Rich's Eulogy

Love Never Fails

It was mentioned that Suzanne was a very organized person and loved to make lists. Ironically, it was a list that brought Suzanne and me together.

When I came to Michigan from New York in 1974, I was accompanied by a close friend, Doug Moreland, who wanted to introduce me to some young ladies here in his home area — we had a list. Suzanne’s name was first on it, a fact for which I am eternally grateful. I suppose even then Suzanne’s name would just naturally be first on any list: her beauty and character were obvious to all. After meeting her, I had no interest in following up the rest of the list. We corresponded for several months, and I asked her to marry me. Somehow, she said Yes, and we were married October 12, 1974.

I had to sell the few possessions I owned and worked a few days cleaning windows at the Enfroy home to earn money for her wedding ring. Suzanne inscribed my ring with the words of 1 Corinthians 13:8: "Love Never Fails". Through 31 years of marriage, Suzanne’s love for me never failed, nor mine for her. The words of Proverbs 31:10, 11 were never truer than they were of Suzanne:

"What a rare find is a capable wife! Her worth is far beyond that of rubies. Her husband puts his confidence in her, And lacks no good thing."
— JPS Jewish Study Bible

In the JPS this proverb is subtitled "The woman of strength". It comments that this is "a poem describing a wise woman, praising her energy, her economic talents, and her personal virtues. … She is a proud and splendid woman. … Contrary to a common notion of woman’s status in the ancient world, this woman has considerable independence in interacting with outsiders and conducting business, even in acquiring real estate."

The poem is traditionally recited by Jewish men to their wives on Sabbath evening, before the Kiddush (the sanctification of the Sabbath over wine). It is also often recited at funerals of women. The poem is an acrostic, with each line beginning with a letter of the Hebrew alphabet in sequence."

That this proverb, so applicable to Suzanne, is an acrostic seems somehow fitting, because Suzanne loved and excelled at word puzzles. But the point of real importance is that she was a wife of noble character, someone — perhaps the only one — in whom I have always been able to have full confidence. She did not fail to tell me when I was running away from a problem instead of confronting it, she did not fail to help me deal with a problem when I did confront it, and she did not fail to console me when I needed that.

Just a week or so before her death, I was getting impatient about some matter or other (I don’t even remember what it was now), and she gently chastised me, telling me that this was "a learning experience", that we were both learning from her illness, learning how to endure, how to be empathetic. Suzanne knew that our greatest need is not freedom from adversity, but freedom to grow, even if that includes growing through and out of adversity.

Suzanne did grow. Her favorite plant among the many in our home is a hibiscus, that she named "Bisky". Bisky provided the subject for a number of Suzanne’s paintings. It took many years before Bisky ever produced a single blossom; but once she did, she produced a steady stream, sometimes three new blossoms in a single day. Suzanne blossomed in the last few years of her life, acquiring a strength of character that endeared her to the many new friends she came to make more and more easily. She blossomed in other ways as well, using her God-given intellect and imagination to explore, to create, and to express herself authentically. After leaving secular employment, she took up an interest in art, beginning with faux finishing, then studying fine art and eventually scrap booking. She used her talents to help others, making crafts as gifts, personalizing them. (Incidentally, the last time Bisky blossomed was the day before Suzanne went into the hospital; she has not produced a single blossom since.)

Looking this past week through the many boxes and baskets that Suzanne kept for organizing her life, I found one, a beautiful woven box, that contains all the letters we sent one another during our months of courtship, as well as the anniversary cards we sent each other through our 31 years of life together. During the last four years or so, and prior to her illness preventing her from doing so, Suzanne would compose a little love note each day to put into my lunch bag, so when I had my lunch, I would be reminded of her love for me. Each note was unique, each note was dated, each note was her loving soul poured into words. If she was sick or other circumstances prevented her from creating a note, she would pour kisses into my lunch bag, so I would have those. We had so many little traditions, from Saturday morning coffee, to pet names, to love notes in my lunch bag, and so many others, that in Suzanne I always knew that love never fails.

Suzanne did not want a religious funeral, in deference to her love for all the members of her religiously divided family. But she was not irreligious. She loved spiritual discussions and to talk with me about the Bible. The scriptures she herself selected for her funeral, her favorite passages, reflected her love for God and her confidence in God’s love for her. She did not want the occasion of her funeral to be a platform for indoctrination or proselytizing, but I do not think she would mind my commenting briefly on her own beliefs, as spoken to me. How trivial and small do you want to make God? Because you can make Him so trivial that He reflects the emotions of an imperfect human and becomes incensed by something as innocent as a family celebrating a child’s birthday, or you can make Him so small that he disappears from your view of life altogether.

Suzanne never made God small — she made Him large … in her heart — so large that He overflowed her heart and spilled out to others in action and word. She crocheted blankets for Project Linus, providing something comforting to the children in Beaumont Hospital. She donated to many charities (but always confirmed that they spent the money on the needy and not on organizational overhead). She kept on hand dozens and dozens of greeting cards for every occasion, so that she would have something available for each anniversary, each illness, each event of life experienced by those she knew. When I could not remember a name or a date, all I had to do was ask Suzanne. She loved people and did not forget their names or the important dates of their lives.

In Suzanne’s studio at home is a marble urn containing ashes. Those ashes are the remains of the body that betrayed Suzanne. That body could not contain her spirit indefinitely — that spirit (as scripture says) has now ‘returned to the true God who gave it.’ Suzanne had confidence, never as strong as during her last few days, that God is love and that even death could not separate her from that love. She loved the God with whom her spirit now resides. And He loves her, as I do, because love never fails.