After a life of achieving at such a high level - valedictorian, collegiate honors, and now in process of earning her PhD - Gail suddenly had a completely different source of pride and love.  Nevertheless, Gail was not prepared to put her career ambitions on the back-burner.  She was going to have to find a way to do both.

 

“She had no business getting a PhD and doing everything you’re supposed to do as a mom

but she would do it all,” remembers her graduate school colleague and close friend, Amanda

Wellford.  “I’d come over and we’d be on no sleep and she’d be making the cookies for the

birthday party.  It was just Gail - she just had a really big heart.”  

 

Gail’s second daughter, Lauren, was born in April of 1985, when Gail was still nearly a year

away from earning her PhD.  But she and Jack were seemingly undaunted.  As Jack recalls,

“We were very happybecause we felt like we were young, starting a family and Danielle was

going to have a sibling.  We were busy but it felt doable.”  

​

Single Mom

Gail was now a wife, a mother of two daughters, soon to be a doctor, and not yet 30 years old.  She was plowing forward with a “make it all work” mentality, but after she completed her PhD and shifted focus to her career, it became increasingly clear that not everything was working.  Jack and Gail were no longer high school sweethearts, but two people entering their thirties with two kids, a mortgage, their own very strong ambitions for their careers, and increasingly divergent beliefs about what comes next.  Tensions rose, a separation followed, and then - shortly after divorce was finalized - Gail made a choice to go all in on her career and her motherhood.  She took a job in Boulder, Colorado with a new firm called Microanalysis and Design, and started a new chapter as a working single mom.  

 

Danielle’s earliest memories come from her time in Boulder, where she had the earliest inklings of what her mom was balancing.

 

“I have a memory of being in school in Boulder,” Danielle recalls.  “I remember I got really sick in Boulder and I was throwing up and my mom stayed home with me instead of going to work.”

 

One year later and in a new relationship, she would make another jump – taking Danielle and Lauren to Anchorage, Alaska to live with her new partner.   

 

Lauren remembers being with her mom in Alaska when she was 4 or 5 years old. 

 

“I remember my mom as just very caring and nurturing.  Like I remember her hammering a towel to the windows when it was 24 hours of sun so that we could sleep in the dark.  I used to love chewing gum and would always fall asleep with it in my mouth and wake up with it in my hair and my mom would have to painstakingly clean it out with peanut butter – it helped with the stickiness apparently.  But I don’t remember her EVER getting frustrated.  Even when I would lie to her about not having gum in my mouth and wake up with it in my hair, I never felt scared of her or nervous about getting into trouble.”

 

Danielle remembers Alaska as a unique time in her childhood. 

 

“It was a very adventurous time in my life where I did a lot of really cool stuff,” Danielle recalls. “I remember playing outside a lot and ice skating and seeing moose and even penguins.  Lauren and I used to play all the time.  We used to listen to that song ‘Everybody Walk the Dinosaurs’ and wear adult size t-shirts and put our arms and legs outside the sleeves and walk around like we were dinosaurs.”

 

But for Gail, the time in Alaska was becoming untenable.  Her relationship was evolving into a bad situation for her and the girls. She needed to make a serious change and she needed help.  

 

“I think my dad said I want to be with the girls and my mom said my relationship is ending and now is a good time to have them,” Danielle remembers.  “So we left Alaska and went back with my dad, and I remember going on the airplane and Lauren was really sad because she thought mom didn’t want us anymore.  And I told her that wasn’t true.  But I decided I wasn’t going to cry because I didn’t want her to see me crying.”

 

Lauren remembers a flight attendant coming over to check on her.  “And Danielle said to her something like, ‘She just really misses her mom, but it’s okay, I’ll take care of her.’” 

 

Danielle kept a picture of Gail on her desk at her new school in Texas. Lauren remembers the moment she realized that she could still call her mom, and the feeling of relief when she heard her voice.  

 

“She would call and we would talk to her on the phone and she would send cards and letters,” Danielle recalls. “I actually went through and have some of them. Divorce is so damn hard on kids.”

 

Getting Settled

By 1990, Gail had moved back to Colorado.  She got a job at US West and settled in Denver.  She and Jack had developed a new co-parenting arrangement that would split their time evenly with Lauren and Danielle.  And Gail started dating a coworker at US West, Mark Glesner.  Soon, the girls were back with her in Colorado.

 

                                    As Danielle remembers, “She was busy.  She worked full-time but she still cooked for us and                                              helped us with our homework if we needed it and stayed home from work with us if we were                                              sick.  She took really good care of us, and was always there for us if we needed her. She loved to                                        take baths, and I would hang out with her when she would take a bath.  And just talk to her.”

 

Lauren remembers those “bath conversations,” too. “She was just so easy to talk to.  She would just listen without there being any sign of her rather being somewhere else or her mind being somewhere else.” 

 

Lauren also remembers that time with a sense of admiration.   

 

“I mean looking back on it, she always made things look - not effortless - but certainly less effort than I think it actually was.  I mean having two kids and having a full time job … she used to walk us to school with these tennis shoes and like a female power suit and then she’d walk to work.  She looked like someone out of (the movie) 9 to 5.”

 

Her friend and sister-in-law, Bridget Fontenelle, remembers seeing Gail on family trips during this time.  

 

“I never got the impression from Gail that she was overwhelmed.  I think she must have

been because I was a single mom of one (child) for ten years and I know how it felt for me,

and she was a single mom of two.  But she always had that calming nature about her.

Even with everything she was dealing with.” 

 

Bridget was struck by Gail’s approach to parenting.

 

“She was an excellent mother … the mother that I wanted to be in a lot of ways.” Bridget recalls. 

“She was just so calm.  And I was like, ‘Shit - this chick is just cool as a cucumber.’ I don’t think I

ever heard Gail yell.  We were both great mothers, but just different deliveries.  She liked her girls

just figuring things out.  She was very nurturing, but she also didn’t have a problem letting her

kids realize natural consequences.”  

 

Lauren remembers the same aspects about her mom. 

 

“I just don’t remember her being stressed very often, and she was just very lax as a parent,” Lauren recalls.  “Like, we would wake up early and Danielle and I would get stools and make french toast in the kitchen while she still slept.  So we were working the stove and the griddle and we were probably 8 and 10 years old.”

 

New Mom, Take Two

By now, Gail was dating Mark Glesner, a coworker at US West.  In November of 1993, they got married, and Gail’s daughter Helen was born exactly ten months later. It was almost ten years since the birth of Lauren, and Gail – now 40 years old – was once again the adoring mom of a baby girl. 

 

“She LOVED, absolutely LOVED being a mother,” Mark recalls. “She was very nurturing and caring and so natural at it.”

 

Lauren remembers her mom and Helen being inseparable in the early years. “Helen always seemed to be there with my mom and Mark.  Wherever they’d go she was along for the ride.  She had been little when they started building the cabin so they spent so much time at the cabin together.  They built a swing in the back and got a trampoline” – a bouncing Helen became part of the backdrop at the cabin.  

 

By the time Helen was five, Gail knew that she was not going to have another child.  Despite her demanding career being in full swing, she volunteered to be a “classroom mom” for Helen’s kindergarten class.  She coached Helen’s soccer teams.

 

Mark remembers how much he learned watching Gail parent.  “I was probably more conservative as a parent because of how I had grown up, and Gail - with all the girls - was very open, honest, and direct. Just a very good parent and very different from my natural tendency (on how) to parent.  And it was just very cool to see how she was able to communicate and work with all of the girls.”

 

Danielle recalls this quality in her mom.

 

“My mom was compassionate and empathetic … I felt like I could always come to some kind of agreement with her.  She was still a MOM … she still made sure you were operating within the limits and still raised us and was a disciplinarian but she was compassionate and would talk to us.”

 

Lauren remembers being repeatedly surprised by her mom’s level of openness and understanding.  

 

“One time I used my mom’s razor to shave my arms,” Lauren recalls, “and I told my best friend, and my best friend told HER mom and then my best friend was like, ‘My mom said that if you don’t tell your mom then she’s going to tell your mom.’  And then I remember telling my mom about it and she was like, ‘That’s okay!  Why didn’t you just tell me?  If you want to start shaving because you feel uncomfortable, you can do that.’  And Danielle flipped out because she had to wait like two years longer to start shaving and my mom was like ‘Well, look at Lauren’s legs, they’re so hairy and the hair is so dark.’  And I was like ‘Gee, thanks mom!’ But she wasn’t mad at all, she was just like, ‘There’s a right way to do it and you need to use shaving cream or soap.’” 

 

Open and Honest

Gail’s openness led to many lighthearted moments with her daughters, but it made them more privy to her hardships as well.

 

Lauren remembers one of the first times she sensed her mom’s struggles.  

 

“I remember I was in 4th grade when she told me that she was pregnant again and then she told me on the phone that she wasn’t going to have a baby.  She was going through a miscarriage.  I think she had two during that period. She was really depressed after that and I just remember seeing how much she slept and I think I felt like I really wanted to take care of her.  I would sneak my allowance back into her purse and buy her flowers and that kind of thing.  I remember her just being a little more distant during certain periods and that was one of them.  I think that’s how she handled stress.  She didn’t get angry, she would avoid the conflict and then sleep.”  

 

When Danielle and Lauren were in middle school, Jack went to work at his firm’s office in Belgium.  Lauren remembers getting a choice from her mom and dad about whether to live with her mom or move to Belgium with her dad.

 

“My mom wrote me this letter saying ‘I think you made the right decision to move to Belgium and I think it’s going to be such an amazing experience,’” Lauren recalls. “She wrote me a three page letter giving her support.”

 

And Gail did everything she could to stay a part of Lauren and Danielle’s lives while they were in Belgium.

 

“She would send a card for EVERYTHING,” Lauren remembers.  “Like every holiday, no matter what holiday.  And she would record our favorite shows for us.  And at that point you had to be at home, put in the vhs, press the record, and she would tape entire seasons for us and send them to us.  And I remember getting calling cards so that we could call her.”

 

After Belgium, Lauren and Danielle went back to Denver for high school.  Danielle remembers “pushing the limits” with her mom as a teenager.  “I just wanted to stay out late and go do stuff and have my own control over my life.”

 

In one instance, Danielle was caught by her mom lying to her about where she had been. 

 

“They figured out I was lying and then I was grounded,” she recalls.  “She didn’t like to take shit from people.  She had this barometer where she would say ‘nope, I’m done.’  If she felt like she was being wronged, she stood up for herself.  But my mom also wouldn’t get visibly angry about that kind of thing … she would be disappointed and say ‘that’s not right Danielle, that’s not right’ and that would hurt more.”

 

Lauren remembers the one time she got into a huge fight with her mom in high school. 

 

“I left and spent the night at my friend's house and was like ‘I just won’t ever talk to my mom again and then we’ll see how she feels.’  And the next morning she called me and was like, ‘Hey, I just wanted to pick you up to see if we could go to lunch.’  And I was like, ‘I don’t want lunch.’  And she was like, ‘I think we just need to talk.’  And we went to lunch and she just was able to give perspective in a very gentle way.  Whatever the advice was, it just landed very softly with me.”  

 

The older the girls got, the more open and honest Gail seemed to get with them.

 

“She was very open about sex,” Lauren recalls. “I remember her one time telling me that I was prettier than she was.  But then somehow it turned into how she was better in the sack!  Even though I hadn’t had sex yet.  I remember saying something to her once about how I would never have sex in a car and she was like, ‘Talk to me when you’re 30.’ When I was 17 or 18 I remember her saying, ‘I don’t know - I think Lauren is either going to be a lesbian or a nun, she doesn’t really like men.’  It was wild to me.”

 

But her honesty wasn’t always so lighthearted.  

 

                                                              “I was in college when everything started going down with Mark,” remembers                                                                              Danielle.  “I lived at home after college and she would just be like, ‘just so you know,                                                                    Mark’s a drug addict and he’s having a problem with cocaine and if you’re going to                                                                      live here again I just want you to know that.’  She had an easy time being open and                                                                      honest with me. Almost to the point of it being overwhelming, like I wouldn’t know                                                                    how to react.”

 

Lauren remembers experiencing similar emotions.  

 

“I called her senior year and she just sounded so defeated, like I had never heard her sound.  So I asked her, ‘Is something wrong, is everything okay?’  And she just said, ‘Mark didn’t come home last

night.  He’s been out partying a lot and using cocaine with his friends and last night was

the first night that he didn’t come home.’  And I just remember being stunned and crushed

that the person that was my rock and on the highest pedestal for me was going through

something that was going to shake her to her core.  And not knowing the effect it was

going to have on her - it scared me a lot.”

 

But if Gail’s honesty could sometimes be hard to handle, it could also be life-changing.  

 

“She was so easy to talk to, especially as an adult,” Danielle remembers. “I would tell her whatever problem or issue I was having and she would always be very gentle and just offer advice.  But she would also give the hard truth.  Like I was having a lot of issues in my adult relationships with women in college and she would say, ‘You know, you’re getting into these fights a lot - maybe you should look at how you’re approaching the relationship.’  And I got mad at her because she was saying I had to take responsibility but it did actually change the way I approached relationships.  She loved me enough to tell me something that wasn’t great about me - but in a really nice way.  To help me become a better person.”

 

Lauren also remembers a conversation with her mom while in college that has stayed with her.

 

“I had decided that I wanted to study abroad but my counselor said that I was already way behind the curve and needed to spend all my time doing internships in order to get into a good grad school.  And so I called my mom really upset.  And she just talked me down and was like, ‘You know, studying abroad is a different kind of education.  And it is worthwhile in its own way, and it will give you a different perspective in life.  And I wouldn’t do anything to give up the year I had in France.  And so if that’s what you want to do, that’s what you want to do, and you can go and come back and then figure it out from there.’ So she gave me permission to disrupt a certain course and actually do a really fulfilling experience that was what I actually wanted.”

 

But even as she grew increasingly open and honest with her daughters, “she never stopped being the mom who took care of us,” Danielle remembers. “The first time I was sick at college, she brought me clementines and chicken noodle soup.”