I sit here, staring at this computer struggling to find the right lead, the right words to tell you about my friend. It’s important to me that my friend is understood. So few understood her, I think, and yet everyone loved her and respected her.
That friend, Noella Gibb, came from a different era than I, an era when women were ladies and the line between right and wrong was clearly defined. She was a dichotomy and a wonderful contradiction.
I first met Noella about eight years ago. She was a longtime friend of my father-in-law and she scared me at first. She wasn’t certain about me and she made it known. She loved my father-in-law and thus my husband, and she took it upon herself to determine if I was good enough to marry into the family.
When I first met her I was in the red-hair-look-at-me-stage. She, being a barber was offended by the colour, I believe, and also by the fact that my unruly hair refused to comply with my attempts at taming it.
I laugh now when I remember one conversation we had shortly after meeting. We were all going to meet at the Thirsty Duck for supper. Knowing that Noella, the queen of decorum and dressing well was going to be there, I took extra efforts in my grooming.
It was all for naught.
After we settled into our chairs, Noella fixed her gaze on me and said, “Did you brush your hair today?”
At first I hoped she was teasing, but I knew better. She was serious. Dead serious. I gulped and stammered out that I had just brushed my hair prior to arriving.
She stared at me for several seconds and then I noticed a gleam in her eyes and a quivering of her lips. Surely she wasn’t teasing me? But she was, and thus began a warm friendship between two women who were over 40 years in age difference and who came from different worlds and centuries.
First and foremost, Noella was always a lady, carefully and properly groomed right down to the red lipstick she always wore. There I was, a camping type girl who is more comfortable in shorts and T-shirts than a dress.
I know I frustrated her at times and that she would have liked to have made me over and finish that off with a swipe of her lipstick, but slowly and surely our friendship grew and we found common ground and respect for each other no matter the differences.
Noella was achingly outspoken and it was both appreciated and abhorred at the same time. She let you know exactly what she was thinking.
One time, without going into specifics, she tore a strip off of me for no good reason. I left that day feeling deeply hurt. After mulling over it for a day or so I returned to her home and told her that her words had hurt me, that I was her friend, not her maid, and that I didn’t come to visit to have someone speak to me that way.
She arched her eyebrows and oh so quietly and humbly said, “I’m sorry. I had no idea I hurt you.” And I realized she really didn’t grasp the power that her words held.
After that, she still talked to me like I was her maid, but she always said please, or thank you. I laugh even now at that.
Right to the end of her 97 years, Noella did things her way. She never wavered and she was always true to herself. She was a fighter, a true lady and an astute businesswoman in the days when women weren’t generally in business.
Most importantly, she was my friend.
Noella passed away May 29, 2012, in her own home and on her own terms.
She will be sorely missed.
Thank you for your friendship
Noella.