Gerry lifts her cane and pushes the elevator button with its bottom end. I’m standing alongside the 82-year-old “grandma everyone wishes they had,” as Joe from our Grocery Center described Gerry.
My mind drifts to Project Open Hand founder, Ruth Brinker. Grandmother, with virtue and vision.
“The grocery center is like a family,” says Gerry, bringing me back with her into the present moment. “It’s like they haven’t seen you for a month, but it’s only been a week. They’re all warm, and I know they really care when they ask how I am.”
Gerry has been coming to the Project Open Hand Grocery Center for four years. Beforehand, she received home-delivered meals, back when she struggled with standing to cook for too long due to cancer. She is one of 178 current active breast cancer clients benefiting from our services. Project Open Hand is one of the largest nutrition programs in the nation, serving 305 breast cancer clients last fiscal year.
A lifelong 49ers fan and season ticket holder for 33 years, Gerry was watching football at home when she discovered a lump on her breast. That was 10 years ago, in 2006. Since that diagnosis, eight other forms of cancer have been found in various parts of her body, as well as multiple illnesses including COPD, a pathologic hip fracture, and kidney disease.
“In fact, on Valentine's Day, 2013, I got two diagnoses at once: one was liver, the other was spine.” But it was the breast cancer that metastasized.
Gerry seems fidgety, as she pulls things from her purse, distracting herself.
A Chappaqua, New York native, she has happily been calling the North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco home for 57 years.
“I came here on a whim. I was dating a guy who got transferred to California. I was 24, and I decided to come along. Shortly after, I met the man I was going to marry.”
By now, Gerry stares off, looking out the window often when she speaks. Her eyes seem to widen, and fixate on one thing at a time as she recalls the past, and I can’t tell if she’s searching intensely for the memories, or if she’s longing for them, and concentrating on placing herself back in them again.
Gerry’s thoughts fall back to her diagnoses.
“When you have so many, the years start to run into one another. You go to chemo, radiation, X-rays, MRI’s… I’m the most radiographed person I know!” Gerry erupts into laughter, and both apologizes and forgives herself for it shortly after. The sirens on Polk Street seem louder than usual, and she stops herself from speaking before they have a chance to drown her out.
Gerry (left) volunteering with colleagues in the old Project Open Hand kitchen, approx. 1989
Gerry has had countless surgeries, and now has a permanent hole under her chin -- a side effect of a cancer medication she was taking. “But, I've had the best care. My oncologist has kept me alive for 10 years. Think about it. That’s pretty good. Life is still good.”
I do think about it for a moment, and immediately conclude that Gerry embodies a strength that’s so obvious, I’m overwhelmed with both intimidation, and hope -- hope that we’re cut from the same cloth.
“The worst part was telling my granddaughters,” she says. “They gave me the weepy, teary thing, but I took a clinical approach instead of an emotional one. I learned exactly what was going on with my body -- it was my formula for overcoming the fear.”
Gerry loves symphony, and jazz, and reading. She loves her nephews and nieces and grandchildren. She talks about how she served four terms as president of the Telegraph Hill Dwellers, and how they fought to protect the historical character of her city. She tells me she’s won the Eleanor Roosevelt Democrat of the Year award for her “unwavering commitment to her community” five years ago. She speaks so fluently of public service and compassion, and my mind flashes back to Ruth Brinker again.
“I am living proof that anyone can get through things like this,” she says with a tone that reveals such conviction, she left no room for refute. “The good news is San Francisco is the best place to be sick. The support systems are incredible. Just don’t be alone, and don’t hold thoughts in. Talk to people, and in the end, always offer the help that was offered to you.”
I never met Ruth, but imagine she and Gerry had a lot in common. It’s women like them who help us recognize the miracle of atoms that piled up to make us human, and to recognize that our neighbors' lives are equally as precious as our own. Ruth and Gerry are pioneers in enriching a community founded on open-handed generosity.