Opening Remarks by Michelle Belan
We gathered on April 20 because a few short months ago, a remarkable woman named Gale McGloin took her last breath so unexpectedly, it sent us reeling. Gale swam every morning and walked thousands of steps a day; she was attentive to her health and of all the people I thought might exit stage left a little early, Gale was not among them. When I thought about what would be the best way to honor Gale, I had one guiding principle in mind. I thought back to a day when Gale and I went to see a show called Games of Steel by Attack Theatre (which she loved so much she saw it multiple times). As the show ended she turned to me with the biggest grin, and her body was literally trembling, and said “that was so fucking cool!”
By the end of the day, if Gale were here, I want her to have thought we did right by her. We’ve got a little bit of everything she loved, and while we want to honor her memory, Gale would be the first person to be bored by a stuffy, somber memorial. As hard as it is to be here without her, let’s do our best to keep our spirits up. Be a little weird. Let the joy that Gale existed fill you as you hear the friends and family spin the tales that made us love and cherish her.
Brenda Smith
So hard to know where to begin, since my relationship with Gale was multifaceted.
The most obvious connection is that she was our grant writer and general fundraising guru for nine of the 14 years I spent as Executive Director at Upstream Pittsburgh (which was known as Nine Mile Run Watershed Association for most of that time.) Her deep familiarity with the local foundation community, and unerring instincts for how to work with individual donors, were central to our success during those years. But what helped me the most was that she had been an Executive Director of a small nonprofit, and understood the many unique challenges facing these kinds of organizations. She was a generous sounding board throughout those nine years, and helped me stay sane during some trying times. I also really enjoyed the enthusiasm she brought to the environmental field, which was new to her. She was always excited to learn more about trees, stormwater, macroinvertebrates, and more!
From 2016 onward, another aspect of our friendship grew rapidly. Gale was the only other person I knew who shared my political obsessions, and was happy to spend lots of time discussing the details of campaigns both local and national. The most important thing she gave me in that regard was the example that direct personal action was the best way to stave off despair. She never sat on the sidelines and complained, but was always looking for how she could make a difference. She motivated me to get out and canvass, often with her, for various candidates. I made some phone calls on occasion too, but was always in awe of her ability to set aside time on multiple evenings each week to make calls for races around the country. It felt to me like she was personally responsible for getting Raphael Warnock and Jon Ossoff elected, for which I and the people of Georgia are grateful!!
On a very personal note, when I first met Gale, shortly after I arrived in Pittsburgh in 1979, she was in graduate school, and was working as an academic advisor in the College of Arts and Sciences at Pitt. She had the office right next door to the Director of the Advising Center, Fred Koloc. She witnessed the early days of Fred and I getting to know each other, and attended our wedding in 1981. I remember her from those days as someone who seemed always to be in a good humor, with a trenchant observation about university life.
Fred passed away in 1999, and Gale was of course at the memorial service. So, she then became one of the gradually dwindling number of people in my life who really knew Fred, and what an extraordinary person he was. It was so nice to know that if I mentioned something I remembered about him, or some way in which my son is like him, she really knew who I was talking about. If there is an afterlife, I know she and Fred will find each other in it and share a few good laughs. Now, I will need to get to know some of you better, so that when I remember Gale, I can share that with other people who know just how remarkable she was.
Bill Askin
I can’t remember where I met Gale McGloin. Maybe at a conference at Duquesne University around 1996. I think she was already head of the Pittsburgh Mediation Center. She might have been one who encouraged me to check out the mediation field, which I did. Thank you for that.
I took some mediation training and off I went. As an historical introvert, I could be an important person as a mediator without having to do all of the talking.
Around the early 2000s I think, she joined the PA Council of Mediators and became President of the board for a while. I was a board member.
She and I would occasionally carpool to Harrisburg together for the PCM annual conference, held at this time of year.
At least once we avoided the high pressure toboggan run known as the Pa Turnpike. Instead we would take the 2 lane roads through lovely central Pa. back to Pittsburgh. It would always be the late afternoon and early evening of a Saturday in April like today. To whatever degree, depending on the year, we would see Pennsylvania wakeup with another season of tree buds bursting and the start of grass growing.
The beautiful ride back from Harrisburg was almost enough to cause Gale to talk a little less.
But that was not necessarily a desirable thing. Because one of Gale’s most attractive qualities was her ability to say what is so – when it is so. She didn’t do a lot of self-editing. She invited us into her mind to hear what she was thinking. And its was not a petty or critical mind. She picked up the goodness of a moment and let us know what that was.
If she was unsure, she would pause and regroup and let us know her latest thoughts.
To me, she was like a sister who never lied: We got what she had, ready or not.
Gale was a delicious mix of kindness and empathy with a hard crust of truth on top.
I knew she was into mediation and I enjoyed tagging along for some of her PICT Theater work. But I did not know how broad her interests were and how many she people connected with – people of so many different interests.
How did all of us come to be the ones who connected with Gale? That’s a little too metaphysical for me to figure and above my level to know. But I do think she taught me that it does matter to be present and connect, especially when the person taking the initiative to make contact is someone like Gale.
It’s a nice legacy that she left behind numerous friends and acquaintances who are happier for meeting her; and also nice that she left behind some tangible evidences of what it means to be one who is willing to spend the time and push for meaningful results in this world.
Where she may be listening to us I don’t know.
But I will remember her greeting for me – it was usually the sing-songy “Hi BILLLLL.!!!”
It was an invitational way of saying hello that she used, setting me up for another minute or hour explaining myself as I talked and listened to Gale.
I miss her, but I hope she has a chance to hear us right here today.
Thank you Gale.
I want to leave you with a few words by Gale herself. This is from a September 9 2010 postcard to me that had pictures of a sailboat, weather vanes, a bird, a family of boars crossing the road, and an elk. This is what her card said:
“Here is a cross section of the wildlife on the Baltic Sea coast. We’re having a fabulous time. I feel like I’ve been away for months. Hope all is well in the Burgh. Gale”
Robert Morais
Gale and I were graduate students in Pitt’s anthropology department during the1970s, and for a year we shared an apartment. We had separate bedrooms if you must know.
I have vivid memories of long walks when we consumed a quart of Baskin-Robbins ice cream while we analyzed everyone and every relationship in our social network. Gale certainly knew how to keep a good conversation going! And, she always had novel, sometimes incisive, often hysterical insights about the characters in our cohort.
Here’s a little-known fact that you won’t find on Wikipedia: Gale coined – or at least she socialized – the term politically incorrect in the mid-70s. If she had trademarked it, she would have been a wealthy woman. But, as I’m sure you all know, Gale was a bit critical of capitalism.
Gale and I talked now and then over the years, and she faithfully sent me birthday and New Year’s cards with lengthy personal updates. Those will be a loss, but more than that, the world has lost a cultural critic, a tireless advocate for social justice, and a champion of the arts. We will miss a great friend who knew how to keep a good conversation going. That can be especially difficult these days when the conversationalists are not in complete alignment. But Gale could have a good conversation with anyone. Maybe that, as much as anything about Gale, is her legacy.
Barbara Jaquish
Gale, my husband Bill, and I met in New Orleans in March 2003 for a long weekend. After checking into a hostel not far from the French Quarter, we went around the corner for a sandwich at a small bar and watched as George Bush began bombing Iraq. We knew there’d be a demonstration and soon joined others in Jackson Square to protest.
Afterwards, Gale needed to search for earrings as a birthday gift for a friend, and we found them in a tiny shop near the square. She asked the owner where he would go to dinner, and he directed us to deliciousness just outside the tourist area. And what would he do afterwards for fun? BINGO!
As he directed, we went to a small café and told them we were there for BINGO. They led us through the dining room and opened a door to another large, dark room with a wooden bar that curved along two sides. We sat on stools and leaned back against the bar to look across the room to a small stage. Once the room was packed with audience, a troupe of New Orleans performers burst out. They were dressed like Fellini characters with elaborate hats, shiny tights and tulle and boas, and they pranced and sang until the bass drum boomed and they all cried BINGO!. The lights came up, bingo cards were passed around, numbers were called. And Gale won!
She was escorted to the front to dance wildly with the fiddle player, a woman in a pink tutu and huge pink curly wig. They twirled to raucous music and cheers all around. There was such joy on her face.
Pat Simpson
My name is Pat Simpson. Gale and I rented a house in Wilkinsburg together in our last years in graduate school. We remained close friends – despite living in different states – supporting one another in love, work, and in interest in the arts.
Today I want to pay homage to that woman who in the 80s, the Pittsburgh Post Gazette identified as one of the city’s up and coming leaders. I want to honor the woman who applied her verbal acuity, her capacity for hard work and self-discipline, and intellectual curiosity, to advance multiple non-profit organizations and social justice causes. Gale was of use in the sense that Marge Piercy, the poet and author, identifies in this poem.
To be of use
The people I love the best
jump into work head first
without dallying in the shallows
and swim off with sure strokes almost out of sight.
They seem to become natives of that element,
the black sleek heads of seals
bouncing like half-submerged balls.
I love people who harness themselves, an ox to a heavy cart,
who pull like water buffalo, with massive patience,
who strain in the mud and the muck to move things forward,
who do what has to be done, again and again.
I want to be with people who submerge
in the task, who go into the fields to harvest
and work in a row and pass the bags along,
who are not parlor generals and field deserters
but move in a common rhythm
when the food must come in or the fire be put out.
The work of the world is common as mud.
Botched, it smears the hands, crumbles to dust.
But the thing worth doing well done
has a shape that satisfies, clean and evident.
Greek amphoras for wine or oil,
Hopi vases that held corn, are put in museums
but you know they were made to be used.
The pitcher cries for water to carry and a person for work that is real.
Marge Piercy
Diane Mazefsky
I met Gale in 1983 when she became director at the Pittsburgh Women’s Center where I worked. We quickly began a friendship, a friendship that has been one of the richest of my life. She spent so much time at our house that my sons say that Gale was like family to them when they were young. They too grieve her loss.
Gale had so many visible and public accomplishments. Her interests, passion, energy and dedication were remarkable. In our culture, this is what might be considered a particularly successful life. But I would like to talk about what I believe to be the most precious and rare qualities that Gale lived every day, in all of her relationships and action – and I think Mr. Rogers and the wise philosophers and spiritual leaders would say make a friend and humanitarian – and what makes a life worth living.
No matter what Gale was busy with, no matter what she was doing, she made time every day to be available to her friends and family, in big ways and in everyday practice. She is the only person I know who lived her love and values in practice, predictably, reliably, every time with every person that she loved. If Gale said she would be there, then she was. If she said she cared, that was expressed through constancy, reliability and presence. Cooking food, a trip to the doctor, a long trip for a family member or friend’s medical or physical or emotional needs. Many of us try – or offer – or express this kind of constancy and availability – but Gale lived it. You knew that you could count on Gale.
She was smart, she was funny, she was playful, she was deep. She knew suffering and she was fully alive.
I miss her every day. I see something funny, and. Iwant to call Gale. Something hard or complex or challenging happens, I want to tell Gale. I see a hilarious card, and I want to send it to Gale.
During the last several years, (after two life-changing events: first the pandemic and then Gale’s “retirement” which I put in quotes because she made a full-time job of her work on elections and her urgent and passionate care for all of our futures in this country). I noticed how constantly busy Gale was despite those lifestyle challenges and changes. She had most every day full of things on her calendar: Zoom meetings, calls, visits, trips, walking, exercise, writing group, theatre, friend and family visits, dinners – and I would think, “Gale, slow down, rest, do your writing, etc. It makes me tired just hearing your activities and your schedule.” BUT NOW, I’m so very glad she lived each minute in the last several years exactly as she wished. It was almost like something from beyond was driving her to devour every moment. She got about three times as many years from the last 4-5 of her life in terms of quality of life. Thank goodness for that. Gale is the person I thought would live to 100.
The following quote reminds me of Gale and all she did, especially her work in anthropology, and calls us all to follow her path:
Love will go on forever. Our task is to make sure it goes in as many different directions as possible. We are not so different from our ancestors when they first discovered the simple elegance of water irrigation for their fields. They dug in the hard soil to open paths for life to reach out as far as possible. Ours is an ancient art. Within us are generations of human lives nourished by the love that sustained them. They were farmers of hope, just as we are. Let us do our job well. Let us channel love into everything we do with everyone we encounter.
Steven Charlton, Native American elder and retired Episcopal Bishop
Jackie Dempsey
Hello. I’m Jackie Dempsey and, along with my friend Steve O’Hearn, who is also here today, we are the Artistic Directors of Squonk.
I want to thank Michelle for putting this day together. Steve and I met Michelle when we went to the hospital to say goodbye to Gale. And we knew right away that she was a friend of Gale’s. So organized! She had her laptop open and was creating a spreadsheet of names and contact info so that she could keep all of Gale’s friends up to date. And here we all are today, thanks to Michelle.
Many of you know that Gale was the Chair of our Board of Directors. She joined us in 2015, and, less than a year later, in true Gale fashion and no surprise to any of you, I’m sure, she was in charge, becoming the Chair. She excelled in her role. She was loyal, generous, and passionate. Always ready to listen and offer guidance, never missing a chance to see a show or to share our work with others.
But her support didn’t stop there. We all know that Gale’s passion for the arts was probably only matched by her passion for politics. And Gale was there for her Squonkers when we stepped up our political activism after a certain someone moved into the White House. My husband David, also a Squonker and also here today, and I started a grassroots political group called Indivisible Forest Hills. Our goal was to get Democrats elected. And Gale never missed an opportunity to help out. She was at every canvassing event, every Zoom phone bank, every postcard writing party. Steve started building giant puppets for protest parades and Gale was always there as his roadie, ready to pull a string or carry a sign. Gale was just always there for us.
But, in the past few months, I’ve come to know that the most extraordinary thing about Gale is that she was always there for so many people. I was learning that that was her superpower.
On her birthday, just a week or so after she passed, Michelle hosted a gathering as a tribute to Gale at the Highland Park Reservoir. When we first arrived, we went around the circle, introducing ourselves, and speaking a bit about our connection to Gale. I was struck by how many different paths we had walked down to make our way to Gale: through Squonk, the Mediation Center, UpStreamPGH, her writing group, her swimming partners.
I learned a lot that afternoon about the art of friendship. That often it’s about the little things. When one person said, “It didn’t matter how long it had been since I’d seen Gale, every year, no matter what, I would get a birthday card from her in the mail.” And I would say just about everyone in that circle nodded along, as we were also thinking about how lucky we were that Gale took the time to think of us too on our birthdays. Through small thoughtful actions and deep lasting connections, Gale was there for all of us. And now it’s time for all of us to be here for each other. We were lucky to have learned from the best.
Andrew Paul
I’d like to thank Michelle Belan and Gale’s sister, Sharon, for arranging this tremendous celebration of her truly remarkable life. One of Gale’s passions was creative writing and I’m going to read a short piece she composed around a photograph of a family (well, two boys and a woman) that appears in your program book. But first, I want to say a few words about Gale and why she was so meaningful in my life and such an extraordinary human being.
I first met Gale about 25 years ago when she stopped to chat after attending various theatre performances I had directed and produced for Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre. I loved that she showed particular interest in the more hard-hitting political plays I liked to program. (Her favorite play – and I think this says a lot about Gale – was Tom Stoppard’s Rock’n’Roll, which utilized Vaclav Havel and the Rolling Stones to explore the demise of the Berlin Wall and the downfall of Communism in Eastern Europe in 1989. It contains a character inspired by ‘Syd’ Barrett, who founded the band Pink Floyd, took a ton of psychedelic drugs, lost his mind, and lived out his life as a recluse. The play contrasts lengthy diatribes about Marxist ideology, both pro and con, with poetic tributes to Sappho, feminism, and free love. It is not exactly an easy view).
Gale asked me to have lunch with her in 2007 and told me she was interested in finding a job in the arts. She didn’t think she was qualified and feared she wouldn’t be taken seriously. I set her straight: “Gale, you are an intelligent, rationale human being with decades of experience in non-profit management. Arts organizations struggle to locate, employ, and retain people like you. Are you kidding me? We’d be lucky to have you!” I didn’t have a job to offer her at the time, but PICT lost its development director in 2008 and Gale was the first person I called. She thought I was crazy – she had little experience in fundraising – but agreed to accept the position. It was, needless to say, a great hire!
I need to describe the controlled chaos that greeted Gale for the next 5 years following her daily commute to the PICT offices (located above the PNC Bank on West Liberty Avenue in Dormont). We had a staff of six at the time and a lot of strong (may I say difficult?) personalities. Staff meetings often extended for hours, with ideas flying around the room like neurons in an over-active, hyper caffeinated brain. Arguments ensued and I recall a lot of raised voices and slammed doors! (I’d like to think I am over-dramatizing all this but I’m not sure I am). Gale would calmly take all this in, retreat back to her semi-private little office next to mine, and figure out how to raise the funds necessary to keep us all employed while creating some amazing art.
We were clicking on all cylinders during those years – programming festivals devoted to Pinter, Chekhov, and Synge, pairing David Hare’s Stuff Happens (about the Bush administration and Iraq) with Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, and producing all 19 plays by Samuel Beckett. One of these plays, called “Breath,” fully (if briefly) encapsulated the totality of human existence. It had no text. A piece of installation art punctuated by a birth rattle, the amplified sound of an inhalation followed by an exhalation, and a death rattle. The whole thing lasted about 35 seconds!
And Gale loved it all!!! She was more enthusiastic about the plays than I was! And I loved her for this. As an artist, I can’t tell you how incredibly vital it is to have your work validated by your colleagues. Gale gave me this gift. I’m not sure it made up for the chaos: The late nights grinding out grant proposals, the desperate phone calls to donors to make next week’s payroll, the constant need to manage and assuage board members, the endless arguments she endured with co-workers who felt the need to micro-manage her time. And yet, she endured it all and happily endured it all.
I left PICT in 2013 and spun off Kinetic Theatre. Gale stayed with me and was instrumental in the incorporation and development of this new effort. She wrote our application for 501 (c)3 not-for-profit status, wrote grant proposals, checked the mail twice a week, deposited the checks, became my eyes and ears on the ground in Pittsburgh after my family relocated to Las Vegas, and always, always gave sound advice and wise counsel.
I am fairly certain I was the last person to speak with Gale on the night she passed. She was running a mail merge on my behalf, and I called her to discuss strategy. “McGloin!” “Paul!” This was our standard greeting. It was just before 9pm. I knew never to call or text Gale after 9pm as she went to bed early in order to rise each morning at the crack of dawn and start her day with a swim. Our calls were never short. Gale liked to talk politics – “What’s happening in Nevada? Is Jacky Rosen going to win? Can you guys hold off Trump?” – and discuss whatever cultural events she had recently seen or heard about – “Did you know they’re doing a Sherlock Holmes play up at Shaw this summer?”. She was steady as always, nothing seemed amiss. To my regret, I kept the call short. I like to remember Gale this way: Standing outside her apartment building on 5th Avenue holding up a sign proudly protesting an injustice, traveling to far flung places like Morocco, Romania, and Portugal, bantering effortlessly about her confidence in the upcoming election, and waxing enthusiastically about some literary event she’d seen at the Carnegie Music Hall the night before. She made this world a better place. I’ll miss you, friend.
Gloria Rudolf
Gale was a woman of such breadth and depth that each one of us could view her from a differing angle, and see something unique and praiseworthy. I want to single out just one of these angles, one that was very special to me.
First, a little background. Gale and I met 50 years ago at the University of Pittsburgh, and became instant work allies. She was employed as a student advisor. I was directing a kind-of ‘insurgent’ program for 1st-year students called ‘Alternative Curriculum.’ I needed Gale’s help to find and recruit new students for the program, and Gale was ALL IN to oblige with support for student ‘alternatives or insurgencies.’
We slipped easily from being work allies to friends, quickly uncovering many common interests and passions. Things related to anthropology and women’s lives emerged right away. I was wrapping up my PhD studies in anthropology and teaching a course for Pitt’s Women’s Studies program. Gale had recently studied anthropology and won a prize for a paper she’d written on ‘Woman/Woman Marriage in Africa,’ a topic close to my heart.* We soon even discovered a mutual bond of seismic emotional proportions: we had each lost our mother at a too-early age: Gale at 16, me at 10.
Of our many shared delights, the one that most drew me, and kept me close, was this: we both lived for STORIES, especially stories about people’s lives. Gale was a master story lover, listener, teller, and writer. She’d get lost in the drama of an everyday life, be it her own or that of others. And, she had a special talent for remembering every single detail of a story, and reveling in its re-telling—blow-by-blow.
She and I were walkers-together over many years, often at the Highland Park reservoir.
We’d start to walk and Gale would tell me about a story she’d just experienced, or heard from someone else, or read, or seen in a movie or play. She’d get REALLY REALLY excited about it, talking faster and louder by the minute.
So, imagine this: 4 times around that reservoir and Gale was just finishing the telling of that story– in all its glorious detail
I loved this irreplaceable part of Gale, her zest for life and for people, with all their strengths, foibles, heartbreaks, triumphs. She was ever empathetic, ever reaching out to and for others.
I miss her. And I’ll never walk around that reservoir again without a smile on my face, in heartfelt memory.
~~~~~~~~~~~ I still have a copy of that paper, if anyone would like a copy
Carlosa Jackson
We do not get to control when we leave here, but we do get to control how WE treat people when we are here. As I look around this room it warms my heart. Gale was beloved by so many because she was a phenomenal friend and colleague. Our relationship started off at the Pittsburgh Mediation Center. As we have heard by so many today she wore many hats. Unbeknownst to HER she would also play the ROLE OF matcher between Jerome and I.
Although not planned I met my partner in life and A host of colleagues through Pittsburgh Mediation Center that ARE NOW LIKE FAMILY. Over the span of 20 plus years my relationship with Gale naturally morphed into a deep and meaningful FRIENDSHIP. She would always without fail send Kwanzaa and BIRTHDAY CARDS TO both Jerome and I separateLY, even though we shared the same birthday month.
When we would meet i would greet HER BY SAYING, HEY Mother Pearl and she WOULD laugh and say “HEEy Carlosa”. Im going to miss that. At OUR monthly meet ups we would catch up and especially discuss what the the PMC children (my kids) were up to. I will always remember HER INFECTIOUS laugh, sharp wit, and keen perspective. I loved our talks and her passion for politics. And I will always know how fortunate I was that our paths crossed. Gale YOU will always hold a special place in the hearts of the Jackson household. What I learned from your untimely transition is to be intentional about how I love and connect with those in my life.
Jane Branscomb
I came to Pittsburgh with my bachelor’s in engineering in 1979 to work for Westinghouse. After a few years, I decided engineering wasn’t fulfilling and, without an alternate plan, I quit. What followed were 3 years in the wilderness.
During this time, I discovered the Oakland Women’s Center and met Gale. In my years in Pittsburgh, I often felt stereotyped and judged as a Southerner. I did not feel that from Gale. She showed only trust, confidence, and compassion; and she offered me meaningful volunteer roles that gave me purpose and connection. A community member had come to her wanting to stage a juried exhibit to bring attention to women photographers in Pittsburgh. Gale of course said yes to that idea. She asked me to co-chair the planning team with the young artist. She also saw that I had writing skills and asked me to edit articles for the OWC newsletter. And she connected me with therapy through OWC’s collaboration with the YWCA.
I would say that I’m a textbook case for the value of a place like the Oakland Women’s Center, and I want to thank all of you here who had a part in that or something like it. Gale and OWC, therapy, and as it happens, Pittsburgh Friends Meeting, together enabled me to gain my footing and move forward in my life. In 1985, I moved back to the South, to Atlanta, where I worked for many years in feminist organizations before launching a third career in health policy research. In the time before the term “snail mail” existed, Gale and I kept in touch through letters, a lost art we both loved. As the electronic age dawned, that didn’t really translate to email. I’d never been a big telephone fan and wasn’t very active on FaceBook; so for the past few decades Gale and I had been in touch only through our annual year-end exchange of updates and short personal notes.
I don’t have any shared connections with Gale, so I was surprised and extremely grateful that Michelle found me to let me know of her death. I was devastated, and lonely with that. So it felt important to me to come here and be with all of you who have been in her life, who loved her as I did. To bear witness as one whose life she impacted deeply during a brief but crucial period of time 40 years ago.
Roger Rouse
First, let me add my thanks to everyone who’s made this possible, especially, of course, Sharon, Michelle, and Ellen, who’s so kindly treated us all to lunch. Thank you.
Gale and I were next-door neighbors for more than thirteen years. But we only grew close after COVID came. From then on, we talked all the time. (As we know, Gale did like to talk!)
One thing I concluded pretty quickly was that Gale was a lot like the poet, Walt Whitman… except, of course, for the big, bushy beard. That is, as Whitman once said of himself, she “contained multitudes”… multitudes of experience, multitudes of friendship, multitudes of commitment, multitudes of ideas, and, perhaps above all, multitudes of care.
I was one of the many people who benefitted from her kindness. In fact, I doubt I’d have stayed even half-way sane through the ups and downs of COVID without her friendship and support.
So what did we talk about? Well, to keep things brief, I’ll focus on just one thing: movies.
As COVID settled in, Gale and I increasingly missed going out to see plays and movies so, in the summer of 2020, we started watching a film every week, each in our own apartment and each on our own schedule (she was up in the morning at a time I don’t believe exists), and then sharing our thoughts during our extended conversations on Sundays. Those conversations lasted for at least three hours, often closer to four. They felt delightfully long… though I’m now realizing that they were relatively short by Gale’s standards!
In the end, we shared more than 160 movies – a number I can only give you because Gale, the great organizer, kept meticulous lists of everything we watched, including the exact dates of every discussion.
The films came from all over the world. More than three quarters of them were in languages other than English. And almost all of them were made outside the Hollywood mainstream.
I think Gale was drawn to them partly because, as we all know, she loved to travel, especially to places that were new to her, and they provided her with a vicarious way of visiting places that intrigued her while COVID was making actual travel hard. I think she also liked the fact that so many of them involved the complex kinds of story-telling that she relished in her favorite plays and novels, while bringing new cultural puzzles to the mix. And I like to imagine that she enjoyed the conversations. I know I did. They were a lot of fun.
But there’s something I should make clear before I finish. The film-watching that Gale loved most did not involve esoteric foreign movies and had nothing to do with me.
Instead, it consisted of hunkering down with Sharon and getting immersed in TV films from Hallmark. Sharon can correct me if I’m wrong but my understanding is that the two of them would take ten to fifteen minutes at the start of each film to work out exactly how the story was going to end and then spend the rest of the movie basking in the enormous pleasure of seeing their predictions gradually confirmed.
Gale told me several times that these were among the happiest moments for her – perhaps matched only this past Christmas when she and Sharon went to visit Santa and ended up sitting side by side on his lap!
Maybe we all contain multitudes. But a part of what made Gale seem extraordinary to me is that she kept pulling so many different elements together… and making them all mesh.
She was the atheist who loved Christmas; the fan of Hallmark who loved some of the most complicated film-making in the world; and all of this without the slightest hint of posturing or pretense.
She just kept expanding her imagination. She kept extending her kindness. And she kept bringing people together so that they’d have the chance to build new ties…
I was going to end with a particular line but I’m going to change that in the light of the conversations I’ve been having here with friends of Gale I’d never met.
One thing that came up was that we’re never self-contained individuals. Instead, each of us is a bundle of relationships. And that means we’re each defined by the quality of the relationships were in. Now that I’ve had a chance to meet more of you, I have an even better sense of what made Gale so wonderful.
