Susan Ellison Death – Dead | Passed Away – Obituary
Susan Ellison Death – Dead: A great loss was made known to InsideEko. As friends and families of the deceased are mourning the passing of their loved and cherished Susan Ellison.
Having heard about this great loss, the family of this individual is passing through pains, mourning the unexpected passing of their beloved.
This departure was confirmed through social media posts made by Twitter users who pour out tributes, and condolences to the family of the deceased.
She shared her loss with us two years ago. We share our loss of Susan Ellison today. As Harlan said long ago, send her a moment of kind thought right now. The beam will pick it up and carry it across the stars to her where she waits.
She shared her loss with us two years ago. We share our loss of Susan Ellison today. As Harlan said long ago, send her a moment of kind thought right now. The beam will pick it up and carry it across the stars to her where she waits. pic.twitter.com/PRJWbr1dWw
— Maggie Thompson (@ThompsonMaggie) August 4, 2020
Susan Ellison was a lovely person. I remember the first time I met her, she chewed Harlan out for being grumpy with me. He adored her. I adored him. It was a not entirely mutual adoration, but the house was full of glasses with cartoon characters on them…
Susan Ellison was a lovely person. I remember the first time I met her, she chewed Harlan out for being grumpy with me. He adored her. I adored him. It was a not entirely mutual adoration, but the house was full of glasses with cartoon characters on them…
— Colleen Doran (@ColleenDoran) August 4, 2020
I’ve been trying to remember when I first met Susan. It’s a tougher question than it seems because in the world of writers and book signings and conventions there’s often a time-delay between when you see someone and when you meet them or acknowledge them or when you feel safe enough to invite them into the Inner Circle. So I’d seen Susan with Harlan Ellison several times at some of the aforementioned events (but not the Inner Circle) before I actually had the chance to talk to her in anything other than a “Hi, good to see you, how’s it going” sort of way.
By the time Susan came along, Harlan had been married several times (I think the number then was four), and was known to have been in literally hundreds of short-term relationships over the years. Consequently, there were some who saw Susan as just one more one-more. I remember being in Dangerous Visions bookstore while Harlan was holding court, Susan standing nearby, when some of the other attendees referred to her as “the furniture,” an unkind reference to Soylent Green, in which women were supplied to renters along with the utilities, sofa and chairs. I moved away from the conversation because even though I didn’t yet know Susan, I was pretty good at recognizing assholes when I saw them.
It wasn’t until I attended a Writers Guild retreat at Lake Arrowhead with Larry DiTillio (now gone) specifically to see Harlan that I and Kathryn, my wife at the time, got to know Susan. She was bright and funny and insightful and had depths and layers that went on for light years. When Harlan was off doing retreat stuff, the three of us would hang out and just talk, sometimes for hours. It never once got dull or boring and for someone who lacks social skills and gets bored with most conversations within minutes, that’s saying something.
But even that’s not the point of this posting. Not even close.
Here’s what I learned that weekend about Susan and Harlan:
They were hopelessly and eternally in love with each other. I don’t mean “yeah, I love her” love, I mean the kind of love that made their eyes go soft and there was mutual recognition and need and self-sacrifice and basically they were more in love with each other than just about any other couple I’ve ever met, and I’ve met some doozies.
They were inseparable. To be apart was literally painful for both of them. They were cute together. They doted on each other, bought silly little gifts for each other, made faces and ate the wrong sorts of food and far too much ice cream but god they were happy together. Jesus Christ.
After the Lake Arrowhead retreat, we became kind of a let’s-go-see-a-movie foursome. I think was because we were among the first to see Susan as Susan and not as The Furniture, but the question never came up and we went to dinner almost once a week for months and years, saw shows and baseball games and movies and conventions and traveled together and explored the Winchester Mystery Mansion and she and Kathryn would do Pilates every week which neither Harlan or I would go to on a bet, but we didn’t mind the oddity of their obsession because every minute we hung out together was delightful and funny and memorable. And Susan was always at the center of all of it, giving more than she received.
And then there were the hard times that ninety-nine percent of you know nothing about and likely never will. Horrors and tragedies that would have flattened anyone else. But Harlan was able to stand, because Susan stood there with him tall and strong and rail-straight and would not let him fall.
Did they argue? Sure. Was it all rosy? No. The path of any writer is difficult under even the most golden of circumstances, and Harlan’s path was especially painful and he could become intemperate when provoked. Sometimes that came home. They were married. It happens. Let ye who is without the occasional stupid argument throw the first stone.
But it never, ever changed what they felt for each other. The expression on their faces and the look in their eyes when they glanced at each other at Lake Arrowhead was still there twenty-plus years later. It was astonishing. It was a mystery. It was holy. He loved her completely, and she loved him just as much or more. “To the depth and breadth and height” their souls could reach. It was the kind of love I’ve never known and probably never will. But I got to experience it by proxy through Harlan and Susan.
When Harlan passed away, she was again the strong one, partly because she knew that’s what Harlan would have wanted, but also because that’s just who and what she was. I was one of the first she called with the news because she knew that’s how he would’ve wanted it to go. Strong. God, so strong.
And now she is gone, and the world is smaller, and duller, and less interesting than it was before.
Ellison Wonderland is now quieter than before: the vast, high-ceilinged office where Harlan did his writing, the pool table beneath Stadium-level speakers, the secret rooms that once helped hide Vietnam war objectors on the run to Canada, the toys and the meticulously painted figurines, and the room that was built just to hold all the mugs he had collected…the stacks of awards and manuscripts and tens of thousands (yes you read that number right) of books carefully and lovingly maintained and read and honored.
The rooms remember being filled with love and music and important conversations about trivial things and trivial conversations about important things, and laughter, and the living souls of Susan and Harlan Ellison, who together brought something ineffably beautiful into the world.
And now they are gone.
And I have no words that will tell you what that really, truly means.
Harlan’s words stand alone.
We are still working on getting more details about the death, as family statement on the death is yet to be released.