You might want to grab a tissue for this one.

I've been preparing for this post since I started this project. Here goes nothing.

Already started crying.

One morning, in the last week of February, I received a text from the manager at the yoga centre in town. It read, "PAMHO, I just got a call from Simon from AAA. He said he had some really bad news he wanted to talk to me about. *number included*."

Immediately my heart stopped beating. I hadn't been involved in Auckland Animal Action since 2003. There were only two things I could think of that would count as really bad news which would be related to Auckland Animal Action. One thing I thought was perhaps the police had done an investigation into some of the illegal activities that we were involved in over the years, like animal liberations, and through their investigations they had finally decided to come after some of us. But that wasn't actually THAT bad. I really knew there was only one thing that could happen in relation to Auckland Animal Action which could possibly be really bad. Something must have happened to Suzy.

I quickly sent a text back thanking the manager of the yoga centre, and then sent a text to Simon asking him to call me when he could. My mind was racing. There were so many things going through my head. It was breakfast time at the monastery, but I was hardly present at all. I was anxious for so many reasons.

Soon after breakfast Simon called my cellphone. My voice broke as I spoke to him. He was straightforward but caring as be broke the news. Suzy had died. The funeral was on Friday. I struggled to maintain my composure. I told him that I knew, as soon as I heard that something bad had happened in relation to AAA that something must have happened to Suzy. He asked if I was okay, and I said I was, and that I would see him at the funeral.

I wanted to run somewhere, curl in a ball and cry. But I was a monk. And such extreme emotional responses was not expected of a monk. I walked back into the kitchen, suppressing all my emotions. There were two monks cleaning the kitchen, and they asked who was on the phone. I told them that a friend of mine had died, and that was someone inviting me to the funeral. They responded coldly, asking if I was seriously considering going to the funeral, as it's not a normal thing for monks to go to funerals. They made comments about how life was temporary, and we would all die soon. No one asked how I was feeling about the situation. No one comforted me at all.

I was staying back home that day, and everyone else was heading out to sell books. As soon as I heard the car leave the driveway I broke down. I started crying hysterically. I curled up in a ball in my room and cried for possibly over an hour. I didn't know what to do. I felt I had no one I could talk to about this. No one at the monastery seemed to be possess the maturity to deal with these kinds of emotions. The fact that I was crying about the death of a female friend of mine would have simply illicited concern from the monks that perhaps I wasn't a very good monk. And I was almost entirely cut off from any friends outside the monastery who knew Suzy at all. I felt to alone, and so completely shattered by this. I sent my mother a text asking if she could call me when she had a spare moment. When she called I just broke down in tears again, sobbing. She didn't know what was wrong. I finally managed to get myself together to tell her that Suzy had died. She stayed on the phone with me until I managed to get myself together. She called again in the evening to make sure I was okay. She also told all my brothers to call me to let me know they were thinking about me. My dad also called soon after my mom hung up the phone. She had also called him.

I went online to see if there was any news about Suzy's death. Indymedia had an article up, which you can see at http://www.indymedia.org.nz/article/75005/suzanne-carey-september-10-1973-–-februa. I left a comment on the page, which was as follows:

This is potentially the worst news I have ever received. This is a major loss for the animals. I think it may be fair to say that she directly saved more animals from conditions of suffering than anyone else in New Zealand thus far. I have many found memories of late night missions into factory farms with Suzy, leaving many cages empty. Who can ever take her place? I'm incredibly saddened by this news.

I also posted a thread on an internet forum which I had been frequenting over the past nine years. What I posted is as follows:

It is with great sadness that I report the death of one of my very closest friends and long time animal liberationist, Susan Carey.

I knew Susan for about 10 years, and I know for a fact that she has liberated more animals than anyone else in New Zealand, from conditions of suffering and placed them into caring, safe homes to live out the rest of their lives in peace, free from the abusive meat, egg, fur and animal research industries.

Now that she has passed away, I think it is safe to mention a few things that Susan did for the animals, which would not be safe to mention if she were still alive, given the nature of these acts. One night, at about 2 am, during a very heavy rainstorm, Susan and one other activist gained entry to a very dark battery hen farm. After documenting the horrific conditions in which these battery hens were living, Susan took 9 hens out of their cages, placing them safely into animal carrying boxes, and took them out of the hellish factory farm death they were sentenced to. She stayed up all night looking after the birds, in the morning she took them to a vet friend of hers, and then drove an hour to drop them off at a farm owned by some caring vegan friends.
This was not an isolated incident. One time she helped several other activists to liberate 38 chickens from a factory farm. I am willing to say that over the +15 years that she was involved in animal liberation activities, well more than 1000 animals would have been save by her.

Aside from this, she inspired so many people to take up an active role in the animal rights movement, risking their own freedom and comforts to save the lives of as many animals as possible.

She was a very humble person, she never wanted to take any credit for anything. She lived a very simple life, dedicate not to attaining material success, material comforts or possessions. Instead she spent all her time and all her money on helping the animals. Her pleasures were simple; chinese vegetarian food, french fries, humus and chip sandwiches and late night movies.

I think a lot of people will miss Suzy, and I am certain that the animals will be mourning her death. She was always there for me in the tuff times of my life, and I owe a lot to her. I would not be where I am today if it were not for her.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. I wanted to let as many people as possible know about this great loss.

RIP
Susan Carey - September 10 1973 – February 24 2008

I pretty much spent the whole day crying. My heart was broken thinking about the fact that I never had the chance to say sorry for ignoring her for all those years, and for turning my back on our friendship without any explanation. What I was most surprised about was that I felt guilty for being so incredibly sad about it. Monastic life was such a sterile existence, and extreme emotional responses were looked down upon. From some of the comments from the monks in the morning I felt like I was fallen just for being so emotionally destroyed by this news.

At the same time, the emotional release felt empowering for some reason. I felt as if it was the first time in several years that I actually experienced serious emotions. As I lay in my room crying I realised that I had nothing to be ashamed about, and these emotions were so important for dealing with this loss that I should never consider repressing them. None the less, before the monks arrived home from the day, I had a long shower, washing my face all of signs of crying. I was exhausted.

I knew I needed to talk to someone about this. I had one friend at the monastery at the time who I felt I could approach about this. I called him into a room, and told him what had happened, and how I had responded. He was very supportive, but he was also understanding that the other monks, especially the senior monks, would not really understand. I was very grateful for the chance to talk to someone face to face about this. I was and still am very grateful for his friendship over these years. He even called me this morning, as he is also following this blog religiously.

I cried everyday until the funeral. I had to go to the funeral, even though I knew it was looked down upon by the other older monks. I told them that it was a family friend who had died, that my parents expected me to attend. They still protested but I insisted it would be okay. I knew that if I did not go to the funeral I would be bitter for the rest of my life about it. I was already bitter about the fact that I hadn't spoken to Suzy in years, or had the chance to say sorry before she died.

I was dropped off at the funeral by the same friend I talked to about Suzy's death. He was very comforting and understanding, and said I could call at anytime if I couldn't deal with the funeral, and if I wanted to leave. In the end, I sent him a text saying I would find my own way home.

As funerals are, this was an unfortunate opportunity for a reunion with so many people I hadn't seen or spoken to for years. That alone was a massive emotional experience for me. I felt so guilty talking to each and every person for having ignored their friendship for so long. These were all people who had helped me out in the past, with whom I had so many intense experiences. Just meeting up with many of them made me feel like crying, let alone thinking about the circumstances of our meetings.

The funeral was sterile. I think it was mostly designed for family. On one side of the chapel sat Suzy's family, dressed in respectable clothes. The other half of the chapel was full of activists, punks and hippies. Both sides were crying. Aside from the funeral director, Suzy's sister also spoke, as did many of her friends. My eyes were full of tears the whole time.

At the end of the funeral we were all invited to come up to the closed casket, place any items we had brought with us, or some flowers that they had available on it, and to say our last words to Suzy before she was cremated. I had brought some flowers from home, so I went up and placed them on her casket. I touched the casket, and whispered to her that I was so sorry for turning my back on our friendship. As per Suzy's wish, the song Cow's with Guns played in the background.

We then all left the inside of the chapel and congregated outside. We all felt like we needed more time for closure so many of Suzy's friends decided to meet together at a near by park. We visited a supermarket that was close by and picked up a few things to eat and went to the park where we sat and talked about Suzy and shared hilarious stories of protests and things.

It felt so nice to talk to my friends again about Suzy, and to share these emotions together. I knew this was unconventional for a monk, but I didn't care anymore. By ignoring my friendship with Suzy over all those years I felt I had suffered such a great loss, I didn't want to risk anything else.

After that I made up a list of friends who I had to contact before they were dead. One was easy to find, she was always on MSN anyway. I signed into MSN, and my first words were "Do you have a system in place to make sure that I would find out if you died?" Her response was "Are you dying or something Mikey?"

I still sometimes cry when thinking about Suzy's death. I definitely cried while writing this update. Suzy's death brought up so many emotions for me, and it made me realise so many things about my life, what I really needed to do with my life, and it made me see so many aspects of the way I was living my life at the time which were not at all healthy emotionally, nor sustainable psychologically.

This single event led to so many carry one events throughout 2008 and 2009, which culminated in me leaving the Krishna community altogether. 2008 was a turbulent year.

In the coming updates I'll discuss a bit more about the ripples that Suzy's death had on my life, and how it shaped the rest of my year in amazing ways. There were a few other unrelated events that year which shock my perceptions of myself and the community I was a part of. Also, I got arrested that year, which is probably a surprise for a lot of people to hear about.

RIP

Susan Carey - September 10 1973 – February 24 2008