers Big Sisters, and her big sister was Stevie Dixon. Stevie was one of the best people who ever came into Suzanne’s life. Because of Stevie, Suzanne got to go to New York.
She got to experience things. She got to make memories. And I will always be grateful for that. There are so many more stories I could tell about Suzanne but it would take me a month of Sunday’s to share them all and I still wouldn’t be done.
I still have so many of her things. Her pink flamingo from the first time we visited the Fort Worth Zoo. Her pink pig Squealer from Build A Bear. Her little monkey from the Oklahoma City Zoo. We called it Monkey Sue.
She got that nickname because when she was little, she would not stay in her crib. She would climb right out. So I called her Monley Sue which as she got older was changed to Tigger because she was never still.
And Monkey Sue still has the tears on its head. Those tears weren’t supposed to be there. They’re from me. They’re from the day Suzanne died. They’re from the day we had to take her off the machines.
When we came home, I went into her room with her dog, shut the door, and just sat there. I couldn’t believe she was gone. I still have moments when I can’t believe it. Because sixteen is too young.
Sixteen is before driving. Before graduation. Before college. Before careers. Before marriage. Before children. Before so many of the things we assume our children will get to experience.
She had barely started her life. And yet, somehow, she left enough memories to fill a lifetime. After Suzanne died, I told my nephew that I was going to steal his birthday. His birthday was in August, and I thought maybe it would be easier to celebrate my birthday then instead of trying to celebrate in November the month she was called home.
But then Charlie came along in December. Charlie was born 9 days before Christmas. So our family somehow ended up with children connected to the holidays all over again. Suzanne had Mother’s Day. Then Thanksgiving became connected to her. Charlie brought Christmas.
And while those holidays can bring memories and sometimes sadness, having another birthday or another celebration doesn’t make me miss Suzanne any less. Nothing could. I still think about her every day. I think about the things she would have done.
The places she would have gone. The people she would have met. The life she would have built. I think about that little girl who climbed out of her crib. The teenager who could call me at work and announce she had already bought a train ticket to Oklahoma.
The girl who loved pink and Tigger. The girl who wanted to join the Army. The girl who wanted to become a kindergarten teacher. The girl who loved her friends Amanda and Ruth, with Ashley always part of that circle, too. The three amigos.
The girl who loved her nephew. The girl who loved her dog. The girl who loved books. The girl who thought she needed to be “cameraized.” My daughter. My one and only Monkey Sue. My best friend.
And when I asked what flower Suzanne would be, the answer was a forget-me-not. There couldn’t have been a more perfect flower. Because some people become memories. But some people become part of you. They become part of your holidays. Part of your stories.
Part of the things you still have sitting in a box. Part of the songs that come on the radio. Part of the books on your shelf. Part of the jokes you still tell. Part of the tears you still cry. And part of the love that never goes away.
Suzanne was called home at sixteen. But she didn’t disappear from our lives. She is still here—in the stories, in the memories, in the people who loved her, and in every little piece of her that I have held onto all these years.
So if you ever see a forget-me-not, remember what it means. Forget me not. For me, that’s Suzanne. My daughter. My Monkey Sue. My pink angel. Born on Mother’s Day. Called home Thanksgiving weekend. And loved every single day in between. She is someone you will never forget.
Especially the 70 yes, you read that right 70 people she helped because she was a Organ Doner just as David and I am. If you would like to hear about the people she helped because she picked them out her self or how I knew she was ready to go to #Heaven leave me a comment and I will share those stories with you.
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Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates