DAVID BEGNAUD:
00:00:23
Gayle Noble was not famous, but she was unforgettable. Thank you so much there. Oh my God, Gayle. Give some love.
DAVID BEGNAUD:
00:00:33
Because her kindness was. Gayle was just a special, very special person.
DAVID BEGNAUD:
00:00:39
Gayle died in June. And on what would have been her 79th birthday, her daughter Nisse Noble, threw a party instead of a funeral. Happy birthday, Gayle.
DAVID BEGNAUD:
00:00:52
And on the menu-- bacon, bacon, more bacon. And the lineup of her favorite treats, just as Gayle would have wanted it. The room looked like a science fair. There were poster boards charting Gayle's life, from girl to mother and wife. Not to mention the scientist who held patents. D's, F's, B's, a few A's. What I love about Gayle is that she didn't pretend to be perfect. There was a woman who carried a laptop through the party, live streaming so that Gayle's fans watching in Dubai and Australia and India could be there too. But people didn't come for her inventions. And look, there were some impressive ones. They came because Gayle was best known for her random acts of, as Nisse calls it, aggressive kindness. You will get things. She will not take no for an answer. She's going to give you more than you asked for. For all of you. And it's going to be her way. This is what I mean by the aggressive kindness. Like, she just can't help it. She just wants to give.
DAVID BEGNAUD:
00:01:59
Back in 2024, I spent the day with Gale in Oceanside, California. Would I get out of it is the joy of knowing that I've added some spark into each one of them. I love that, Gayle. That's the best part. Yeah. Isn't that the best feeling? Yes. Yeah. Thank you. For the last seven years of her life, nearly every single week, Gayle would make the rounds at Trader Joe's and the post office and UPS like clockwork. Thank you, Gayle. She always greets us as hi. She'll tell us you guys have such a hard job. I know what you're going through. I've done it before. And here's some muffins to get you through the day.
DAVID BEGNAUD:
00:02:45
And the people she surprised for years. Surprised everyone by showing up to say goodbye. I know Gayle from Trader Joe's. She would come in shopping, sprinkle her goodies around. [CHUCKLES] I'll say she almost got us in trouble when she first started doing this, because we're not supposed to accept gratuities or cookies and she would sometimes literally throw them in our direction and say, all right, we'll see you tomorrow. And she did that every day.
DAVID BEGNAUD:
00:03:14
Her kindness even reached strangers like Sheri, who only met Gayle through our story on CBS Mornings. I first heard about Gayle when I saw CBS Mornings, and I was just so taken with it. I go, oh my God, and that's all the whole story. And it just touched me because I was close to my mom, and I thought, this is great. And you don't see feel-good kind of stories like this.
DAVID BEGNAUD:
00:03:36
Nisse is the one who built her mom a home online. It was a community she called Planet Gayle.
NISSE NOBLE:
00:03:43
My mom, Gayle, was too much. Too fierce, too smart, too weird, too honest, too full of heart. So I built her a place here on the internet, where being too much is the whole point.
DAVID BEGNAUD:
00:03:56
That social media account drew hundreds of thousands of followers, people who said Gayle made them feel less alone and more themselves. I even put on one of the posts, it's on my bucket list to meet you in person one day. So it just breaks my heart that I didn't get to meet her in person. So she was an inspiration. She really was. You said to me, perhaps one of the biggest takeaways from this story is what you got out of it. Through learning how to love her, through learning who she is, and just accepting her for who she is, so many people have been able to do the same. Not only do I feel a huge sense of peace and growth, but there are hundreds of thousands of people across the world that are feeling that too. She taught me how to be patient, how to love, and always giving.
DAVID BEGNAUD:
00:04:58
One of Gayle's last outings was to the hospital. And even there, despite the pain she was in, she just couldn't help herself. What is this? Oh.
GAYLE NOBLE:
00:05:09
A treat. Oh, thank you.
NISSE NOBLE:
00:05:11
How are you feeling today? Yucky.
NISSE NOBLE:
00:05:14
You felt good enough to give people cookies today. Yep. I like to do that. They deserve a treat. Most people don't understand the [BEEP] these poor folks go through.
DAVID BEGNAUD:
00:05:29
The relationship wasn't always easy. But caregiving and Gayle's Alzheimer's diagnosis brought them closer. I feel that she got really lucky with the way that the disease manifested for her because she became much more child-like. As she disappeared more, in some ways, I felt like I got to see her soul more. I got to see her heart.
NISSE NOBLE:
00:05:57
OK, mom, I love you. I love you.
NISSE NOBLE:
00:05:59
Very much. Very, very much.
DAVID BEGNAUD:
00:06:04
And that, my friends, is the lesson we can all take from Gayle Noble-- to love people who are hard to love, to live with kindness, and to at the end of the day, just be ourselves. [MUSIC FADES]
