Was like a second mom to siblings
Lasone Garland-bryan, patient advocate, dies after cancer battle
Lasone Garland-bryan was a second mom to everyone.
She was a second mom to her six siblings — even the ones older than her. She was a second mom to the girls who attended Albany Girls Club while she served as director. She was a second mom to her friends in the Women of Color Cancer Support Group she cofounded with her sister in 2004, after receiving her own diagnosis of breast cancer.
And after her nearly two-decade battle with cancer, Garland-bryan died last week at the age of 62.
“I called her sister mom, and I also call her my ‘Shero’ warrior,” said Lillian Garland, one of Garland-bryan’s younger sisters. “She was not just a big sister to us, and she always had a way of making lemonade out of lemons.”
Garland-bryan dedicated her life to making sure the people surrounding her also tried to make the best of the worst situations. Her sisters recall that at a young age, she began teaching them to stand up for themselves — something she herself learned from her own mother, Jeanette Garland, who passed away last year.
“She told us how the world was, being a Black female,” Garlandbryan told the Times Union about her own mother last year. “You have to have faith, but it’s not going to come easy.”
Indeed, that’s how Garlandbryan lived her own life, dedicating her years to supporting and empowering people of color and particularly Black women.
Garland-bryan directed numerous plays about the experiences of Black women, including Ntozake
Shange’s “For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/when The Rainbow Is Enuf” in 2018. The play featured seven Black women telling their experiences with sexism and sex, violence and love, abuse and self-worth, and survival.
“There are various things that go on in a woman of color’s life, a Black woman’s, but there are also things that we as women go through,” Garland-bryan told the Times Union at the time. “Even though this piece is over 40 years old, we’re still encountering these things — if not more.”
And when Garland-bryan received her diagnosis of breast cancer in 2004, she once again decided to amplify and empower Black women — this time, those who also had cancer. Along with Benita Garland, who had spinal cancer, the two sisters created a community group that would help to educate Black women about the cancer journey, whether that be medical information, health care options or knowledge about medication.
“I can recall her feeling that her interactions with her doctor felt very antiseptic,” said Bernard Bryan, her husband. “And even though they were intelligent women, they didn’t feel that they comprehended as well or as much as
they ought to have.”
The Garland sisters knew that patients of color, and particularly Black women, were often mistreated, not believed or overmedicated in the health care system. They also knew that doctor’s offic
▶
es and health care could feel intimidating and overwhelming for those women.
By creating a support group, they hoped to help women feel more confident and in control of their own health care journeys. Often, that meant driving women to and from appointments, helping women navigate insurance (and connecting them to medical prescriptions in Canada if their insurance was lacking) and making sure each woman had a support buddy at her appointments.
“You’re scared to ask them a question because this man in his white coat might just give you a shot or give you a pill and not know what the issue is or the symptom really is to know what they’re treating,” said Rosetta Burke.
“Lasone wanted to teach the rest of us women of color to go out and search for other people who were
in the same boat as me that look like me,” Burke continued. “And I’ll go with you to the doctor and ask the same questions. Maybe if two of us ask the same question, he’ll hear the second one.”
But Garland-bryan made sure to infuse joy in the group’s lives as well. When one member was nearing the end of her life and wanted to marry the love of her life, Garland-bryan planned an entire wedding for her. Garland-bryan and her husband hosted the reception at their home, then paid for the newlyweds to stay at the Putnam Gideon for a few nights. About a
month later, the member passed away. Up until the end of her life, Garlandbryan was taking care of other people and working on the cause, for example organizing a Minority Cancer Awareness Educational Forum and Awards Luncheon last month. Continuing the cause, her family launched a scholarship
foundation in her memory, to support students with family members who have cancer to go to college. And as she lay on her death bed, Garland-bryan was worried about everyone else, telling them to dry up their tears and offering them words of comfort.
“She was like, ‘You gotta be strong. It would be selfish of you to look at me and constantly want me here like this,’” Garland recalled. “And she told me, ‘You don’t have to worry about anything. I’ll be with you every day.’”
Ever since then, Garland hasn’t cried. She feels her sister mom, “shero” warrior everywhere. She knows she will always be there, watching over her and taking care of her.