Andrea Gibson 8/13/75 to 7/14/2025 Rest in Peace

[_Land]

In Honor of the passing of a bright flame (Andrea Gibson)

Excerpt from a monologue I remember…
Author: Andrea Gibson

Instead of Depression,
Try calling it Hibernation.
Imagine the darkness is a cave
in which you will be nurtured
by doing absolutely nothing.
Hibernating animals don’t even dream.
It’s okay if you can’t imagine
Spring. Sleep through the alarm
of the world. Name your hopelessness
a quiet hollow, a place you go
to heal, a den you dug,
Sweetheart, instead
of a grave.

Andrea lost her battle with Ovarian Cancer

This is for her and those who have mention depression in these halls recently




_Land

 

[_Land]

Things That Don't Suck

From Andreas Substack

A List of Things I Love
The poetry of everyday
Andrea Gibson
Mar 13, 2025

I love. That could be the end of the sentence, but I love sentences. I love words huddled together like strangers trying to survive a frigid night. I love rock sculptures built in windstorms. I love sandcastles crafted inches from the waves.

I love the drama of an 80’s ballad. I love grandparents holding hands in rocking chairs on the porches of old houses in northern Maine. I love penguins, though I’ve never met one. I love how shocked I was when I realized my Superman cape couldn’t lift me into the sky. I love that all these decades later, I can still be that exact same kind of surprised.

Andrea Gibson in the summer of 2024, wearing a black cap and black sleeveless shirt is walking through a lush green meadow with yellow wildflowers, carrying a small fluffy dog on their shoulder. Squash Gibson, wearing a red harness, has her tongue out playfully. The backdrop features rolling hills, mountains, and a bright blue sky with fluffy white clouds.
I love cucumbers straight from the garden. I love old typewriters even if they don’t work. I love imagining I am a bird who is imagining what it’s like to be human in the dead of winter, wearing an upside-down nest made of yarn atop the head. I love wishing wells and the dreams that fill them.

I love scared rescue dogs who can’t live in homes with small children. I love the kids in junior high talent contests who always forget their lines. I love the nervous love in their parents’ chests. I love mother starlings racing home to their babies’ open and rowdy beaks. I love the perfect smiles of people with crooked teeth.

I love daydreaming about the pep talks butterflies give to depressed caterpillars. I love that bumblebees taste with their feet. I love when it’s so cold out I can walk atop the sparkling snow. I love tiny libraries. I love stained glass windows in people’s homes.

I love how my partner takes karaoke far too seriously. I love my very first crush in the 4th grade, wherever he is, whoever he became. I love phone booths in London. I love ketchup chips from Canada. I love Titan, Saturn’s largest moon.

I love the six perfect holes in my most worn pair of boots. I love that pigeons can recognize themselves in photographs. I love that laughter is more contagious than the flu. I love thank-you letters mailed to teachers twenty years after they graduate. I love the romance of merge signs.

I love watching people pull over on the side of the road to take pictures of a rainbow. I love that I can fix almost anything with shoelaces or duct tape. I love listening to my partner yell, “Andrea! Where did my shoelaces go this time!?” I love pointing out the window at our singing wind chime.

I love listening for the quietest notes of the loudest songs. I love carnivals in the parking lots of tiny towns. I love paper planes with love notes written inside. I love watching children realize that the seashells on the beach are free. I love the perfect contentment of a kite caught in a tree.

A close-up selfie of Andrea Gibson lying on a pillow with tousled dark hair. Their expression is neutral, with a hint of fatigue. Their brown eyes are slightly unfocused, and their skin has a natural, slightly flushed texture. The background consists of a soft, textured pillow and a blanket.
I love coffee shops on Saturday mornings. I love the kind kids who have hard lives. I love the mean kids who haven’t yet learned a better way to survive. I love that after chemotherapy, my straight hair grew back in curls. I love the tiny hurt that makes each pearl. I love trying to jump over puddles and failing.

I love that cows have best friends. I love that fleeting moment of annoyance while deep in writing a poem, someone interrupts to ask me to come look at the sunset. I love the instant that follows, when I recognize that to be a true poet, I must abandon every poem for every pink sky.

I love the pink sky and the sound of my grumpy neighbor opening his door at the same time that I do. I love both of us peeling off the husks of our minds to taste the sweetness of the world’s truth. I love what I have in common with people I have nothing in common with.

I love that my best friends kiss me on the forehead whenever I am sick. I love the baristas in fancy coffee shops who never ever smile. I love old diners with signs that say, “Stay A While.” I love the desert. I love the sea.

I love how much longer this list would be if the sunset were not, in this very second, calling me.

And I love all of you, friends, for caring about what I love. What are you loving today?

Love, Andrea

 

[_Land]

Stretch Marks of My Heart
for Andrea Gibson

By _Land


I used to think love
fit neatly inside a body
like a poem trimmed to meter,
like a rib cage
built for one breath at a time.

But then came
the child I didn’t birth,
the friend who named their gender
like it was a sunrise,
the lover whose laugh
took up a whole hallway.

One by one,
they arrived.
And my heart
that soft, stubborn muscle
stretched.

Wider than comfort.
Wider than plans.
Wider than what I thought
was mine to hold.

Sometimes the stretch burned.
Sometimes it stung.
Sometimes it asked me
to let go
just to let in.

But still,
it stretched to fit
every truth I said yes to
the ones with sharp edges,
the ones that tangled,
the ones that refused
to shrink just to fit.

And like skin
that pulls to cradle
the weight of becoming,
my heart learned the art
of expansion.

These marks,
these quiet, sacred scars
are not flaws.

They are proof
that I have loved
beyond my original shape.

That I made room
for the wild, the tender,
the not-yet-understood.

That I did not stay
small.

Let no one call it damage.
This is how a life
makes space
for all its miracles.

This is how we become
bigger than fear,
richer than language.
Marked, yes
but only
because we grew.