• • • low end theory

theorizin' on the cheap since '09. for more about me, go here. e-mail: lowendtheory [at sign] lowendtheory [dot] org.

I haven’t slept.  A dear friend lost a parent last night.

I think Susan Seligmann had maybe met me twice when she started trying to track down a job for me.  No doubt she would have succeeded had I not elected to move across country for school. Occasionally, I would come home to an e-mail or phone message: Susan wanted to make sure that I knew that she was still looking out for me.  Don’t worry, she would reassure, when I find you a job in DC, you can just stay with us!

I wish I could say that I had done something to deserve the generosity, to say nothing of the hospitality, that Susan extended.  Extended, really, without so much as a flinch.  I also wish that I had at the time been able to recognize how exceptionally rare that quality can be.

I learned about Susan’s struggle with cancer when she hired me to write about it.  My first encounter with words like “metastatic” and acronyms like “ENT” were punctuated with and softened by sometimes-bittersweet, sometimes-irreverent tones of her laughter.

So, thanks, Susan, for the way you managed to usher me into your survivor story while helping me earn my grocery money at the same time.  And thanks, of course, for raising one of my favorite people.  I’m going to try to sleep now.

Notes

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