I was a kid that struggled in school to keep up with her.  We were in the same classes and she used to spend time with me just to help me with my homework, even in 2nd or 3rd grade.  She was just such a bright person and it was nothing extra for her to do hers and go over it with me.  She was straight As the whole time.

 

We moved from St. Louis to Cleveland when we were about 8 years old.  Because we were moving around so much we really depended on each other.  And we did a lot of stuff where the kids did stuff together.  It was very family oriented life-style where vacations were always visiting Louisiana where all the relatives were and we had a big family, and we were all close to each other and dependent on each other.  Gail wanted a deeper relationship than just a sibling relationship and in my opinion she was truly more than just a sister - especially with Wayne and I growing up.  The moving around was NOT easy, and really increased the way we relied on each other.  Because we knew we’d only be in one place for 2-3 years and we’d be moving again.  

 

She was EXTREMELY popular in high school.  Very bright and thought to befriend people that have been more introverted and not as outgoing.  She was just a kind and gentle person.  

 

We finished grammar school in Cleveland.  And then started High School in Jackson.  By that time she was just so confident in anything that she attempted and had no trouble adjusting even though moving from Ohio to Mississippi was QUITE the adjustment.  What impressed me so much about her was that she became very popular very fast and I would kid her that some of my best friends were just guys that were trying to go out with her.  We had a lot of the same friends and we became confidante in each other’s lives.  It was a really cool relationship to talk with your sister about her feelings about people.  Everywhere she went, she excelled in school and had a wide circle of friends. She just accepted people, even when they had values that were totally different than hers and she didn’t look for what was wrong with someone she looked for what was good in them.  And she met Jack … I think she actually went out with Pierre first.  Pierre had asked Gail out first and there was another girl in the neighborhood that went to school with Gail, and we all went out to dinner. Pierre was driving and we went to Bali-Bali which was a Polynesian restaurant and there were these appetizers you cooked over a flame at your table.  I hadn’t been to restaurants like that ever … Pierre was ordering all kinds of stuff and the bill came and we didn’t have enough money.  The girls had enough change in their purses that we had to leave a tip in quarters and nickels.  The waiter was pissed and threw the change in Pierre’s car.  That was the first time I remember her getting exposed to the Langlois family.  She started seeing Jack in the last year of high school and they decided to go to college together.  And that’s when I started losing touch with her.  Because for the first time we had totally different friends, different settings.  

 

Gail was almost valedictorian in college but in one of her classes she got into a conflict with one of her professors and she got the first B she EVER made in her entire educational career.  Even though she was a straight A student, she always did more than she had to.  She could have gotten by doing the basics but she would try to excel until it was perfect … way beyond what was required.  In college she became a little more of an idealist and started focusing on the environment and did that rest of her life.  But what always impressed me most about her is that her wide circle of friends were totally different from each other.  I NEVER had a fear of bringing someone around her that she wouldn’t accept because she just accepted everybody.  

 

Gail then started her masters at LSU and I was at LSU and Wayne and Jack were going to Law School there.  And then we were back to having some of the same friends, in our 20s, and moving onto a true career.  It was fun to reconnect with them again and especially Gail since I had that relationship with her for so long.  Then they moved to Houston and coincidentally I ended up in Houston and again we all reconnected and our friends became their friends and vice-versa.  

 

Eventually, in Houston, her and Jack started having problems - in the past she was confident and found ways to just move on - but after years of seeming inseparable, they started to have problems and you could tell it bothered her and she started questioning herself.  She was so confident that I really had NEVER seen that and really for the very first time I saw that vulnerability in her around her mid-20s.  And I can’t remember when she and Jack started having REAL problems because it was after Lauren and Danielle were born but she was living in Houston and for the first time I could ever remember it felt like she became more dependent on me.  When it used to be the opposite - me being dependent on her.  I never took sides in the relationship because I was always close to Jack as well but it was the first time I ever saw her start to lose confidence and question herself.  And it wasn’t that long after that she moved to Denver.  And I don’t remember the particulars because she wanted to start a new life and that was the first time I really felt like our relationship became more distant.  

 

When she moved to Denver she was very concerned about the girls and was a mother first even with such a bright career.  She was having trouble explaining to me why she felt like she needed to go to Denver but I felt like I knew her well enough to know she probably felt like she needed to re-establish her identity, and not be “Jack’s wife.”  And then Wayne ended moving up to Denver!  And ended up living not too far from her.  

 

Eventually, Gail even moved to Anchorage.  And Susie and I went up there in the late 80s - and our impression was that it wasn’t a good situation for her.  She was seeing a guy that was a friend of Jack’s at some time and she had a good job up there, but her relationship with this guy wasn’t very good.  It was just a bad relationship and I think the girls weren’t adjusting well.  But that’s a fuzzy part of her life that I don’t know because she was far away … up there maybe two years … and then came back to Denver and met Mark and then her life got back to some normality.  They got close and he was bright, and they had Helen.  And things were going along fine and built the cabin and then Mark started having issues with drug addiction.  And to her credit, I’ll never forget – we were seeing each other over Christmas – she called Wayne and I and Charlie and Johnnie together and that’s the first time we knew that Mark had a serious problem.  And we all gave her the same advice to open her own accounts and put everything in her name, and she did at first but she just always was forgiving and spent who knows how much on rehab and things.  That’s the part of her personality I just never understood:  how confident and self-assured she was until she ran into an issue in a relationship like that and got blinded by hope that he was going to get through all this.  

 

I just had no idea that things were as bad as they were.  I was probably 50 - around 2004 or 2005 - when she told us about Mark’s problem and I look back and can think of times that she was supposed to come up to meet us at a ski resort and she’d call and say something came up and couldn’t come that day … there was a time I came into her house and saw a pile of mail that was two feet tall with IRS notices, and leans, and we realized how bad it was.  And Charlie got more involved.  

 

She got to a point where she just couldn’t make good decisions and I had no idea that her situation had caved like that.  And when she got back to New Orleans she was fine for a while and then got to a point where she just couldn’t do anything.  By the time she got back to New Orleans, it just felt like a slow decay because of how brilliant and independent she was … and I had no hard times going to visit her but by that last summer she didn’t remember me.  And I couldn’t recognize the person I knew.  And when Charlie called me to say you might want to get down here she’s not eating anymore I said “Charlie, I can’t see her like that.”