Gail passed away peacefully this morning, April 26, 2009, at 6:10.
She was fighting congestion during the night and the antibiotics did not help. She was unconscious and unresponsive when she died, so I will conclude that she was not in pain or distress and did not suffer. (Certainly the way I wish to go.)
She had decided to donate her body for education purposes1 and after a year or two I will receive her cremated remains.
Gail did not want a service or any special treatment. I was going to help her compose her obituary, but we never got started. So I will devote this post ( http://lifeworkps.com/hubbard/weblog/3965.html ) on my personal blog to collecting our thoughts about Gail.
This will be a work-in-progress, so please bookmark and return often to see how it develops. Please help me by sending me a note with anything you wish me to add or correct.
Gail Elizabeth Hubbard 10/16/1944 – 4/26/2009
Gail was born October 19, 1944, in Brunswick, Maine, the second of five children of Harrison Weston and Elizabeth Swanton Hubbard (both deceased). Gail is survived by her son Mark Aaron Solook, his wife Becky and their daughter Blake Solook of Alvin, Texas; her older brother Harrison Peter Hubbard and three (3) younger brothers John, James and Joseph Hubbard, five step-brothers and sisters (Mike, Jan, Kitty, Ruth and Bill Jolly), several cousins -- including Sue Hartman in Cumberland Center, Maine; members of the Carl Bartlett "Bart" Swanton family in Maine; and Gustavo Rivera, MD, a long-time friend now working at NIH.
Gail lived in Red Bank, NJ; Sturbridge, MA; and Jamesburg, NJ, until she met and married John Solook, whom she later divorced. ... She graduated from Douglass College in New Brunswick, NJ, with a BA degree in library science, and taught [ junior high ?] mathematics [ in Connecticut ? ] for a short time. Gail loved to sing whether with a choir2 or as a soloist; had a delightful sense of humor; and cherished time spent in the past 8 years on the Maine coast at Mere Point, near Brunswick.
Gail’s greatest accomplishment in her final ten (10) years was the creation and maintenance of two Yahoo support groups3 (mailing lists) dedicated to one of the several diseases she suffered. Her proudest moment was when she was able to convince a group of doctors to reference her groups at a conference.
1Humanity Gifts Registrar (HGR) has selected Temple Medical School in Philadelphia to receive Gail's gift of her body.
2While at college (Pete at Rutgers, New Brunswick), Gail and Pete sang in the community college and shared a profoundly moving experience singing Brahm's German Requiem at the request of Eugene Ormandy (Philadeplhia Orchestra) in the Philadelphia Concert Hall a week after President Kennedy was assasinated. The program was videotaped and shown to the world.
3Panniculitis Support group at http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/panniculitis/ and the InternationalMesentericPanniculitisSociety. Please read this eulogy post from one of the many friends Gail had nurtured in these support groups. There are several others in the Messages section that you may wish to read.
Keywords: 20%, 2009, 2Q09, 4/26, death, Gail, Gail Elizabeth Hubbard 10/16/1944 – 4/26/2009, hph, hubbard, obituary, sister