Several members of my family attended our friend and sister-in-law's sister Susie Josten's rosary, and funeral service yesterday and Thursday. It was a blessing to be present. It is clear that Susie's amazing spirit brought our families together both in her life and now in her death. The intersections of how we met Susie and the entire Josten family and many friends present was truly a revelation of the "fabric of life", how woven together we truly are. In 1973 our mother and Susie's mother, Shirley and Mickey were the "tot lot" moms both with their youngest children, JP our number 9 and Susie, Mickey's number 7. Our mothers' bonded as they were much more relaxed than the other moms who were relatively new to motherhood compared to Shirley and Mickey who were finally at ease after 9 and 7 children. As the years went by several of us were in girl scouting together and also attended the same church where Mary, Mickey's 4th child and Damien, Shirley's 3rd child fell in love, and married. Through that connection our families attended many baptisms, weddings and other events together. At Susie's funeral, Bridget and I thought it was unusual that many friends of our older brother Patrick attended. Patrick is 13 years older than JP, and a year older than Damien. What were Patrick and his friends' deep connection to Susie? As it turns out, Susie enjoyed the same music as Patrick, we might even say Susie was a groupie of several of the bands Patrick and his friend were in and or associated with. Another connection was that her best friend Kelly Jones was someone my older siblings babysat along with her brother, something I had not known. It became clear that we have many connections to Susie's life. These few stories of Susie's interconnections made me realize how tightly woven together we all are. The fabric of life is more beautiful with all these connections. As the connections unfolded over the past two days, I saw the fabric of Susie life and all life become brighter. Susie will certainly live on in all our hearts and we are warmer and closer to a "larger universe of people" because of her contribution to the fabric of life.
