Published at 15:43, Wednesday, 09 June 2010

SUSAN Hughes was walking home carrying her shopping when she was gunned down.

Tribute: Susan Hughes

She had two grown-up daughters, Melinda, a social worker, and Sarah, who is wheelchair-bound.

A quiet and friendly person, she had devoted her life to her family.

Susan (nee McGregor) was 57 and hailed from Whitehaven. She had a brother, John, who lives in Lancashire.

Her family said: “Susan was a proud and determined mother of two daughters. She is completely irreplaceable to her family and her friends.’’

Neighbour Mary Moor said Susan would be remembered as “a kind and caring mother’’.

Besides caring for her severely disabled daughter, Susan worked part-time as a secretary at the Copeland Occupational and Social Centre (COSC) in Cleator Moor, which she had been with for six years.

Centre manager Alan Hunter said: “Susan really was a lovely woman and very dedicated – to us, to her family and to life.”

She added that the centre had been kept open to support staff and members who had all been badly affected by Susan’s death.

The centre, which helps disabled people with occupational therapy, is dedicating its concert on Wednesday, at Cleator Moor Civic Hall, to Susan to provide an opportunity to celebrate her life.

Her funeral will be held at St Mary’s and St Michael’s Church at Egremont on Thursday, June 17, at 10.15am, followed by cremation at Distington. Donations in her memory can be made to the Copeland Occupational and Social Centre (COSC), c/o Adams, Read and Hocking, Ennerdale Road, Cleator Moor.

A poem written in her memory reads:

Walking home on a warm, bright day a dark cloud came and took you away.

One minute strolling along in the sun the next, that’s it, your life has gone.

Taken away from all you knew, so sudden, so shocking, so out of the blue.

We may ask why, we may ask how, but it really makes no difference now.

For it’s too late to undo the done and sadly, you weren’t the only one.

It’s so unfair, so thoughtlessly random that you were taken, with apparent abandon.

So many taken in the same way, means Heaven was busy on Wednesday.

A beautiful person, a loving spirit, the world is emptier without you in it.

We wonder, we ponder, in disbelief, all who know you engulfed in grief.

Your caring smile, your gentle ways, we will remember, always.

Nothing we can say, nothing we can do, can bring you back to us, dear Sue.

So now you’re up there shining bright, enveloping Heaven in your glowing light, with the largest, prettiest wings of love, watching over your girls from up above.

X X X R.I.P. Aunty Sue

Published by http://www.whitehavennews.co.uk