MOREHEAD, Ky. (LEX 18) — The mother of 21-year-old Shelby Jewel Gilbert, who passed away due to a blood clot just after Thanksgiving, wants to share her story not because of how she died, but how she lived.
The young Rowan County woman loved to dance, laugh, and smile.
“She was everybody’s light,” her mother, Shayne Hodges, shared.
She did it all despite facing a disability. At the age of four her mother started noticing she was different from other kids. She was diagnosed with a chromosome abnormality, leading to both mental and physical challenges.
“She never let any of that stop her from anything, she made friends with everybody even if they couldn't understand what she was saying,” Hodges said.
She wanted to be involved in everything from cheerleading to track to homecoming. Her peers named her queen.
“Hey guys, I just want to say thank you so much, and I love you,” she said in a video after homecoming.
It’s a perfect representation of how she was every day of her life, her mother said. That includes the day she died - when Hodges says her daughter stayed calm.
“It’s like she just wanted to bring me peace and keep me calm and I say I love you and I’m dying, and she kept looking at me and she was like wanting me to tell her it was okay to close her eyes so when I told her it was okay she closed her eyes and took her last breathe,” Hodges said.
Shelby just wanted to be accepted as a member of her community. As shown by the support her family has received in the days after her death, it's clear she was so much more.
There’s a lesson to be learned from Shelby’s life, Hodges said.
“We should look at the world like she looked at it,” Hodges said “She noticed every flower, every rainbow, every star in the sky.”
They are all things she wouldn't let anything stop her from seeing
The blood clot was unrelated to her disability, Hodges said.
This is just the latest tragedy for the family. Both Shelby’s father and stepfather have passed away.
A GoFundMe was set up to help pay for funeral expenses and financial relief as Hodges is off work while she heals with her other children.
