I grew up in a family of six children. My parents married in 1958 and quickly started building the large family they had always dreamed of. My sister Sue arrived first in 1960, followed by Sally in 1963 and Mary in 1965. Three girls in a row.
My dad played professional baseball for the Detroit Tigers in the 1950s, and his friends and uncles used to tease him, asking when he would finally 'put a stem on the apple' and have a boy. I arrived in 1966. From the stories I have heard, the men celebrated with cigars and beers, not because my parents did not adore their three daughters, but because the family name would now continue.
Our family kept growing. My sister Amy arrived in 1967, and my brother Ronnie followed in 1969. We used to joke that my mom spent the entire 1960s pregnant. All six of us attended Catholic school through middle school before moving on to public schools. My parents were calm, steady, and loving, encouraging us to explore who we were and pursue whatever interested us.
As I look back now at age 60, my childhood memories feel warm and full of life. With eight people in the family, plus a rotation of pets, it was always chaotic. And it was wonderful. Our house was loud, messy, and full of life.
Sue, the oldest, did everything first. She was the first to graduate high school and the first to go away to college. After graduating from Central Michigan University, she did something that felt enormous to our tight-knit Livonia, Michigan, family: she moved to New York City to work for ABC. For a girl from suburban Michigan, it seemed like she had boarded a rocket ship to another planet. My parents were nervous but proud. Sue had that effect on people. You believed in her dreams because she believed in them so quietly and confidently.
The years rolled forward. Sally and Mary became outstanding swimmers and earned scholarships to Michigan State University. I followed with a baseball scholarship to MSU, and Amy joined us there later. Suddenly, four of us were in college. Ronnie, the youngest, chose a different road. College was not for him. Instead, he became a truck driver. At times, he felt insecure about that choice, as if he had taken the lesser path. But Ronnie was the kind of man the world quietly depends on.
No matter where we were or what we were doing, our mom called every Sunday just to check in, hear about our lives, and remind us that home was always there for us if we needed it. Those calls meant everything to me, and it turned out one of them led to a promise I would carry with me for the rest of my life.
I was finishing college when I received one of Mom's Sunday phone calls. I immediately sensed something was different. Her voice had a softness to it, and also a heaviness. I asked her what was wrong. She did not ease into it. 'Sue has cancer,' she said. I remember going silent. 'What?' I asked. She repeated the three words. 'How could that be?' I asked, trying to hold back the tears that were already forming. In my mind, things like that did not happen to families like ours. Those were stories on the news. Tragedies that happened to other people. Not us. Not to my 28-year-old sister. I was 22 years old, but in that moment I felt like a small boy again, wanting nothing more than my mom to tell me everything would be okay.
Sue was the smartest of all of us. She had patience, grace, and a calm kindness that made people trust her instantly. I have never met anyone who did not love Sue. At that time she was thriving professionally by working her way up at ESPN in affiliate marketing and earning promotion after promotion. And now she had cancer. Her official diagnosis was ocular melanoma. The treatment required radiation that ultimately cost her the sight in one eye, but her doctors believed the cancer was gone. We all believed that too.
Life moved forward. Sue fell in love with Larry, a wonderful man she met at work. They got married and soon welcomed their first daughter, Nicole. Three years later, Jen was born. Sue's career continued to soar. She became ESPN's first female vice president. It felt like the storm had passed. Until it did not.
Ten years later, my mom called again. She had the same tone in her voice that I had heard before. Sue's cancer had returned, and this time it had spread to her liver. She consulted the best hospitals in the country. I also called doctors in hopes that I might find something, anything, that might help. Many of them returned my calls. Their voices were kind and sympathetic, but honest. Sue's prognosis was not good.
Soon my mom, who was staying with Sue, told me and my siblings we should come to Connecticut. All of us went. That week was strangely beautiful. We sat together, watched movies, told old family stories, and laughed like we always had. Sue seemed like herself, just a little more tired. However, near the end of the week everything quickly changed. A hospice nurse arrived, and she seemed like an angel quietly guiding my family through something none of us knew how to face.
Then the moment came, the moment none of us were ready for. We were told it was time to say goodbye. We lined up outside Sue's room. It sounds strange, but we waited in birth order. Maybe we did that because it felt natural. Maybe because Sue had always gone first in everything. Sally went in. Then Mary. Then it was my turn. Sue looked at me and smiled. She could see I was struggling. She lifted herself up and hugged me before either of us said anything. I could not speak. I was crying too hard.
Sue told me she loved me. Then she thanked me for being brave. The only words I could manage were, 'I love you, Sue. I am going to miss you.' Then Sue asked me to do something for her. 'Anytime you hug Nicole or Jen,' she said softly, 'let it be a hug from me too.' I nodded as my tears fell and promised her I would. In that moment, it felt like the smallest promise in the world. I did not realize it would become one of the most important promises of my life. She pulled me back into another hug, and I held on a little longer that time, because somewhere deep inside, I think we both knew that when we finally let go, it would be the last time. Sue smiled again, as if to comfort me. That was Sue being Sue. And that was how we said goodbye. A few hours later, Sue passed away peacefully with our entire family in the house.
One night, months later, I was alone in my office. I started thinking about Sue and suddenly became overwhelmed with emotion. Then something strange happened. I felt her presence. It was not in a way that I could explain logically, but it felt absolutely real. It was like there was a quiet energy in the room, and I felt like Sue was telling me something. The message was simple: Live your life. Do not wait. Spend time with the people you love. Take the trip. Make the memories. Laugh often. Do not get stuck worrying about things that do not matter. Life is not meant to be postponed. It is meant to be lived. I was 32 years old when that happened, and it changed my life. I began to refer to that moment as 'my philosophical timeout.'
Now I am 60. Nicole and Jen are grown women now, and they both live in different states, but my family still sees them often. And every time I hug them, I keep my promise. Because when I do, I can still feel my sister Sue hugging them too.
Years later, that promise found its way back to me in a moment I will never forget. Decades after Sue's death, my niece Nicole called to wish me a happy birthday. During our chat, she asked me a question that caught me completely off guard: Would I officiate her wedding the following year? I was honored, humbled, and deeply moved.
Nicole's wedding took place on a beautiful October afternoon in Arizona. Officiating her ceremony felt like one of the most meaningful moments of my life. I made the ceremony personal, speaking about love, family, and, of course, my sister Sue. I told Nicole and her now-husband Tanner how proud Sue would be of the woman Nicole had become, and how I believed Sue was surely looking down on us.
What I did not know at that time was that someone had taken a photograph at exactly that moment. It was not until a few days later that we noticed something remarkable. At that point in the ceremony, I asked Nicole and Tanner to turn around and look at the people who loved them and had gathered to witness their marriage. As they turned toward their family and friends, the sun suddenly broke through the trees behind them. When we later looked at a photo of the moment, a beam of sunlight had poured through the branches above them, forming what looked like a soft green halo in the trees. Jen, Nicole's sister, asked me for a copy of the picture. When I looked at it more closely, I felt something I cannot quite explain. It sure looked like Sue was there.
Maybe it was just the sunlight at the perfect moment, or maybe it was something more. I like to think it was Sue's way of being present and quietly sharing in one of the most important moments of her daughter's life. It is hard not having Sue here in person for moments like that, but I believe that anyone who has lost someone they love too soon understands a universal truth about grief: Love does not end. And sometimes, in ways we cannot fully explain, the people we miss most still find their way back to us.
Rick Rozman is a Michigan business owner who enjoys writing about family, life, and the lessons learned along the way. A former college athlete at Michigan State and a professional baseball player, he now lives in White Lake, Michigan, with his wife, Wendy. He is the proud father of three kids and a grandpa of one, with another on the way.
