A Peaceful End of Life for Gail~Elena

Dear friends and friends of friends, 

My beautiful mother and dear friend Gail-Elena passed away peacefully near her home in Baja California, Mexico, on Friday, August 16, at 3:15pm. I was very fortunate to have been able to spend these last six months with my mom and to be holding her hand when she passed.

Gail-Elena was diagnosed with stage-4 lung cancer on February 25th, 2019, which by the time of her diagnosis had metastasized to her brain and renal gland so that chemo was no longer a viable option. After a five-day hospital stay for treatments allowing her to breathe more comfortably, she was moved back home and and given medication to help minimize swelling around the tumors.

My mother was fortunate to suffer very little pain for most of her illness, but in just a few short months she went from being a bright and resourceful woman (who kicked my ass at ‘Words With Friends’ on a daily basis and who, at 77, called me up last fall to let me know she’d researched and figured out how to repair her old Mac) to being unable to speak, dress, feed, walk, or bathe herself. She lost over 50 pounds and spent much of her days sleeping.

My mom was uninsured here in Mexico, and while several friends suggested moving her to California and enrolling her in MediCare, an old Dutch proverb says: “You cannot transplant an old oak.” I felt this adage applied to my mom and was thus very reluctant to take her from her home, partner, and pets at this point in her life. Rather, I relocated to Mexico in order to be her full-time caregiver and focus on trying to give her the best quality of life that I could in the time that remained.

Even with the generous donations we’ve already received (we've met two-thirds of our original goal) these expenses have left me several thousand dollars in debt. Any monetary contribution that you can offer would be so appreciated ~ No amount is too small. 

I am also forever grateful for all love and supportive wishes sent to me and my mom during her illness.

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For those who never got to meet my mom, or who met her only recently and have not heard the tales of her unconventional life, here is a brief version of her story:


Gail-Elena always chose to live an atypical life. In 1955 at age 14, she was already sneaking from New Jersey over to Greenwich Village, where she was befriended by a small group of poets, artists, and queens, who took her under their wing, convincing the doormen into letting her into the 18+ music venues, and then seeing to it that she got home safe at the end of the night. 


She was then years ahead of her time when at 15, she began protesting beauty-norms in her home town of Maywood, N,J., by refusing to wear makeup or have her hair cut and styled, and by washing and wearing the same black dress to school everyday for two years until graduating in ’59 (so punk). For this, and for refusing to stop hanging out with her black and Latinx friends, she was often threatened with expulsion.


By 18 Gail-Elena had moved into the crux of New York’s folk, jazz and art scene, where she and our dad, Wally, worked, lived and played in their $30 per month studio, making sandals and handbags in the then low-rent, ethnically and socio-politically diverse neighborhood of Brooklyn Heights.  Living in NYC at this time gave her the rare opportunity to see many of the great, sometime yet unknown, artists of the time perform small clubs, cafes and galleries. These included the likes of Mingus, Coltrane, Miles, Dylan, Yoko Ono, and John Cage. 



In the Summer of 1962, Gail-Elena and Wally, packed up their studio and two young children (5-month old me, and my 2-year old sister, Joelle) and hit the road in a $50 used car, for a 6-month cross-country adventure. They traveled and worked their way across the U.S., often relying on a handwritten, underground list of cool folks willing to offer lodgings to like-minded folks  ~ pre-Internet ‘CouchSurfing’, basically. 



Gail-Elena continued along her intrepid path, having adventures and fun, meeting likewise unconventional folks, being a wonderful mother, and making many life long friends along the way....









In 1983 she met longtime partner, Stan-Leon, with whom she traveled the deserts of California, Arizona and the Baja Peninsula in a converted school-bus, eventually planting roots on a remote and picturesque acre overlooking the Sea of Cortez, at Mexico’s southern-most tip of Baja-California. Together they built a beautifully simple, palm-roofed and off-grid home where they lived for more than thirty years, enjoying many old and new friends through the years.


















From a friend:

“Gail-Elena is the first wise person I encountered in my life (45 years ago). I was awed by her capacity to observe, listen, reflect in the midst of a parade of competing egos, personalities, and eccentric characters who swirled about in an intense community of individuals I stumbled into in 1973. She has been an inspiring human being as she faced/grappled with joy and sorrow, triumphs and mistakes, wins and losses. Her example of being present, awake, reflective, free of judgment, and responsive has inspired me since I first met her, and in all of my interactions with her since. And it has benefited my relationship with my husband, former husband, children, grandchildren, extended family, friends, and dozens of my students.”

Alicia