Susan Esther Langin, 74, passed away in Cranbrook, BC, on July 19, 2025, just over four years after being diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. She had a positive attitude to the end, saying that she was the luckiest person in the world because of her loving family, long life, wonderful medical team, and the “miracle pill” that kept her cancer at bay for many years.

Born on November 3, 1950, in Boulder, Colorado, Susan and her family moved to Iowa briefly before settling in Stockton, California, where her father Carl was a professor of education at the University of the Pacific. As the fifth of six children, she grew up in a bustling household filled with laughter, childhood antics, and delicious baked goods. Her beloved mother Marie was a kindergarten teacher. Education was of central importance to Carl and Marie and they were able to save enough money to send all six children to college. They also prioritized travel, once taking the family on a weeks-long trip to Europe where they drove around in a VW bus.

Susan attended Colorado College, graduating with a degree in political science in 1973. While there, she met a fellow student named Bob who hailed from Canada and played on the college’s division I hockey team. He would later become her husband. She didn’t know much about Canada or hockey when she met him. But later in life, she became a fervent fan of Team Canada and rooted for them when playing rival Team USA. “If Canada wins, it’ll make more people happy,” she reasoned.

She and Bob spent a few years at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, where she completed a master’s degree in community and regional planning. After that, they moved to Cranbrook—Bob’s hometown—and she began a job as the city planner.

In 1982, one day before her 32nd birthday, she gave birth to her first child, daughter Katie. Sons Dave and Jeff followed in 1985 and 1987. She stopped working for the city and stayed home with her children full-time until Jeff was three years old, at which point she went back to school to become a teacher.

After receiving a teaching degree through the University of Victoria, she took on substitute teacher roles and eventually worked her way up to having a classroom of her own. As Katie was going through things in Susan’s office after her passing, she came across artwork some of her students made, in which “Mrs. Langin” was described as kind, playful, sweet, fun, helpful, trustworthy, and joyful.

Through Bob, she developed a passion for golf. She met many treasured friends while playing at the Cranbrook Golf Club and at the Richmond Country Club in Vancouver, where the family lived briefly when the kids were young. She enjoyed seeing her sons grow up to be avid golfers. Susan held the family record for hole in ones (3) until Jeff finally surpassed her a few years ago.

Susan and Bob retired in 2007. Tired of Canadian winters, they opted to become snowbirds and purchased a place in a retirement community in Indio, California. They quickly grew to love spending winters there, developing a busy social calendar and contributing to the community in various ways. Susan joined the choir, did water aerobics, learned pickleball, and started a group that organized outings in the surrounding area.

During summers, Susan and Bob enjoyed traveling with their camper trailer. They took it on short trips to the many national parks in the Canadian Rockies. They also took two longer trips, in 2010 taking their trailer across Canada all the way to Newfoundland before driving down to their home in California, and in 2014 driving north to the Yukon and Alaska. “We were a great team during those trips,” Bob said recently as he reflected on all that they’d done.

Susan traveled to Germany regularly, not to see the sights but to see people. All four of her grandparents emigrated from Germany to Iowa in the late 1800s, and Susan took up the mantle from her mother as being the main family member in the Americas who maintained ties with relatives in Germany. She learned German and spent time there taking classes during college and staying with a family in Eching. For the rest of her life, she made a point of returning every few years to visit that family, who she grew to be very close with, and relatives in various parts of the country.

Susan received the surprising news in 2021 that she had advanced lung cancer despite never having smoked. We didn’t think she’d make it through that year. But after getting genetic testing of her tumour, she was put on a targeted cancer drug that prolonged her life for four years. In that time, she was able to attend Jeff and Nicole’s small wedding in her and Bob’s backyard (“One of the happiest days of my life,” she said recently), celebrate her and Bob’s 50th wedding anniversary, meet her third granddaughter, spend time in Indio, do more camping trips, and travel to Germany accompanied by Jeff. She was ever so grateful that modern science gave her the gift of those extra four years.

Through her illness, Bob was an extremely attentive, devoted caregiver. She said frequently that marrying him was the best decision of her life.

Susan is survived by her husband of 52 years Robert (Bob) Langin; children Katie, Dave, and Jeff; son in law and daughters in law Dirk, Alison, and Nicole; grandchildren Charlotte, Allie, and Norah; and siblings Gary, Becky, Byron, Peter, and Judy. She was able to develop a deep love for her first grandson, due in September, although she expressed regret in her final days that she wouldn’t get to meet him and didn’t have the energy to make him a blanket. “But I know he’ll be surrounded by a lot of love,” she said.

All her kids and grandkids, as well as two siblings (Gary and Judy), made it to Cranbrook in time to spend the final days and hours with her. The house was full of people and love. Her mind remained active and lively, doing Wordle and regaling those at her bedside with tales of important people in her life.

Her family is deeply saddened that cancer cut short her life. But we’re trying to think positively, as she would have wanted us to do, by focusing on all that she did in her long life and all that we can be grateful for. She lived by her mother’s motto “Think High Thoughts”—and we’re trying to do that, too.

Susan didn’t want a formal memorial service. She shared an alternate vision in an email to her family: “I would encourage those who knew me to grab a beverage and to think about our special relationship with each other, laugh about a certain instance, and make a farewell toast.  I think that might be a meaningful way for people to deal with their individual feelings in their own ways and wherever they are.”

In memory of her, the family kindly requests that, instead of flowers, donations be made to the BC Cancer Foundation, the Cranbrook Food Bank, or any similar organization.

mcphersonfh.com