A Tribute To Susan Macaulay

Posted by Adina Luca

I met Susan in Italy some years ago. She was loud, pink and ageless. And Amazing Women Rock was just a project.

I said to myself: I hope to be like Susan when I grow up. I have followed Amazing Women Rock over the last several years - this post is in honour of the third anniversary of the AWR website.

Susan asked me at the beginning: "post a tribute! Recognise a woman's achievement!" I always thought about it and was sure I was going to do it, but avoided it constantly.

Why? Because a) why not a tribute for a man? (I come from a feminine values culture where men need more encouragement than women, women tend to take care of themselves, thank you very much!); b) I wanted to write about a woman that impressed me a lot but then I found out that, unfortunately, she had just died (Mary Douglas, the anthropologist, if you are curious) and that was too sad; and c) I was probably waiting for this moment.

Susan travelled to London from Dubai, flew to Croatia and had to wait for me and my other friend for days to come and pick her up.

A lot of people I know would have made a fuss, got angry, gone home or never spoken to me again. Susan started taking beautiful pictures of the village and coined the phrase: "Just another nice Medieval town."

When we finally met, she was friends with the hotel people and was ready for anything. Then she tried her coaching skills on my friend (a therapist - it's like selling sand to ... UAE) and showed us her pictures from parachute-jumping, embraced by a handsome guy...

Susan is amazing. I hope that I will have the serenity, good humour and composure that Susan has for the rest of my life. I hope it is contagious.

Adina