In Memory of Dr. Susan Barnes

Anchorage Memorial Service for Susan is Saturday, Sept 2 starting at 6 pm; formal service at 7 pm

I received the notice below from two sources, one saying 6 pm and one saying 6:30 pm. My guess is that if you show up at 6 p, you'll have it covered, and the formal part of the service starts at 7 pm. I sort of edited and combined the two notices, but thank you to Hosanna and Vic for adding them to the site! I tried to put it in a format so anyone can copy and paste below and send it on to whomever you like.

There will be a CELEBRATION OF LIFE FOR SUSAN BARNES Saturday, September 2nd, 2006 starting at 6 P.M. in Anchorage. This notice was posted on the Grrlz List - a weekly e-mail connecting the Womyn's Community in Anchorage:

Everyone is invited to a Potluck and Sing-A-Long, yes everyone! It is a gathering to celebrate the life of one of our own Susan Barnes. Susan enjoyed Sing-A-Longs and Potlucks - so it is in her memory that we gather and in her spirit of building community - we invite everyone. Out North Theater has graciously offered us the use of their space on Sat, Sept 2, 2006 at 6 pm. Come join us. Bring a dish to share, an instrument and song book if you have them. We will try to have as many of the song books from “back in the day.” Most importantly, bring your hearts open to singing and building community. Contact Lynne at 563-0757 for more information. ... RIP sister-friend.

Hosanna adds:

Had she only been able to receive this love that is so expressed nationally on this site! I am humbled, and it is our privilege to pay tribute to her. I am not a writer. After her Celebration of Life, I will ask someone to assist me in putting down the history of these last 3 weeks.

I loved reading oysters, chocolate, and martini's! This, after we had them on the menu for Saturday. Xena and friends, pictures etc. will be there too!

[wish I could send my six-foot cardboard Xena standee... cb]

You all will be there with us and we will toast you, with Susan, at 7:00. Alaska time. We have her here and will take her to Homer before the snow flies, along with Junebug and Maggie.

We remain grateful and thank you for all of your many supports. 

Namaste, Hosanna

For those "Outside," as they say in Alaska, 7 pm Alaska time is 11 pm Eastern Time. You should be able to figure it out from there.

And just to bump it up to the top of the site, here's all the music that's been posted here, including the famous Xena funeral song, performed by Lucy Lawless.

Download Lucy Lawless singing the Xena funeral song she wrote for the show.

Download MP3 of Jennifer Nettles, "A Place for You."

Download 17_funeral_dance.mp3

Download 07_gabby_dance.mp3 

From the Guestbook: Dawn Thompson regrets only knowing the cyber-Susan

[One of Susan's shots looking out on the port at Haines, Alaska, where she wrote to many of us online, sometimes from an apartment, sometimes from her small trailer. cb]

I am kicking myself now. I had the opportunity to meet Susan when she lived in San Francisco, but our schedules just never seemed to mesh. You always think there will be a later.

We shared many stories of our boxers, and the silliness that accompanies having these wonderful creatures in our lives. We commiserated about rescue, and attempting to be foster homes. Her experience was unsuccessful, and she had to give up fostering, ours was unsuccessful in that our foster came to stay for good.

Such a giving and loving person. I cannot even begin to express how big her heart was. I loved reading her posts about Alaska. It is someplace I have always wanted to go, and my husband and I have been planning a visit in the next year or two, and Susan offered to let us stay with her while we were up there. I was very much looking forward to it.

I read with great interest her post about finding a dog nanny...and spoke to her about it. How I wish an opportunity like that had come my way when I was younger. I would have dropped everything and high tailed it to Alaska.

I didnt know about her love for the Xena show, and the fandom that surrounded it. I wish I had. I myself am not a huge fan of it, but many of my friends are, and I would love to have introduced her to them.

Susan..... I never had the privilege of meeting you in person.... but you have made such an impact in my life. I feel such sorrow that you have gone. That I will never get to read of your wonderful adventures... that I have lost someone in my life that cared so much, and gave their friendship completely and totaly, with no holding back, and no strings attached. That is such a rare thing.

I feel that I have failed in friendship to you.... I should have written more. I should have asked more questions. I should have listened better. I miss you, my friend.

Dawn Thompson

Vancouver Photo from Nola: Chocolate Festival!

Nola (enjay) sent this great shot of a little Chocolate Festival a group of Xena fans had in Vancouver. She says everyone brought chocolates from their favorite chocolatier and they had a tasting. That's Wishes, Tam, Susan, jill, Minda, Demeter, and Cathy!

More from Nola:

"Three attendees were not local, so there was a great range of products to taste. Susan brought the most elite chocolate samples, the Scharffen Berger, including the 82% cacao Extra Dark. Take a nibble of that and you knew you'd had chocolate. I still remember the seriousness with which she approached the subject of Good Chocolate, and her joy in our little Festival celebrating it."

Chris

From the Guestbook: Minda Armstrong on how Susan could make a party

Remembering Susan.

I have to say, I am stunned by Susan's death. I met her, like so many of us, thanks to the Xenaverse. It was about 10 years ago when she first came to my home to participate in a crazy, pre-San Francisco convention, Xena party. Susan loved the parties.

She always brought something to share and helped in every way possible. I was amazed at her special home-baked “chakram” cookies. How did she ever find the time to make them with her busy schedule? I’ll always remember Susan bringing her infamous Gabrielle-esque "ugly green sports bra Game" to the parties to add to the amusement of all of us. How did she ever convince us to play it? That was Susan, with her charming smile.

I think back to our trip to Vancouver and the Canadian Rockies. Cathy has added Susan's picture wearing "Ed the Sock" t-shirt to this site.

Well, that occasion was a complete surprise in our vacation plans, to suddenly be in the middle of the Vancouver Gay Pride Parade. Susan was always game for an adventure.

Tam drove the sponsor car, Susan & Cathy and I walked behind, handing out bottles of water along the route, with everyone begging Susan to give them her Ed the Sock t-shirt. She almost gave in… the shirt off her back. That was Susan. And later that day, several of us joined Susan in several helpings of the local "summer ice" oysters at Granville Island. (She did love her oysters.) At that point, the “summer ice” oyster was her sweet favorite.

I remember Susan’s excitement getting onto a horse at Lake Louise, in the Canadian Rockies. (And her equal excitement to get off!) She was so proud that she could do new things like that after her surgery.

And of new things, I’m reminded of a wonderful dinner the three of us had in Jasper. Susan loved new experiences and she had never tasted 'grappa' before. We were all stuffed after the big meal and I told Susan that she had to try it, just once ("once in a lifetime") because it's also supposed to be a great digestive. She was skeptical, but so curious she couldn’t pass it up. So we ordered a glass and the three of us shared. I can still remember the face Susan made when she tasted it. "It really DOES taste like turpentine!" And she scrunched up her face, then laughed, and after another sip she coughed, "you get kind of used to it." We all laughed. Then, she thanked me for bringing her a new “first experience", dubious as it was. I felt honored.

[Hadas (Helen) Rivera-Weiss sent this great shot of Susan at the Portage Glacier from 1990. BTW, the ice at this glacier has receded so much, you have to hike about a mile or more back to get to it now, in 2006. When I was 5, most of this entire lake was all ice. cb]

Mostly, I remember how in awe she was climbing a glacier and how she wanted to stop for every wild animal and lake sighted from the road, just to observe and marvel at the simple beauty of it all. On one such stop, in the middle of the road, I laughed from the back seat of our car as Cathy and I watched her wrestle with a herd of wild goats, long tamed by other tourists, as they poked their heads in her window, drooling and nudging her, grappling for the bag of treats in her hand. She was absolutely out of control with the giggles and faux-indignation, trying to push the noses back.

This was the part of life that Susan was in love with. This is how I will remember her…always.

You’re in our hearts, Susan.

Minda Armstrong

From the Guestbook: Scrivo remembers Xena Night at Meow Mix

i've been thinking a lot about susan all week.

she was the first xena fan i ever met in person and meeting her eventually led me to meet so many more friends, people who have been extremely important in my life. i owe it all to susan.

i met her at the first xena night i ever went to at meow mix in nyc. she eventually sponsored me to a super dooper secret listserv for xena fans. even though i have met many more people because of having met susan, i have yet to meet a kinder, more giving one.

i haven't seen susan in years but that hasn't changed her ability to touch my heart or our ability to connect when the need was there.

i will miss her. i do miss her.

linda fiorella (aka Scrivo)

From the Guestbook: Cathy's great shot of Susan as "Ed the Sock"

[Cathy says this photo was taken during a parade in Vancouver, British Columbia. cb]

I knew Susan from the grand days of Xena fandom, and did some travelling with her to the Canadian Rockies and she visited me here in Florida for a few days.

One of my favorite vacations was the trip she went on with me and Minda from Calgary to Jasper in the Rockies. The scenery was spectacular. It was quite an adventure. Susan had a great smile and a wonderful sense of humor.

The many friends she made from Xena and her Boxer dog organizations meant alot to her.

She would be blown away by all these tributes, and I'm sure she never realized her much she was loved by all of you.

Maybe we can learn something by this. Reach out, call that friend you have been neglecting. Send an e-mail or call. Plan a get-together.

I have a trip to Vancouver planned soon to visit with Tam, Minda and Demeter. We will toast Susan's life over a glass of wine and remember the fun times we all had together. She would really like that.

Cathy

From the Guestbook: kyotey loved Alaska's stories

Alaska, we hardly knew you.

She was so brave and wild and simply unbelievable for moving, all alone except for the galz, to those amazingly remote places in Alaska.

I was envious of her ability to just cut loose and go, doing what she wanted to do, where she wanted to, and I told her that. She responded that anyone could do what she did, it was just another one of life's choices, nothing brave about it at all. She was so wrong about that; she was an amazingly brave woman.

Susan’s stories about her life were fun, and fascinating, and beautiful, and sometimes sad enough to make you cry at your keyboard.

She would write about having a part in rescuing an injured eagle, eating wild berries on the side of the road, the incredible beauty of an Alaskan sky, the joy of watching her Boxer galz run on a beach. She would also write about alcoholism and poverty and spousal abuse, the effect of a dead baby on an entire community, the necessity for some doctors to do things that others would refuse. Susan, you were so brave.

We met on an XWP list of course, then met in person at an XWP gathering in California, and later wound up on another list together. We talked about politics, the doggies, work, my kids, my problems, and, occasionally, the gray in her head, her feelings of isolation, and her hopes for a better future. She wrote that the internet would literally be her lifeline. I’d write a quip or a paragraph or two, and Susan would write back a page or three. She was always colorful and engaging, and could make you feel, for a short time, how it was to live in Alaska.

I wish I had saved all of her emails, that she had known what she meant to me and others, that her life had been a little better. I hope that she knows, somehow, that we are thinking about her and that her doggies are being taken care of, and that that makes her happy.

Erin (kyotey)

Thinking about Susan's Memorial Service today in Haines...

I've been quiet on here today, mostly because I got a bit overtired, and because I know today is the day of Susan's memorial service up in Haines, Alaska, which should be about now, Alaska time.

I'll put up some more guestbook entries later tonight. Right now I'm feeling more quiet and thoughtful. Feeling a stillness around me, not wanting much movement.

Some of us had talked about having a chat-VR-based memorial service at the same time as the Alaska one, but I was just too drained to try to organize it and work on this site at the same time. I know those of us who can't be there are probably feeling quiet today too.

And I'm hoping that people who were at the service (and the later one to be organized in Anchorage) will post some thoughts about what it was like, in the guestbook, for those of us who can't be there.

I tried looking for a poem to post today, but I didn't have much luck finding one, and that's not like me. Maybe someone else has a poem or thoughts like that in mind and will share them.

But for now, some music is all I will post. Many of you will recognize it, and the voice of Lucy Lawless.

Chris

Download 05_burial.mp3

From the Guestbook: How Alaska became bjStranger's first friend at the NYC Xenafest

I'll always remember Susan the way she looked when I first met her outside NBC studios in New York City one frosty cold Friday morning in March 1997. There were a bunch of Xena fans there dressed in costumes and/or waving Xena signs. When I arrived I was on the wrong side of the crowd and she came over and got me.

  "Hi, are you bjStranger?  I'm Alaska."
  "Yes, hi!  How'd you know it's me?"
  "Your sign says ROCanuck on it!"

[Mist & Alaska that very day. Photo graciously provided by bj.]

It was the New York Xenafest and showing up at The Today Show was all part of the festivities. After having read her witty online posts to `Xenaverse’ it was exciting to meet Susan in person. The sign she was carrying said, “NYC XENA FEST” and mine, “Gabrielle & Xena Forever.” She introduced me to Mist, Bonnie, Brooke and some other New Yorkers. Everyone had a ball that morning and we made it on TV for all of about ten seconds.

Later that day Susan showed up at a party in the hotel room I was staying in. There were a bunch of women there from one of the online Xena mailing lists we belonged to. I got to know Susan a little bit better. She was sweet and unassuming. She was itching to finish med school and get out of NYC--to eventually start doctoring up in Alaska, the state that she’d fallen in love with. She told me a little about her life—leaving home when she was a teenager and putting herself through school. I marveled at her perseverance--that she was going to graduate as a doctor despite all. I told her about some of the trials and tribulations of my good friend Jane, a doctor who’s cared for the Innu population in a remote community in northern Labrador since 1986.

Later that same year I saw Susan briefly in Valley Forge, PA at the 1997 Xena Convention. She told me summer in NYC had been a hot sweaty experience. We traded stories on how heat gets down into subway systems, whether in NYC or Toronto. We hoped to cross paths again at the next Xena Con. in San Francisco but never did.

In fact we never met face to face again but in the years to come we kept running into one another on the same online mailing lists. Whatever the topic, Susan’s posts were always well written—at times serious, at times riotous and irreverent.

Of the many things I admired about Susan, her courage and determination stand out the most. She had a heart of gold, a wry sense of humour and a spirit of adventure. After 9/11, and when the war in Iraq commenced she wrote many a passionate post about politics.

After she adopted Shubert and the rest of her Boxer fur-kids I enjoyed reading about their adventures and escapades together. Like the time they met the moose on one of their walks, and the time the girls ran into trouble with the porcupine.

I'm so sorry that Susan is gone now. I'll miss reading her email posts about being a doctor in Alaska and about life with her girls. She had a short life but that life was FULL to the brim. Rest in peace Susan. I'm really glad I met you.

bjStranger

From the Guestbook: DJWP on good times with Alaska, and "Amazons, Dance!"

Download 07_gabby_dance.mp3

Alaska loved a party. And we used any opportunity as an excuse to get together for a Xena-related event. Alaska was on my standard "invitee" list and was a fixture at many of them, especially once I had moved north to San Francisco.

Alaska, Maria and I chatted over martinis more than once about life and love and, as was usually the case, the conversation somehow always found its way back to Xena.

Of the many Xenaverse friends who had wandered into our lives during those years, Alaska was always one of our favorites. She was warm and fun. I remember her skill as a doctor came into good use at one party ... someone had wandered (should I say staggered?) around to the side of our house and tripped over some chicken wire, gashing her knee and leg.

Alaska was right there with care and first aid and even gave up her cane for the week-end. In fact, I had it for some time before finally returning it to her.

One of the last times I saw Alaska, she was sitting on the bed in my room watching that last episode of Xena. We were showing it in private screenings in the back bedroom behind closed doors for those who couldn't wait for the official broadcast. She was so quiet in there, I peeked in to see if she was all right and found her looking just as shell-shocked as everyone else I had checked on that day.

Maria and I really enjoyed Alaska.  She was kind and thoughtful, fun to be around and a pleasure to have in my home.

I was honored to have known her. I wish I had taken her up on one of her many offers and had visited her in Alaska. I wish I had kept in touch with her - I sadly admit that the years have gone by and just as Xena has faded from my life, so have I let many of the friends I had made during those wonderful years.

I am proud to have known a woman who changed her life, became a doctor (no small feat), moved to Alaska, rescued boxers ...

She definitely touched my life in a very special way, and I will remember her always.

Alaska ... I'm thinking of you.

DJWP