I’ve struggled to find the right words since learning of Gay’s passing. Struggled to best express the impact she had on me . . . professionally and personally. Gay and I worked together on a wide range of UTMB priorities and programs. I watched her put three remarkably dissimilar presidents more at ease when being videotaped. I saw time and again how deeply her words and visuals touched UTMB alumni, students, faculty and staff. And along the way I learned to do my own job better. I worried when we moved to Galveston that I would have a hard time fitting into a corporate culture and Texas chic. Until I met Gay, wearing the same black cotton Mary Jane flats that were all the rage in hippie-dippy Asheville. Whew! We never went to Gay’s house, but she came to ours often. And she invited us to her son’s wedding. We talked about kids. And grandkids. And we traded stories about growing up in the Lone Star State and the Big Apple. Gay once described aging as having everything she thought of as HER fall on the ground every 10 years or so—only to discover that when she picked it all back up and tried to stuff it all back in there was always a bit of Gay that no longer fit. Perfectly put, yet again, and an image that makes me smile, just as she did, whenever I wonder why my hip hurts or where I left my keys. When we retired and returned to Asheville, we talked with Gay about meeting up in Maine one day. It hurts my heart that that day never came. When we moved into our mountain home, one of the first pieces of art we hung was the plate Gay made for us. Me and Alan, decked out in beachwear, lounging in our bayside home, “Living in the Year of Hale Bopp.” Only Gay. And it there it will hang, the perfect reminder of a very dear friend, until, like Gay, we no longer have walls.

I was recruited to UTMB in the early ‘80s and quickly realized that quite a few colleagues wanted me to “take my yankee ideas and go home”. Gay was  a welcome new associate, soon to be friend, who realized that change didn’t mean the past was bad but rather could teach us a lot about how to build new traditions. I enlisted her to tell stories about staff and faculty that illustrated  how the best of us could inspire all of us. No one could get emotional, aspirational, meaningful content on film like Gay. 

We quickly became friends and I started hearing Gay’s own stories about her mother’s travels in Mexico, the fascinating people she had interviewed as part of her work for PBS, the places she loved, her mother and father-in-law, her penchant for wanderlust, her belived grandson Dakota (the only grandchild at the time) and most of all her twins. 

Of all the loving, hilarious, energy draining, stories about Holly and Morgan none was better than that of how sweet Clifford Marie joined the family. Ive loved several dogs that weren’t mine and Clifford is on that short list. Gay’s tale of her frenetic life when the twins brought Clifford home, so frenetic shat she failed to notice the obvious “marieness”, was illustrative. By the time the femininity of that chinless wonder was noted, she was a member of the family who passively dictated where and how Gay lived for a long time.  

Gay left a legacy of creativity, deep love, hands-on caring, beauty, charm, and thoughtfulness. I’ll miss her forever. 

My mother loved road trips, and I'm grateful to have taken several with her in the time we shared together. She subscribed to the thinking "it's not the destination, but the journey's experience" and that's been engrained in me since childhood. Still today, she remains the person I have had the most fun with traveling.

My mom and I shared the love of flexibility, spontaneity, quirky things, animals, thrift stores and nature. We tapped into these loves on a road trip we took together in 2015 from Dallas to Big Bend. Our schedule was loose and if we wanted to venture off course because a waitress along the way gave us a tip to be sure 'not to miss this…', we would giddily pivot and head that way.

On this trip we skipped rocks in Big Bend's Chisos Canyon, walked through installations at Chinati Foundation, ate breakfast tacos at a funky cafe outside Marfa (Matthew McConaughey was known visit), hiked the incredible landscapes at Big Bend National Park, went to a Star Party at McDonald Observatory, canoed on the Rio Grande, hiked into a 'secret' place near Indian Head Spring to see rock paintings, slid down the white sands at Monahans Sandhills State Park, went to Boquillas Hot Springs, stopped to take photos of funky roadside art, swam in the springs at Balmorhea State Park, went to Boquillas crossing, and petted the cutest dog in Balmorhea's rock shop.

It's such a treasure to have these memories of our road trip together. It was a truly wonderful experience that I am grateful we both made the time to be together.

She wrote about this trip on napkins and scraps of paper so she would remember it. I hope as I go through her things now, I come across those artifacts as I'd love to share them here for everyone who loved her to see. But for right now, I can only express the love, gratitude, and some photos I took from our adventure together.

Canoeing on the Rio Grande