GALLANT LADY

My wife first met Betty as the administrator and cofounder of the school our son attended in Madison, Wisconsin and where she served as librarian for 10 years. Betty would readily admit that she really didn’t have a grand plan to start a school, just the conviction to do things differently than how things were being done at that time, guided by some inner compass she trusted as the ‘right’ way. She said a plan would have doomed it from the beginning, so valuable were the lessons learned by trial and error along the way. Simply, she wanted something more for her own kids and couldn’t find it. It was her time. If you were to walk those halls today, 30 years after its founding, you couldn’t imagine that an institution like this could exist or survive, let alone thrive, without some genius plan or deep pocket funding. They had neither. No, what Betty and Mary, her cofounder, had was so much more valuable –what Kenny Loggins calls “conviction of the heart” in a song by that title.

Betty retired a few couple years ago, preferring to go “all out”, rather than hang around on a part time basis, which might have lasted until one or the other party came to the conclusion that it was “too long”. She moved to the South, where both she and her husband had been raised.  I should disclose here that Betty and my wife are close friends, a relationship she holds dear. A few weeks ago, Betty shared with her that her breast cancer, long in remission, had finally claimed some other organs. Her medical professionals now expect her to have just a handful of weeks remaining in this life.

Betty, this story’s heroine and Gallant Lady, in her final act as an incredible educator, is teaching us all how to die with dignity, grace, and courage. She is pursuing a more humane alternative to the frantic end-of-life assault of desperate measures to hang around. She would rather take her leave without a mask in place, blocking her ability to kiss those she loves and, yes to have her inevitable tears mingle with those shed on the other side of her hugs. Our Gallant Lady has a full travel schedule over the next two months, spending time with those closest to her, and wrapping up a few of those things still on her bucket list. That Kenny Loggins’ song ends with these words:

We've only got one chance to live in one life.
I believe, it's only gonna start when we begin with
some conviction of the heart.

Betty accepts that she has no more chances, no more “ifs”, and only a handful of tomorrows. And you know what? The most impressive thing is this gallant lady doesn’t need them - she has lived her entire life with conviction of the heart.