Joan Louise Gallagher

1946-2026

This post is part of the Donna G Project. This is written to and for my boys.

About “Aunt Joan”

Growing up, Joan was my “cool” aunt. She was brash and funny and stylish. As a kid, she was such a contrast to my mom. Joan was single, lived in Boston, drove a sports car.

But then…she disappeared.

She and my mother had a rift. Something happened after the death of their mother (my grandmother). My mom didn’t go into details, and I was a kid, so I didn’t ask a lot of questions. And after that, I didn’t see Joan for almost 12 years.

Then my mom died. I was 27 at the time. My brother and I, without hesitation, welcomed Joan back into our lives, and from there we entered into a slow, tenuous reconnection. Shani and I used to go to Boston every year to visit my Uncle Bob (Joan’s brother), and Joan started joining the gatherings. She attended my wedding and my brother’s wedding. But Joan was hesitant around us. We never brought up the rift with my mother, but I could tell it hung on Joan.

But then a little magic happened. Magic in the form of spotting.

Shani and I had a hard time getting pregnant.* After a few months of trying, we eventually went to a fertility clinic. The whole thing got really emotional for us. We wanted it so badly.

Then finally, after 6 months of trying, it stuck. Shani was pregnant. We held our breath; I prayed a lot. It was like living on a glass floor. But after 11 weeks, and our doctor’s blessing, we decided it was safe to share the news. We actually mapped the whole thing out, planning to tell everyone over Christmas break. And first stop was Boston.

Shani and I got in later Friday evening, and over cocktails we broke the news to Uncle Bob and Uncle Bill. They both literally yelled with joy and sprang up from their chairs in celebration. Shani and I went to bed so happy.

But things went south the next morning.

I still remember exactly where I was standing when Shani told me. She emerged from the bathroom and told me she had some spotting. My heart caught. We both started crying a little. This couldn’t be happening. Were we about to lose this baby?

We agreed to hit pause on sharing the news.

Enter Joan.

The plan for the day was for Bob to take us on a tour of Newport, Rhode Island, and Joan was joining. We picked her up and Bob immediately smiled and said…”Mike and Shani have some news!”

Woosh.

Trembling and teary-eyed, we told them that our pregnancy might be at risk.

Note about Joan…she was a nurse. In fact, Joan was an internationally-recognized oncology nurse who worked at Mass General, one of the top hospitals in the world. And while Joan wasn’t sure how to handle her estranged nephew, Joan knew EXACTLY how to handle a young couple dealing with a medical issue.

With empathy and authority, Joan took us in hand. She addressed what we were going through without minimizing it, and then presented us her assessment with clear facts. She calmed us down, and with clinical credibility assured us it was most likely nothing.

And in fact, this story has not one, but TWO happy endings. The first one is that the baby was fine. Six months later, our son Jack** would be born healthy as can be. But the second happy ending was that it gave me and Joan a way to connect and accelerate our relationship into something more meaningful and real. The crisis passed, but the connection stayed.

Things from there were pretty good. Joan and I would talk on the phone every month or so. She’d send me books occasionally. Whenever we visited Boston, Joan and I would carve out time to go to Mass together. That became our relationship.

So now, we’re going to fast-forward. We go to 2022 and the death of Joan’s brother, my Uncle Bob.

Bob had a brain tumor, and after fighting it successfully for years, it took him down. At the end, they brought a hospital bed into his condo. Joan came to see him, and without so much as a change of clothes, she moved in to care for him. And it meant everything to Bob. He had 24-hour hospice attendants, but Bob would brush them off and call for Joan. She was with him when he passed.

OK…now things are going to get a little rocky.

After Bob died, we couldn’t get Joan to leave the condo. Bob has left it to my brother and I, and we wanted to sell it. But Joan wouldn’t leave. Mind you, she had her own house 5 miles away, but still, in the most passive way possible, Joan stayed. And the explanation was pretty clear.

Joan was a hoarder. And she wouldn’t leave because she wanted the condo, she wanted everything in it, and she wanted to fill it up with stuff the way her own home was filled with stuff.

In fact, Joan’s home was filled to the point of danger. Her stairs were so cluttered with stuff that two years earlier she had fallen down them and broken her pelvis. She then crawled out of the house to meet the ambulance on her porch so the EMTs wouldn’t see inside her home. But they weren’t fooled, and the town deemed her home unsafe and forbade her was living there until she cleaned it. (Joan stayed with a friend for 6 months and then slipped back into the house without the town noticing.)

Joan’s hoarding was why she and my mother had become estranged. They were dividing up their mother’s estate, and Joan wanted things so badly that she chose those things over her sister.

We finally got Joan out of Bob’s condo, but it took a series of very unpleasant confrontations. She returned to her home, and I was certain that was where she would remain until forced to leave. I thought another fall would be the only way out.

But here comes another twist: She left.

Joan got to work. On her own, she hired an expert who slowly helped her do the impossible and clear out her house. Pile by pile, room by room, my Aunt, the hoarder, cleaned out her unlivable house and sold this. This was like a 50-year heroine addict quitting on their own. Incredible.

Joan left Boston and moved into an assisted living community in Fall River, Massachusetts. Joan was never married and had no children. She had no relatives left except my brother and I. But in Fall River, she had a group of nurses she was close to, so she chose to move there.

OK…ready for another twist? Another facet to the picture I’m painting?

About Joan Gallagher, Ed.D, RNCS, BC, AOCN

Joan wasn’t any old nurse. Joan was a mega-nurse. Joan had a long and distinguished career as one of the top oncology nurses in the field. She worked at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center from 1982-1987, then moved to Mass General Hospital, where she worked through retirement. Her list of accomplishments and contributions are remarkable. She was awarded the Rita P. Kelleher Award from Boston College, The Linda W. Adams Award from The American Cancer Society, and many more commendations. She spoke at medical conferences all over the world and published over 50 articles and posters in oncology journals.

I think of all the patients and families she touched over the years. People in crisis. People at their lowest point. People terrified and sick and fighting for their lives. And Joan was there for them. For hundreds, probably thousands. Tell me that isn’t a life well-lived.

I posted that she had died on her Facebook page, and the comments were stunning. Nurse after nurse commented how Joan had taught them, pushed them, guided them, mentored them.

Honestly, the dichotomy of Joan is just mind-boggling to me. She led a family life marked by loneliness and regret, yet her professional life filled was filled with success and contribution. She was a hoarder, afflicted with a compulsion to acquire and possess things. Yet with herself and her spirit she was so generous to so many.

This August, Joan got an infection, went to the hospital, and never truly recovered. The infection cleared, but still she kept her eyes closed and ate next to nothing. At the wise urging of her friend, Claire***, my brother and I got there to visit. We spent two days sitting with her, arranging for her care, and going through Joan’s ludicrous collection of stuff (100+pairs of underwear and socks, 10+ umbrellas, books, CDs, coats, papers, thousands of stamps).

Our last hours with Joan were perfect.

She was in a Catholic nursing home. A priest served Mass every morning in a small chapel. The attendants got Joan dressed and in a wheelchair. We pushed her to the chapel and sat on either side of her. Chris took Joan’s left hand and I held her right hand. The chapel was filled with wheelchairs and people with walkers. As the priest went around giving communion, an old woman, in a dry voice, started to sing a hymn. The words were in Portuguese and the voice was weak and wispy. But it was among the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard in my life.

After Mass, we took her back to her room. We said our goodbyes, and we left. Joan died four days later.

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So…let’s talk about the funeral. Because the story has another turn for sure.

I expected maybe 10 people to come. From my vantage, Joan had pushed away the people in her life. I saw her as a lonely, sad person.

But dozens of people came. Friends from nursing school, friends from her career, friends from church, friends from her retirement community. And these people loved her. They shared lifelong connections with Joan and shared stories all about her I didn’t know, and more than that, didn’t even imagine were there. They celebrated her life and her achievements. It was genuinely shocking and genuinely wonderful once I got my head wrapped around it. I’d thought my brother and I were all she had, but I was completely wrong. Beautifully so.

We will conclude at Joan’s grave.

You are looking at the South Coast Nurse Honor Guard. They came to honor one of their own. They spoke of Joan’s achievements and of her commitment to her profession. Then they did a final roll call.

“Nurse Melanie?”

“Reporting for duty.”

“Nurse Darlene?”

“Reporting for duty.”

One by one they called each name, and each nurse stepped forward and responded. Then they came to Joan.

“Nurse Joan Gallagher?”

They let the silence sit, and then rang a chime.

“Nurse Joan Gallagher?”

Chime.

“Nurse Joan Gallagher?”

Chime.

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“Nurse Joan Gallagher, your shift has ended. Your fellow nurses will take it from here.”

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God speed, Aunt Joan. The world is far better because you were in it.

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*To anyone who has gone through the struggle of trying to become pregnant, I see you. Shani and I had just the slightest touch of it and it was all-encompassing. Not everyone knows how emotional this is.

**Of all Joan’s great-nephews and nieces, Jack has always been Joan’s overwhelming favorite.

***Claire was a gift from God. Claire and Joan became close friends in the final years of Joan’s life, and Claire was such a help to Joan. She helped her get settled, she hosted Joan for holidays as a member of her family, she visited regularly. From Joan’s banking to Joan’s health, Claire was there.

As Joan’s health failed, Claire took care of so many things. She chose the nursing home, she hired movers to clean out Joan’s apartment, she sorted through Joan’s things. She was in constant contact with myself and my brother, guiding us and acting as Joan’s friend and advocate.

Chris and I took to calling her “St. Claire” and we are all so blessed to have her in our lives. Her goodness shines through her every action. It was Claire who was with Joan at the end.

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AND….coming soon, a supplemental story to the Joan saga where we solve an 80-year-olfactory mystery! Stay tuned for that tale. It’s a good one.