The year was 1958 - I was five years old. Yet I remember clearly the  old Seal Stadium in San Francisco. My “favorite aunt,” Aunt Sue, had taken me to see my first baseball game the first year that the New York Giants moved to San Francisco with a young phenom named Willie Mays, and I was beside myself with excitement.

Sue my favorite aunt for a reason. When I was born in April of 1953, my mother was completing her senior year at U.C. Berkeley and Aunt Sue lived with us for a year, taking care of me while my mom attended classes. Aunt Sue and I closely bonded in that first year of life, and our relationship continued to grow in the years that followed.

Aunt Sue and I carried on a decades-long relationship that involved cards, letters, newspaper clippings, and phone calls about any number of topics including sports, politics, education, history, literature, family and of course God.

Throughout all those many conversations, four distinct characteristics of Aunt Sue’s personality stood out: (1) she was a woman of profound faith  (2) she had an unwavering devotion to family, (3) she was a lifelong learner who could talk extensively on any number of topics but was especially passionate about history, and (4) she was naturally optimistic and filled with a joie de vivre that was infectious. She was one of a kind, and we are all fortunate to have been graced with her loving and caring spirit. 

The day after I heard that Aunt Sue had died I looked for the two ticket stubs from that 1958 baseball game, but they were nowhere to be found. Like my beloved aunt, they had moved on to another resting place. And so, here I sit and grieve the loss, and remind myself that “Grief is just love with no other place to go.”

But then I smile, turn from grief back to love, and say a little prayer in thanks for my family, because Aunt Sue would want it no other way.

I knew Sue and her late husband Steve for quite awhile. We lived at Whispering Fountains the apartment complex they lived in. Sue was such a sweet, loving, understanding and sassy lady. I spent so much time with her over the years. I never once got tired or hearing her stories or talking about family and the travels that she had. We had similar likes so we could talk for hours. Sue will be missed so much. She will always have a special place in my heart.

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Acheson & Graham Garden of Prayer Mortuary

Susana Molletti

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Susana E. Molletti

24 May, 1936 – 12 March, 2024

Acheson & Graham Garden of Prayer Mortuary

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