Sue Williard is a remarkable woman whose extraordinary combination of empathy, energy, and expertise made her an invaluable assistant and companion on the difficult road my husband (David) and I had to travel.

This road began when David was diagnosed with a brain tumor, 2.5 years before he died. During most of this time, he continued to be his wonderful high functioning self. Although we knew his death would be premature (he was only 54 at diagnosis), nothing could prepare me for his rapid decline and death in the final month of his illness. My sense of shock and surreality during that month left me feeling like the proverbial “deer in the headlights” — even with hospice, I was uncertain about how to be my husband’s caretaker, and I was overwhelmed with the household and financial responsibilities that suddenly transferred from him to me.

Fortunately, a group of friends made Sue’s services available to me. She spent two days a week in my home, assisting throughout the crisis, and then transitioned to a stabilizing and restorative role in the months that followed.

During the crisis month of David’s decline, Sue kept my household running so I could better focus on David and his care. She quickly figured out how things work in my house, and kept up with the laundry, food shopping, and cooking. She handled a barrage of phone calls and email messages, providing me with concise summaries so that I could respond when I was up to it; she even drafted some of the more complicated emails that I needed to send out. As an experienced garden designer and landscaper, she was able to put in my annual vegetable garden, and install irrigation for it. By preventing my house and garden from falling into chaos, she made them a sanctuary where I could find much-needed peace and comfort.

Sue also helped me cope with the practical details of being the primary caregiver of a hospice patient. She helped me interpret the at times cryptic instructions provided by the hospice personnel. She researched and arranged for supplies and equipment, such as a wheelchair ramp, that were needed at each stage of David’s rapidly deteriorating condition. She never hesitated to work directly with David, helping me transfer him to the wheelchair, reposition him in bed, change his bedsheets, and make him comfortable. Sue was one of the few people David was willing to see in his last weeks.

Immediately after David died, Sue was like a trusted sister who knew what to do when I didn’t. She coordinated the transportation for visiting family members; she hosted the open house, arranging food and flowers, cleaning up, and packaging leftovers. In the days that followed, she organized the return of equipment and the donation of medications, and assisted with filing the death-related paperwork, including the death certificate, long term care claims,  life insurance claims, pension enrollment forms, and social security forms. She made numerous fact-finding phone calls and wrote effective emails to clarify and resolve bureaucratic confusion. Sue’s knowledge of tax-preparation enabled her to assemble the appropriate paperwork to submit to the accountant for the particularly complex income tax return for the year of David’s death.

In the months following David’s death, Sue helped me become functional in my new life as a widow. David had performed most of the joint financial activities, and had established his own system of record-keeping, bill paying, and so on. Unfortunately, I had no idea what David’s processes were. Sue’s bookkeeping experience enabled her to analyze and re-organize the household financial systems in a way that makes sense to me. She identified and organized all of the past tax returns and supporting paperwork, and created an archive of all real-estate purchase and refinance records. She then worked with me to establish a new filing system for current financial paperwork, and has provided ongoing support with record-keeping. She has even helped me set up online bill-paying.

A particularly sad aspect of dealing with David’s death has been sifting through his many works in progress.  In life, David was enormously creative and prolific, and his death left me with numerous shelves and drawers of research, writings, and collections. Sue has done an amazing job of consolidating, organizing, cataloging, boxing, and labeling David’s projects. As I have made my decisions about what to keep, she has researched appropriate places to donate the items to be passed along. She has accomplished all this in a fraction of the time I would have taken, and spared me much of the sadness I would have experienced.

Sue’s event-planning and project-management skills were indispensable throughout all aspects of David’s Memorial Celebration. I had a very ambitious but nebulous vision for this event — I wanted the 250 attendees to not only share stories and memories of David, but also learn about and experience David’s many activities and interests. Sue’s imagination, resourcefulness, and pragmatism transformed this vision into a reality — a reality I was too overwhelmed to create by myself. She:

• Conducted planning meetings and kept copious notes for me to review
• Coordinated the efforts of about 50 volunteers
• Established the floorplan and space usage at the facility
• Designed a museum exhibiting David’s works and collections
• Scheduled and organized servers and caterers for the meal
• Handled all financial transactions with the facility, the musicians, the servers, and the caterer
• Designed and arranged the floral decorations
• Organized and supervised the event setup, the overall program schedule, and the cleanup
• Saw that everything ran smoothly, so I could connect with the attendees, and focus on feeling David’s presence there.

Sue’s gentle and insightful nature made it very easy for me to work with her, no matter what state I was in. I could grieve in her presence without embarrassment, and was often comforted by her words of wisdom about what I was feeling. From her deep experience with other deaths, she was able to help me articulate my own profound loss.

Sue’s astounding work addressed many important needs throughout this life-changing ordeal, distinct from the services of hospice and social workers. She provided highly personalized support to David and me on so many levels, responding quickly as new needs arose.  Sue’s versatility, her trustworthiness, and her wise and gentle humor have greatly enhanced the quality of my life as the surviving caregiver, and also, I strongly believe, greatly enhanced the quality of David’s death.