A Mar Vista Mother’s Mission

The first thing that strikes you about Doris Gilbert when you walk into her home is how ordinary she appears to be.  Small and slight, Gilbert appears at her front door with a wide smile and twinkling eyes, dressed in simple black pants and a red sweater, her silver bob blowing in the breeze. She speaks softly, and moves with the ease and grace of someone far younger than her 74 years.

Gilbert lives in a simple, non-descript bungalow at the end of a cul-de-sac on one of those Mar Vista streets that has stunning views of the city and the mountains. Her home is simply furnished and she serves tea in well-worn china cups atop lace doilies on her simple dining room table.

However, there’s nothing remotely simple about Gilbert. To say she is active is an understatement. Gilbert regularly hikes with the Sierra Club, has gone skiing in Yosemite, hiked to the top of Mt. Whitney, gone paragliding in Italy, done a rim-to-rim hike of the Grand Canyon, been dog mushing in Alaska and spent 32 years taking part in a two mile grueling swimming race from Hermosa Beach to Manhattan Beach. Not bad for a former schoolteacher turned nurse who also took time out to volunteer her services in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and the Haiti earthquake.  Oh, and she also happens to suffer from Type 1 Diabetes.

Gilbert wasn’t diagnosed until she was 57, but she is intimately acquainted with the illness. Her daughter, Laurie was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes when she was five and passed away in 1997 from complications of the disease, three weeks shy of her 29th birthday.

Barely 18 months after Laurie’s death, Gilbert headed to Washington with the American Diabetes Association’s Rally for a Cure and spoke on the steps of the Capitol alongside then Miss America Nicole Johnson.

Now gearing up for her fourth rally, Gilbert will return to Washington on March 9 and for two days will once again be lobbying for funds with 200 other representatives of the American Diabetes Association, in the hopes that a cure can be found for the disease.

Throughout Laurie’s illness, Gilbert became intimately acquainted with the ins and outs of this terrible disease. However, not content with just reading literature, she decided to take an anatomy class. From there, it was a no brainer (at least for her) at the age of 60 to enter nursing school.

“It wasn’t just the fact that Laurie died,” Gilbert explains. “Or the fact that she died so young, it’s that she suffered horribly the last five years of her life. I just wanted to learn as much as I could about this disease because it affects all the body’s organs, so I started taking classes at West Los Angeles College.”

After reading an article in the AARP magazine about people changing their careers late in life, Gilbert decided to become a nurse. “I started nursing school at 60 at Santa Monica College. People would ask me if I was a teacher when they saw me show up and I said, ‘No, I’m a student!’”

Gilbert talks about heading back to school as a senior citizen, and hobnobbing with representatives in Washington and giving public testimony in front of Congress as though it’s all in a day’s work for her. Which, ostensibly it is. She’s pretty matter of fact about it all.

“It was definitely thrilling and a great honor to speak in Washington,” she says. “But I see it as something we can all do; we can take part in important things. What I did was so much better than going to Washington as a tourist. I actually got to take part in the Great American Way.

“Laurie also wanted to help people,” she says of the young woman who served Thanksgiving meals to the homeless every year and volunteered with the Red Cross following the 1994 Northridge Earthquake.

Laurie went to Mar Vista Elementary School and Venice High School where she discovered art, photography, literature and playwriting. She was in the midst of her graduate studies in screenwriting at UCLA when she passed away.

“In 1974, when Laurie was diagnosed they said there would be a cure in five or 10 years and that was 40 years ago,” says Gilbert. “That’s why we have to keep fighting. We need to find a cure. And we also need to reach more people to help them with the costs of dealing with the disease and educating them.”

In 2009, almost two and half million American adults were diagnosed with Diabetes, and Gilbert says many people don’t seem to understand the difference between Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes.

“They say, ‘Oh you brought it on yourself. You need to eat better and exercise more.’ But Type 1 is failure of the pancreas to produce any insulin; it’s an autoimmune disease. Type 2 involves an insulin resistance, with the risk factors being overweight, sedentary lifestyle and heredity. The treatment is diet, exercise, and usually medication."

Gilbert lives very much in the ‘one-day-at-a-time’ vein, balancing her outdoor adventures with her ongoing lobbying efforts, while still carefully monitoring her diet and insulin levels, via the pump permanently attached to her hip. She finds joy in her other daughter Allison, and her grandchildren and is delighted to have spent over 30 years living in Mar Vista.

“We moved from a small apartment in Santa Monica when the girls were little,” Gilbert says. “We wanted to give them a wonderful place to grow up and they had that. They both went to local schools and could ride their bike on this cul-de-sac.

“Mar Vista used to be such a well kept secret,” she adds. “Although I don’t think it’s a secret anymore. But I love that I have this fabulous view on the top of this hill.”

As she prepares to make her way from her little hill in Mar Vista to Capitol Hill in Washington, Gilbert remains undaunted by the task ahead. “I’m honoring my daughter’s legacy,” she says. “And when you have a strong need and a strong passion the words come easily.”