Sharon Gilbert Memorial

Tuesday, February 07, 2006

Sharon at a party at Flo Selfman's apartment in July 1978:


posted by Unknown at 8:16 AM

1 Comments:

  • I also knew and loved Sharon Lynn Gilbert. Sharon lived near Church and Flatbush Avenues in Brooklyn, NY. We met at Brooklyn College. I was 18 and she was 20. We were in Paul Cox's improvisational acting class together. I visited her at her home and met her folks. I went with her to the apartment in Greenwich Village of her Uncle Mark. (Mark Gilbert was not Sharon's dad.)

    I met Sharon's dad and her mom. They were a friendly and attractive couple and adored Sharon. Uncle Mark (as Sharon called her uncle) took us to an off 0ff Broadway play. He was in advertising and gave me his business card. He was very charming and warm to me and it was clear how much he loved Sharon.

    During that summer of 1968 when I was 18 and Sharon was 20, we traveled to Europe together for a 3week trip, with the obligatory backpacks, staying in youth hostels in England and France. We took the rail from place to place. We saw the Mousetrap in London and King Lear in Stratford upon Avon.

    I missed our return flight to N.Y. and Sharon told me later she begged the pilots and stewardesses not to leave without me. (We had split up so she could go to Scotland while I remained for the last few days in Paris and were to meet back at the chartered plane.)

    In those days, you could go into the cockpit and at Sharon's request, we visited the handsome pilots as we flew to London with them.

    Sharon with the beautiful voice, both speaking and singing, taught me, her tone deaf friend, to sing Greensleeves as we rode the British Rail. To this day, that is the only song I can sing partially in tune - only the verses she taught me. Sharon told me she could teach anyone to sing but until that happened, I hadn't believed her.

    Was it in Canterbury or Cambridge that we made a pact to meet there again in 20 years? or was it 30? We lost touch about a year later when I transferred to SUNY Binghamton and Sharon graduated and headed off to Chapel Hill for her graduate degree. It was my fault, not hers. I am notoriously poor at keeping in touch - and see what I have lost.

    Beautiful Sharon. Apparently, she became a writer and supported her friends with her full heart, great wit and brilliant mind.

    I always remembered Sharon with love. Her light was brighter than that of most people I have met in my life. I began to write poetry at my new college, the summer after our trip to Europe. I believe that this was somehow an inconspicuous benefit of my having known Sharon Lynn Gilbert:

    My friend, I, too, cried when I heard you were gone from this world. But I believe that life is eternal and your beautiful soul is not gone, but only away.

    By Blogger Joani Sedaca, at 4:43 PM  

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