Susie Weadock Mann — the local woman who, when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer in July 2009 decided to forgo chemotherapy treatment and instead embrace a “bucket list” of activities with her family — died Feb. 15.

The 79-year-old grandmother, who raised four children in Ruxton before moving to Mercy Ridge in Timonium, told the Towson Times her story last October.

In July, she had been given six to nine months to live. She had declined treatment because she didn’t want to spend the time she had left feeling ill with the side effects of chemotherapy, she said.

She opted instead to complete activities with her extended family, a la “The Bucket List,” a 2007 film about two terminally ill men who take on adventures before they “kick the bucket.”

Since July, she did everything she wanted to do but never before had the chance.

Accompanied by family and friends, she swam with dolphins in Florida, flew in a helicopter over the Grand Canyon and sky-dived at Cape Canaveral, Fla. She hang-glided. She rode a dogsled. She whipped through the desert on an all-terrain vehicle.

In an interview with CBS News, she said of her adventures, “If something happened to me, what a way to go.”

Many of the residents of Mercy Ridge followed her story.

“She was an inspiration,” said George Oxx, the community’s executive director.  “She was a cheerful, delightful lady who maintained a positive attitude through all of this.

“To take that attitude and to do all the things she did was truly remarkable,” he said.

Susie’s last major adventure took place in the Pocono Mountains, according to the blog of the family’s adventures maintained by her daughter, Louise “Ouisie” Weadock.

There were 45 people there for dogsledding in January, Weadock wrote. Not all of them knew each other, but they all had some connection with her mother.

“The evening was magically serene ... clear sky with stars galore, no wind, huge moon shine casting a shadow on the pristine snow.

“For a long moment we stood together and just loved one another, loved who we were; we loved what God could do if we asked Him and we loved what we stood for ... our ability to let go of a disappointment ... and summon the courage to ‘Get over it.’ ”

By January, it was apparent Susie’s body was having trouble keeping up with her spirit, according to the blog.

“As many of you witnessed, Mom is feeling very, very tired,” Weadock wrote. “The cancer is moving through her and she is going with it in total grace.”

By mid-February, she was even weaker and fighting hard to breathe. She was admitted to Stella Maris Hospice, where family and friends gathered at her bedside.

On Feb. 15 at 6:15 p.m. “without fanfare and with so much grace, ... she set out on a new adventure, taking her last leap, without a kite or parachute,” Weadock wrote.

Her mother had taught them all to live in the joy of the moment, Weadock said.

“Through ‘the buckets,’ we may have lost a mom, but we found each other... we found our family,” she said.

After the family’s trip to the Grand Canyon and Arizona, Weadock had said, “We are here on earth for but a nanosecond. We owe it to ourselves, each other and our God — in the beginning, when you hit life, to hit it hard; when you live life, live it voraciously, and when we leave it, let it know you are gone.”

Her mother did just that, she said.

“I would call it a life well spent,” Weadock said. “We will miss her desperately.”

Sewall “Susie” Weeks Weadock Mann was the sister of Kirkland Weeks and the late John Weeks. She is survived by children John, Michael, Louise and Thomas Weadock and four grandchildren.

A Catholic Memorial Mass for Susie Mann was scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 24, 11 a.m., at the Shrine of the Sacred Heart, Mount Washington, with a reception following at L’Hirondelle Club, 7611 Club Road, Ruxton.

The family is requesting donations go to the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation for Spinal Cord Injury, 636 Morris Turnpike, Suite 3A, Short Hills, NJ 07078; or to Wheels for the World (a wheelchair organization), c/o Joni and Friends, P.O. Box 3333 Agoura Hills, CA 91376.

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user comments (1)

user onewhocares says...

An uplifting story of a woman who lived life to her fullest.

Posted 9:29 AM, 02.25.10

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