THE FLY SWATTER

Sue Winslow (1936-2023) was a spiritual director, teacher, wife, mother and grandmother, Quarter Horse lover and competitor. She was a dear friend of ours who once gifted Roz and me with a fancy Pampered Chef Fly Swatter. This thing has a little dust pan about three inches wide that clips on the handle so a person may snap it off and sweep a dead fly into the pan and into the trash… but that’s not all…in the handle of the Fly Swatter is a pair of plastic tweezers for picking up dead flies out of tight spaces so one need not touch the nasty things. We have had this favorite Fly Swatter for no less than 25 years, never failing to think of Sue and thank the Lord for who she was with each use.

Sue died in 2023 and it still seems as though Roz and I should still be meeting her and her husband Jim at their cabin in Colorado to teach and share and eat in retreat together like we did for so many years. We typically celebrated her birthday during this time. She liked to do this in the Fall when all the Colorado color was vivid and the air was crisp… as did we. She and Jim have been our friends for many years and we have shared many kinds of fellowship together. Sue was a God chaser. She left a legacy of kindness, soberness, carefulness, generosity, prayer and meditation.

But that’s not all she left. She left us with The Fly Swatter…the gift that keeps on swatting. Every fly we swat, we say, Thanks Sue. Thanks Sue, for many things.

“By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” Jesus