Quite the Charmer!

I last saw Gail when Lee died. I was out in Virginia and when I left I asked her if she would be OK. She said "Yes Dear, I have some good friends." A couple months later I called her and asked if she was OK and if there was anything I could do (even though that seemed ridiculous, me being so far away). She again reminded me that she had many good friends. I'm ashamed to say that with my own kids taking more of my time, I never called again. I glad to hear that she really did have "good friends".

Gail always seemed so "refined" to me that as a young boy I always felt I needed to be extra good for Gail. I was part of a rough and tumble family of mostly boys and Gail was so calm. We would visit them in Pennsylvania when Lee worked there, the "Gailees" being our closest relatives. Gail would have "Life" cereal for us, a special treat compared to Cheerios and oatmeal. She always seems delighted to see us and never got upset when we broke something or get perturbed by all the extra work that arrived at the door.

And Gail and Lee would delight us kids by coming to our house in Ohio for Christmas. A tradition in the house was that the kids would make Christmas morning breakfast for the grownups -- even the bad oatmeal and the green and red sugar for the morning coffee didn't phase Gail. I remember her saying, "It certainly makes the coffee look different, but it's still sugar... Right?" One Christmas they brought Scottish ties for all the men. Another -- my favorite -- they gave me a globe. Not a small one, but a large wonderful, real globe. Just like in school. As I opened it I saw Gail looking at me with a twinkle in her eyes.

And they also followed us up to Canada for camping and fishing. There was "Gail's cove" when she caught an extra large bass -- I would have my Dad tell me that story every year when we fished there. The last time I remember them coming up to Canada, they were to stay in my tent. I had a little "two-person" tent that you had to crawl in and out of. One morning they awoke to find they had slid down to the door and the screen on the door had ripped away. Gail felt terrible and showed me what had happened, then asked if she could fix it for me. She then spent hours working on that door, doing tiny stitches by hand to repair the damage. The rest of the tent fell apart, but that door remained perfect. At the end of their stay Lee had a good case of poison ivy on the inside of his forearm, and Gail, laughing, admitted she had a duplicate area of poison ivy on her belly, where Lee had hugged her as they slept. (I think of that sign of lov e often as I age.)

Gail seemed to transform as seamlessly into the camping as she did Christmas at our house, or a large intrusion into her house. I guess, to me, that was her charm. I don't think of her fitting in, but she always did. I saw her as a muscician and a dancer, but for us kids, she was a charming Aunty Gail.

Larry Ticknor, Nephew