Gabby_ A Story of Courage and Hope - Alison Hanson [38]
In Bob’s letter to Gabby, he also recalled the first day he met her: “I walked into the main office and was startled to find a petite, young, beautiful woman in sweats and tennis shoes, sitting on the counter. You were fully engaged in reading ‘Modern Tire’ as I stammered ‘hello.’ You jumped to your feet and cheerfully introduced yourself, ‘Hi, I’m Gabby!’ You quickly made me feel comfortable as you explained your background and asked about mine. We spent a half-hour getting to know each other. You made me feel like you were truly interested in me and my future with the company.”
As Gloria read the letter, Gabby remembered Bob. “Yes, yes, yes!”
She didn’t say it, but she surely knew it. Bob was the manager of El Campo’s store on North Oracle, the street where she would hold her ill-fated Congress on Your Corner event.
Like many letters from Gabby’s old friends and acquaintances, Bob’s ended with optimism: “I’m sorry you have to go through these hard times, but I feel assured that your recovery will be quick and complete, and it won’t be long before you are back where you belong, in Washington, D.C., and Tucson, representing the people who love you.”
Day after day, Gabby listened as her mother read letter after letter. It was as if people from her past were coming to life in her hospital room, encouraging her to reclaim herself. Gabby grinned at the good memories. But at times, I’d also see sadness on her face. She’d close her eyes.
“Fly away home,” she’d say. “Fly away.”
Looking back, Gabby’s life has been defined by a series of unexpected detours. She always felt that her quirky, nonlinear path through early adulthood made her stronger, more curious, more self-possessed, and more aware of the needs and yearnings of different people in a variety of cultures. She was all at once an intellectual, a businesswoman, a tire-changer, a community advocate, a lone horseback rider, a cowgirl, an art-and-music aficionado, a biker chick, and a fledgling politician. She took steps toward becoming a sociologist, an anthropologist, a divinity student, and a farmer.
When Gabby and I were dating and I began learning her life story, I realized she was like no one I had ever met. She was ten different women combined. She had been engaged by everything!
It wasn’t that she was striving to be a renaissance woman. It was that all her varied interests couldn’t be contained. She described it as “a kind of lunacy,” but also thought her journey suited her perfectly.
After high school, Gabby attended tiny Scripps College in Claremont, California, and she’d later tell me that her education there was a great gift, largely because it was an all-female institution. “Boys in classrooms dominate the conversations, especially in math and science,” she said. She felt that she nurtured her self-confidence and polished her ability to speak up by asserting herself in those all-girl classes. She wondered if she would have ended up running for Congress had she spent her college years sitting quietly in classrooms, waiting for the boys to finish talking. At Scripps she could be silly, serious, opinionated, whatever. She could figure out who she was.
Gabby loved the words of Ellen Browning Scripps, who founded the college in 1926. The school’s mission was to develop in students “the ability to think clearly and independently, and to live confidently, courageously and hopefully.”
An ambivalent math student in high school, Gabby discovered a passion for calculus at Scripps. Though she was interested in many subjects, she finally settled on a double major in Latin American studies and sociology. Meanwhile, outside the classroom, she began to realize how crucial it was for her to sort out her own feelings about public policy and public service.
While I was a twenty-six-year-old combat pilot in the thick of Operation Desert Storm, following orders,