I've tried a couple of times to write about Gail and it keeps getting longer -- my apologies for going on but Gail was bigger than life!
I loved Gail from the minute I met her. I was interviewing for a job at the National Alliance for Caregiving, crammed into a tiny office between a life-sized, papier-mâché Egyptian mummy and a picture of Gail shaking hands with peak-1990s Bill Clinton. Gail had a gravitas and charisma not unlike Cleopatra herself, and immediately, I felt both intimidated and hopeful that I could learn from her. Who was this woman who wore wild jewelry and clothes instead of a business suit and managed to have the impact of a fierce litigator despite being surrounded by outsider art and quilts on every inch of wall space?
Each week, Gail would bring fresh flowers to the office. By five o’clock, she’d prop her feet up and listen to classical music in between stacks of reports and trade publications in her office. She’d be engrossed in Health Affairs or PCORI minutes except for those nights when she went to the theater with a friend.
As a leader, Gail modeled that it was okay to care passionately about the work you do in the world. She shifted the paradigm and conversation about how families care for each other and developed national and international relationships to improve the way we talk about caregiving. It always struck me that she cared very deeply about her family despite the many hours she spent at work. While driving to meetings, she’d tell me how proud she was of Courtney and Alex, and how Courtney and her were kindred spirits. She’d brag about how she and Brooks would go to comedy shows (even though the foul language would make most people blush). When she found out that she was going to be a grandmother, she spent weeks searching for tiny cowgirl boots. During a particularly stressful period, she told me that she was downloading new wellness apps because Scott had encouraged her to start meditating. She recognized in her own family how difficult caregiving could be – and she talked with reverence about how her sister and others cared for her parents.
When she retired, I packed the boxes in her old office. There between the early copies of Caregiving in the U.S. and her consulting letterhead were report cards and projects from her kids, cards and photos from friends and family, foreign currency from her world travel. Gail wasn’t sentimental in traditional ways but once she found her people, they were her people forever.
Gail will always be a superstar. Twice when we were working together, we ended up at the Obama White House. On my first trip, we met with the Chief of Staff for Michele Obama and several colleagues about a new study of caregivers of military Veterans. As it turned out, we were not invited to the corresponding White House reception. Gail ordered me to make sure we were “on the list.” After some frantic telephone conversations, suddenly we were. Gail then insisted she had to take an elevator at the White House rather than use the outside stairs, which meant that we spent a brief minute in the actual West Wing, while the rest of the meeting attendees walked around to the front portico. Again, magic powers?
Later that year, Gail invited me as her plus-one to a White House Christmas Party. The attendees were half Hollywood folks, half-established Washingtonians. (You could easily suss out who was who because the Hollywood set had lots of feathers and high-heeled shoes and the Washingtonians were all in pantsuits and flats). Of all the grandeur, food, live music, Presidential remarks, Christmas cookies shaped like the official Presidential pets, Gail was most excited to meet Keegan-Michael Key, of the Key & Peele Comedy Show, who happened to be standing next to her in line at the coat check.
We had lots of big moments like that – meeting the Queen of Sweden. Pitching the New York Times for our new study via Twitter. National and global meetings, major reports, and cutting-edge initiatives.
We didn’t get always get along, sometimes on the little stuff (like the Oxford comma or split infinitives) and sometimes on the big stuff (like advising me to become Buddhist instead of Catholic). Yet in the end these disagreements never seemed to matter because Gail welcomed dialogue and she knew how to create space for discussion.
I will miss the humor, authenticity, and intimacy that Gail brought to her relationships. Her contagious laugh and impeccable style. When she told me she had always liked Frank Langella and I suggested she see the caregiving movie Robot + Frank. She was horrified to see that Frank had aged. When we grabbed drinks at an American Society on Aging reception and gossiped about who we thought was most handsome in the industry like a bunch of school kids after class, while most folks around us were networking. The last working lunch we went to before Gail retired, when we went with Rick to this hole-in-the-wall Italian place next to the office. Gail could be bigger than life and she could be vulnerable enough to let you into her interior spaces in such a way that you felt seen. She could make you feel, for a minute, that you were brilliant, that you could do anything, that anything could be possible if you were bold and brave enough. She was fun.
I hope that Gail knew that she was well-loved. To her family, thank you for sharing Gail with those of us who had the chance to work with her and call her friend and colleague. Thank you for letting us believe that we could be just as fabulous as she was.
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