SUE EDWARDS
We lost a kind, brave, generous, good-hearted and clever woman on Sunday.
Sue Edwards came to see me some years back, through Nathan and Darlah, to interview me for the Havanese Magazine. Well, we clearly had one thing in common: a love of a lovely breed - her Calleigh and my Cuba. Sue and Richie came to my house in Oxford, UK, Sue to interview me, Richie to take what turned out to be some of the best photographs I’ve ever had taken, and I’ve had a lot, over the years, and by some fairly spectacular photographers - David Bailey, Norman Parkinson, David Montgomery, all names well known in the UK although possibly unheard of in the US? Anyway. Richie’s seemed to me to be actually better than any of those others. And Sue’s interview, as some of you may have read in the Magazine, was so well researched and written.
Well, all that might have been that, but it wasn’t. Over the years we kept in touch and discovered along the cyber-way that we had much more than our small dogs in common, Sue and I: a love of making things - quilting, knitting, sewing - being the most shared between us, photographs to-ing and fro-ing across the internet, experiences exchanged, problems solved. And yes, Calleigh and Cuba played a big part in what became a close friendship.
And then Sue got ill, and she and Richie shared that experience with me, too; they braved this rollercoaster with unbelievably moving courage, together, supporting each other. It’s horrible for both parties involved, and my own brave, wonderful partner, Nick, had been through similar nightmares with his own wife. So he and Richie would communicate sometimes on what it is like to be the participating audience in this dread drama. I hope, and believe, that Nick’s medical knowledge as a neuroscientist may have helped them both over some of the hurdles of the health system.
Brave, loving, good people, Sue and Richie. Courageous in the teeth of hellish times, Sue bore her illness with grace and elegance, with good humour and rightly-felt anger at what was happening to her but with a strength to know how to let go of that anger and cherish every moment with Richie and with Calleigh.
It says interesting things about the internet, doesn’t it, that a real friendship can flourish across oceans - I now live in Hong Kong, but the friendship has never lessened, the emails have continued, the sharing of interests went on being shared. What could have been a fleeting ‘hello and goodbye’ turned into that real friendship. I shall forever be grateful for having known Sue, for knowing Richie still, for seeing such courage and now for being able to celebrate her life as I try not to cry.
Lalla Ward, Hong Kong, 17th June 2020
Saturday, July 4, 2020 at 7:54PM 
Well, all the pups have departed but 1. She is mighty confused. It's hardest on the last couple of pups but she will depart tomorrow morning.
