Sue Carson: An Intention to Love

Finding focus, finding depth: Sue Carson

Sue Carson and I went out for a cup of coffee and, let me tell you, it was no ordinary cup of coffee. For a very moving reason that I’ll explain later in this blog, Sue is determined to go through the rest of her life not just mindful of others, but connecting with others. Indeed, she is working on what she calls an “intention to love.”

It may sound corny to you, but that may be because there's fear and risk in opening yourself up to such an extent. And vulnerability.   

But back to our coffee. We stop in at a little shop and Sue doesn’t just order.  She talks with the young woman behind the counter. She engages her. She looks her in the eye. She finds a way to connect.

Why? Because Sue has learned that such small gestures can lead down paths never imagined. Paths you never had time for when you worked fulltime.

“When you’re so engaged in full-force throttle and into a job where you’re getting there at 7 in the morning and your to-do list on your plate is never clean, you don’t have time," she explains. "You don’t have time to have those small interchanges. I think that that’s the real beauty of that gift  of time. The smallest thing can become so significant and that’s what I’m really beginning to realize every day. That the smallest gestures are not just little things."

Late in her mother’s life, small gestures transformed their relationship, after decades in which Sue had felt resentment and anger. After her father’s sudden death when Sue was in college, her mom “became the lady in black,” depressed. Sue transferred home and, she explained, “I ended up being her care giver.” After college, Sue fled to Europe for two years, but “I ended up coming home to be with my mother and I would always say -- and I know it’s terrible -- when my mother’s not here, I’m free to go, to run. I always felt she was my anchor and I resented it. So we had a very tumultuous kind of relationship. I never really let her love me. I was always pushing back. I always had this anger thing that never let me hug or kiss her and be warm with her, though I saw her all the time.”

Fast forward. Her mom is in her 90s and dying. And Sue is complaining to a friend: “I have to be there all the time. She doesn’t feel good. She’s not nice to me. She yells at me… Same thing as when I was a kid. I can’t do anything right in her mind.”

Her friend tells a story of her own mother’s death and suggests that Sue “go to her house, rub her feet, wash her legs. Make her feel better. Show her how much you love her. You’ve been taking care of her all this time and never feeling love but it’s coming from love. Have it recognized.”

Sue continues, “I drove over to my mom’s house that day and I sat on the bed with my mother and I was rubbing her legs. She kind of just melted into me touching her. That evolved to me crawling in bed with her, with her head against me.”
Soon, she says, her anger, too, melted away. Their relationship shifted.  “I truly, truly, began to love her.”

After her mom died (during a night when Sue held her in her arms belting out show tunes), a vision came to Sue at the end of a particularly meditative yoga class, with a live singer.

“Her song took me somewhere,” Sue said, her eyes welling up over our now cold coffee. “I was on a hill, the wind was blowing, my hair was blowing, there were warm breezes. It was a dreamy kind of a state. And on the top of the hill was my mom. I was walking toward her, carefree, like in a dance.

"Afterwards I was just crying, I was just so moved. I thought how grateful I was that I really learned what love was at this moment. And how sad it was that I lived for 59 years with my mom and I never walked over to her with those open arms. Ever. And it made me really sad.

“I asked myself, ‘If I did this with my mother, where else am I doing it? Maybe I’m doing it with my children, maybe I’m doing it with my husband.’ When I really began to look at it, I was. I was pushing everybody away. I’m the strong person who doesn’t need anything. I didn’t let people do for me. I only would do for somebody else. I had to be the knight on the shining horse for everyone and I realized that I was keeping people at arm’s length and I decided at that moment that I was going to really work at opening up to love.  …

"I decided I would be a more loving, devoted person, particularly to [my husband] John.  Because I realize he’s my core. He’s who I’m with.  If I can love him more, that’s the place to begin.

“Some days are easier than others. Some days are hard. But there’s this huge change and shift in my relationship with him.
"Because as I’ve worked to be more giving, less judgmental, more mindful… not rolling my eyes, letting him be who he is without trying to change him. it’s just opening up so many doors. My relationship with my kids. My relationship with my friends. I’m really trying to be here. I’m really trying to stop the chatter that takes me to places I don’t want to go. You don’t change overnight. That’s for sure. It’s bit by bit and piece by pieces. We’re all works in progress. Again because I have time, I have the ability to contemplate. [In my job] I was too filled and absorbed with columns and numbers and deadlines and have-tos and to-do's. I never had time. I now have the moment to pause, to ponder what I did and didn’t do with my life. I was just doing it. I was on autopilot.

I love that I’m not doing that now.

Love and Laughter a Year Later

How Nancy and Hal celebrated in Naples, Fl.

On Valentine's Day a year ago, I brought you a love story-- a tale that has become the most often-clicked story on my blog.  Hal Kessler and Nancy Florin met in high school. He was a young, enthusiastic history teacher. She was one of his admiring students. One reason, probably, was his hysterical sense of humor. But Nancy and Hal didn't become an item for another 48 years. And, guess what? Some relationships are meant to last.
"We are still together," Hal told me yesterday. "We celebrated my eightieth birthday last October. Nancy and I spent 5 wonderful days in Naples. Thursday we will have dinner at Capital Grill (NJ) to celebrate Valentine's Day. 
"Early in March, we are going to Clearwater to watch the Phillies. I wanted to be the the backup for
Jimmy Rollins, but management could not afford the insurance. The front office kept mumbling
about Octoman's (my alias) fielding ability."

Nancy sent along the photo above, taken in Naples, Fl., "to celebrate Hal's BIG birthday.  It's sunset taken from the Gumbo Limba restaurant at the Ritz Carlton through my cosmo!  Only the best for my teacher and 'babe.'"

Hal and Nancy -- the celebration continues

Love and Laughter Alot Later

Once upon a time, a long long time ago, Nancy Lynn Sagel was 16 years old and a student at Northeast High School in Philadelphia. Hal Kessler was 28 and her history teacher.

“It was 1960 when I met Nancy. She sat in row 7, seat 1,” said Hal. “In addition to being a good student, she was always upbeat even though she was subjected to me as a teacher.”

“He’s funny and warm and that’s the kind of teacher he was,” said Nancy. “Everybody loved him.”

That was the end of the story for many, many years.

Nancy, too, became a teacher. And at age 32, she married Elliot Florin. One day, “he left to play tennis and that was it,” she said. “He died early. He was 53.”  She closed up her Nancy Lynn candy shop in Avalon, N.J., and with the help of  friends, moved on.

After a long marriage, Hal’s wife fell sick and he cared for her for four years until her death in 2008.

But this is a Philadelphia fairy tale and it has a happy ending.

Over the decades, Nancy and Hal would occasionally bump into each other – once at Decatur elementary, where Nancy was teaching.

Hal joked to the staff,  “’One of my former teachers is on the faculty!’ That got a laugh.”

Another time, they ran into each other at a funeral. “He was wearing a light khaki suit. I told my friends, ‘I saw Mr. Kessler today.’ ”

Then, after Hal’s wife died, they bumped into each other at the Genuardi’s market in Rockledge,  about equidistant from his place in Elkins Park and hers in the city.

“It was one of the aisles where they have apple sauce and little packs of fruit,” Hal said.

“You remember that?” Nancy said, as the two told me their story at Le Bus in Manyunk.

“I asked Nancy for her phone number and email and she said, ‘I don’t go out with older men,’” Hal quipped. (He is a jokster… see my earlier blog about a guy who does nothing.)

That was 3 ½ years ago.

Last  September, they went together to Nancy’s 50^th high school reunion.

“He was the class reunion star,” Nancy said.

“Don’t put that in, it’s embarrassing,” he said.

“A lot of people knew; a lot of people didn’t know,” said Nancy, beaming. “It was the topic of conversation.”

What draws them together is their shared love of history, theater, movies, eating out and watching sports. “We’re both home bodies,” said Nancy.

They see each other almost every day, but have no problem doing a lot separately.

“When you find someone late in life,“ you also want to keep your own interests,  said Nancy.  “On Saturday night Hal babysat his grandkids and I went out with my friends. And I’m going with my girlfriends to Las Vegas."

But she’s decided not to go with friends to China for 21 days this spring.

“I can’t be away from him that long,” she said.

Tonight, Valentine’s Day, they plan to dine at Bridget’s steak house in Ambler. Just the two of them.

“I’ll probably have the steak,” said Nancy.

“I’m one of those people who go to steak restaurants and order salmon,” said Hal.

“We feel very comfortable with each other,” said Hal.

“I’ll sum it up better,” said Nancy. “I just adore him.”

“Ditto,” said Hal.

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