Mcd202dc Gmail
Gina lived near Little Hunting Creek, where it meets the Potomac, and I was over on Camden Street. We grew up close enough to share school buses, and far enough apart that staying connected took some effort. She made it look effortless for her friends, and I gained respect for her and the many friendships she made.
Gina had the kind of warmth that pulled people in without trying — welcoming, funny, and effortlessly kind. She also had a gift for brutally honest fashion advice, delivered whether you asked for it or not.
Back then I was a mess of contradictions: part surfer, part skater, part break-dancer, all bad choices. Gina never let me get away with any of it. She’d look at my parachute pants and Sperry Topsiders, my tank tops, my Flock of Seagulls haircut, and say, without ceremony: “Nope. Stop that. It doesn’t work, Matt.” She was always right. She had an eye for design and detail long before most of us understood what style even meant.
Years later I read Bret Easton Ellis and watched American Psycho — the scene where Patrick Bateman dispenses fashion advice with total authority and zero empathy — and I thought of Gina immediately. Same confidence. Opposite soul. She steered people toward better choices not because she enjoyed the power of it but because she genuinely cared how you showed up in the world.
Her family name fascinated me when we were kids. It stayed with me longer than she probably knew. Degli — “of” or “from” — paired with Umberti, often associated with ‘bright warriors’. When I moved to Italy years later and spent six years there, two in the Veneto and four in Tuscany, I heard degli constantly, and I thought of her family’s name when it caught my ear
We briefly reconnected around the West Potomac 20-year reunion in 2008. She couldn’t make it due to a family trip, but she picked up our conversation as if no time had passed at all. When I mentioned I’d be in Northern Virginia visiting my dad, she didn’t say we should get together sometime. That wasn’t her. She said: “Drinks with friends at 7 PM. Clyde’s in Broadlands. See you there.” A time. A place. A table with friends.
Something came up and I missed it. Another time I stopped by Clyde’s on my own and sent her a note that I was there. She and Gary were away. We joked about the lobster special, I’d misread “¼-pound lobster” as some impossible buy-one-get-four deal. She replied without missing a beat: “How I wish. The lobsters weigh ¼ pound each.” Quick. Dry. She never let a bad joke go unchecked.
As adults we’d followed surprisingly parallel paths in public relations, communications, marketing, and storytelling. Our conversations shifted naturally toward creative messaging, campaigns, branding, craft, corporate social responsibility, the work of helping people feel seen through stories. She was good at that her work because because she understood people, and she was good at her work.
She invited me more than once to visit her and Gary in Broadlands. I wish I had gone. There’s something painful about realizing certain invitations don’t wait forever.
Gina, I’m thinking of you, and of Gary, your kids, and your family. You made people laugh. You made ordinary moments extraordinary and memorable. You made people feel like they mattered, which is harder than it sounds, and rarer than it should be.
I’ll remember you the way you always were: direct, warm, creative, a little bit ruthless about bad fashion, and full of light, a bright warrior.
