Those left behind coping with loss

By Jenni Carlson

Published: April 17, 2005

Don and Sally Ferrell work in the garden of their daughter's home in Oklahoma City. Susie Ferrell was killed in the bombing. Don and Sally Ferrell sat in the shade, sipping coffee, watching Susie's garden grow.

The afternoon's work showed in the dirt smudges on their jeans. Their graying hair was tousled, and their 70something muscles were tired. They came from their home in Chandler to the house in Oklahoma City to plant and water, weed and tend the garden.

Their daughter Susan put down roots at the Edgemere Park home more than a decade ago, a purchase financed by her job as a lawyer with Housing and Urban Development. Her office was in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

So was Susie on April 19, 1995.

That morning she rode the elevator from the parking garage to the ninth floor with one of the legal assistants from her office. The women chatted about the warming weather.

"I'm so glad it's spring," Susie told her co-worker. "I can plant my flowers."

Don and Sally Ferrell found flats of wilted morning glories at her house later that week. Eventually, they planted more. Now, the yellow flowers have grown up and taken over the lattice work that frames the brick patio. Don recently cut them back while Sally planted petunias, begonias and azaleas.

They keep Susie's garden growing.

If it is alive, so is she.

Her family refused to let die the life that Susie had carved out. The Ferrells decided to keep their daughter's house, taking over the mortgage and overnighting there when they come to the city.

Their reasons for keeping the house are as much sentimental as they are practical. These are people who celebrate history, Don as a longtime newspaper publisher, Sally as an advocate of building preservation. No history is more dear, no legacy more important than their daughter's.

The Ferrells left the house much as it was the morning Susie left. Ceramic cats on the mantle. Lilac paint on the walls. Flowers in the garden.

"Certainly, we still feel like it's her house," Sally said.

Long search for the right home
Susie Ferrell searched for the brick house with the arched walkways and hardwood floors all her life.

She and her mother went on house-hunting expeditions for months, driving all over Oklahoma City. They wound though neighborhoods, turning where they might and losing themselves in the search. Nothing seemed to fit, so Susie stayed in a rent house on the west side of Edgemere Park.

Then, a friend who worked as a Realtor called about a house she had on the other side of the park. Built in 1935.

Susie went to see it and fell in love. The yellow and black tile in the master bath. The green and lavender tile in the second bath. The original light fixtures.

"This," she said, "is the house I've been looking for."

She moved in and changed little about the house. Not the wall color. Not the flooring. Yet she made it her own, hanging pictures of her belly dancing, transforming the second bedroom into an office filled with her books and photos and mementos from her travels around the world.

The house became a hub of activity. Women from the Wednesday night study group at the First Unitarian Church gathered there. Her sister, Cindy, stayed there the night before she and husband, Albert Ashwood, had their daughter. Co-workers planned to celebrate a wedding engagement there.

The party was April 21, 1995, the night they pulled Susie Ferrell's body out of the rubble of the Murrah Building.

Chroniclers of history
The Ferrells' first inclination was not to sell Susie's house.

Don is a retired newspaper man. For almost three decades, he owned The Lincoln County News and recorded comings and goings every week in Chandler. He served in the Oklahoma Senate from 1966-74 and as press secretary to former Gov. Henry Bellmon, but the constant was publishing the newspaper.

Don chronicled history.

Sally made sure people remembered it. In addition to spearheading the efforts of Chandler's marionette theater, which does shows about Oklahoma history, she fights for historic buildings. She secures grants for restoration.

Maybe it only makes sense that the Ferrells decided to keep their daughter's house. It is part of history, after all. Their history.

Current culture has certain mores about dealing with grief. Remembering is encouraged. Going back to normal is expected. Keeping a few things that belonged to a loved one is OK. A watch. A painting. But a house, especially one left just as it was?

"It wasn't just a house she lived in," her sister, Cindy, said. "It was her house.

"There's a difference."

They still call it Susie's house

They aren't entirely sure when they made the decision to keep the house. They just never decided to sell it.

A visit by Rabbi Harold Kushner in the weeks after the bombing helped the Ferrells come to peace about the house. The author of the best-selling book "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" spoke to victims' families one afternoon on the back lawn of governor's mansion.

"Sit a chair for them. Talk about them," Kushner told the families. "Don't let people take your loved ones away from you."

Like she did, they opened the house to extended family and friends. They gathered there for lunch after one of their niece's daughters had her church confirmation. They prepared dinner there the night before the Oklahoma City Memorial Marathon for runners competing in Susie's honor. They even allowed next door neighbors to use the house for a family reunion.

"She'd like that we're using it," Sally said.

And in those moments when laughter rings off the walls and warmth radiates throughout the house, they think of Susie. Whether in the sunlight streaming through the blinds or the whirring of the microwave's clock in the kitchen, there are constant reminders.

They still call it Susie's house.

And it's not an inanimate object.

"It's just become part of the family," said Deb Ferrell-Lynn, Don and Sally's niece.

Laughter and roses
The Ferrells plan to go to Susie's house Tuesday after the service at the national memorial. There will be scads of people and tons of food. There will be laughter and probably tears.

Don and Sally will think of Susie.

The rose bush they planted after she died leans heavy with pregnant buds. Like everything else in the garden, though, it grows every day. The flowers and trees and plants change in ways that aren't noticeable right away. The difference is small at first and dramatic in the end.

Don and Sally hope the roses bloom soon.

Every April 19, they take flowers to the memorial.