Great Aunt Suze - About Me

I am Sue Reynolds, an older woman living a gentle life in the Pacific Northwest. Always an Oregonian, I married a gentle man, also an Oregonian, 42 years ago. We have had many adventures in our years together, most of them wonderful and a few, pretty awful. Isn’t that the way it goes?

Great Aunt Suze is a character for sure. A woman much like myself, she is also living a gentle life in Oregon. When Great Aunt Suze began to tell me her tales, I was surprised that she was widowed. I told my husband, Gary, that I was sorry to have killed him off, but Gary quickly agreed that the story works better with GAS living alone in her home with her cats.

‘Great Aunt Suze had married Norman years ago, so long ago it felt like another lifetime. They had found each other in a bar and were inseparable in the years to come. They fished, bought a home together, got married, and wanted to have kids. Great Aunt Suze had always wanted to have a big family, maybe as many as eight. But her husband, Norman, had died young, too young to have children.

Norman was a zookeeper. He tended to his zebras and hippos, the zebras being his favorite. And GAS was a teacher, mostly 2nd grade, and her favorites were the boys. She wanted to have sons, but it wasn’t to be, so she taught school and the kids there were her kids.

But Norman was gone now, long gone. He had died on a fishing trip, in his favorite river. GAS had always thought it would be a zoo accident that would take him, but oddly it was a slippery rock in his favorite river.’

Great Aunt Suze creates a rest stop for all of us. Her home and garden are a place of retreat and respite in a crazy world. Settle in with a cup of tea, and while you may hear some truths or practical lessons on The Art of Living from Suze, she and I both hope that you leave these words feeling refreshed and renewed.

Sue Reynolds
Portland Oregon