Random Thoughts

05/27/08

Jean Gibbons' courageous battle with Alzheimer's disease ends. She battled bravely for a decade while her mind was held hostage by Alzheimer's disease and slowly Gloria Jean Gibbons began to fade away, memory by memory. She was released from her fight on Thursday, May 22nd when she passed away at the age of 72. Jean's insistence that her family "tell her story" was the inspiration for the Leeza Gibbons Memory Foundation and today Leeza's Place is her living legacy.

Jean Gibbons was born March 26, 1936 in Summerton, South Carolina to the late Marie and Stephen Leon Dyson. Surviving are her husband of 55 years, Dr. Carlos Wilbur Gibbons, their three children, Carlos, Jr., Leeza and Cammy, Carlos Jr.'s wife, Anne Marie, and six grandchildren, Lexi, Troy, Nathan, Taylor, Kelly and Blake. She is also survived by her sister Mrs. Wayne Wells of Sumter, SC and extended family. These were Leeza's comments as she received the news of her mother's passing...

A mother's love is a sturdy thing...it survives most everything in its path. It endures immeasurable heartache, faces overwhelming fears, creates magic and miracles, and challenges all enemies. A mother's love can comfort and soothe, correct and scold, guide and let go all with one look. It is steady and constant - omnipresent and solid.

Yes, a mother's love is a sturdy thing, but life is ultimately not. Children, no matter how old they become, have an irrational belief that their moms will last forever. We can't quite figure out who we are without the one who gave us life to define us. When mothers die, like my mom did this morning, it leaves the ones left behind desperate to find that true north on the compass.

But a mother's love is sturdy.it doesn't collapse under the grief of loss. It lasts beyond the expiration of the earthly vessel that kissed boo-boos and tucked us in at night. A mother's love is deposited into the hearts of those she loved and there it grows and lives forever. It is sturdy enough to prop us up and remind us of the courage she taught us.sturdy enough to create a veil of peace until we can find serenity on our own.

My mom was emancipated recently from the prison of confusion that has kept her hostage for a decade. Her love is surely sturdy enough for me to climb onto its wake of protection and stay there while we make sense of her suffering and her courageous battle against Alzheimer's disease. Her death was the answer to a prayer my Dad, brother and sister and I have whispered and spoken aloud for some time. Death, of course, is not on our clock and yet there is perfection in the timing of the universe. Gloria Jean Dyson Gibbons left a legacy of love and change that is powerful and beautiful.

At her urging, we shared her diagnosis and her story of truth and strength to offer it up as a lifeline to others who were afraid and who felt alone. She asked me to promise to tell her story, and I continue to try. Our family, guided by my friend and co-founder, Dr. Jamie Huysman started the Leeza Gibbons Memory Foundation as a love letter to my Mom and all the moms who know that love is love and a heart never forgets. We believed that those who are forgetting should not be forgotten and that no caregiver should ever be alone. And so we began to open Leeza's Place as an oasis for those families who know chronic disease of any kind. My mother's door was always open. She always had the coffee on and time for a conversation. It's that way at Leeza's Place. Like love, our support is free and is offered without conditions. I remember many conversations with my mother where she made it clear that she didn't want there to be shame and stigma around her diagnosis. So we proudly embrace her spirit and celebrate her life.

They say the soul has an agenda. If that's true then my mom has checked this lifetime off the list! She has been the inspiration for so much healing and so much help that has been offered in her name. In South Carolina, where she lived almost her entire life, we get amazing storms. Mom loved them. She related to the change in the atmosphere and always saw it as a chance at a new beginning. Like the storms she loved, she was outspoken and fearless and yet vulnerable and ready for a good downpour of emotion. Her dreams were simple.to love her family the best way she knew how and to find her true self along the way. She used to say she was a strong southern woman.a steel magnolia and that God gave her such broad shoulders for a reason. It was to carry a dream of change, Mom. Now that you have placed it down.Cammy, Carlos, Anne Marie and I will pick it up and carry it effortlessly and gracefully because we are supported by your sturdy love. My children and their children will keep the story vital and keep the flame burning brightly.