Heartbreak Now A Mission -- Libby Gates Armintrout To Speak About Breast Cancer

BELLEVUE

After three years of painful silence, Libby Gates Armintrout will speak out Thursday against her mother's killer.

Armintrout will give the opening remarks at the Women for Women's Health Pledge Breakfast organized by the Evergreen Hospital Foundation. Her mother, Seattle's revered civic leader Mary Gates, died of breast cancer in June 1994.

Like her brother, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Armintrout avoids personal publicity. She quietly supports charities, most notably the Make-A-Wish Foundation, the Lakeside Clinic and the Alliance for Education. At Seattle's recent Susan B. Komen Race For A Cure, she considered herself just one more woman in the crowd, stepping out to support cancer research.

Participants wore memorial signs for breast-cancer victims.

"I wore an `In Memory of Mary' sign," Armintrout says. "But there were little kids with signs in memory of their mother."

That choked her up.

"Cancer clearly impacted their lives, like it did mine."

Armintrout turned 30 the year her mother died, but being an adult didn't make it any easier. Even today, the pain sits on top of her heart.

"I feel like I'm the only one who had this happen," Armintrout says. "I know I'm not, but I wasn't ready to give up my mother."

Armintrout, her sister in Spokane, and her brother, along with their father, Seattle attorney William Gates II, were approached by many nonprofit groups immediately after Mary's death.

"I wasn't able to do anything then," Armintrout says.

She agreed to break her silence for the Women for Women's Health Pledge Breakfast for several reasons.

First, it supports breast-cancer patients and families, and Armintrout understands their pain. On a recent visit to the family grieving room at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland, Armintrout teared up as she read messages of love written to dying parents and displayed on a wall hanging.

Another reason is her mother. Mary Gates was noted for mentoring women, encouraging them to step into the corporate and nonprofit boardrooms and to pursue dreams.

"I'm trying to model myself after my mother's life," Armintrout says. "I've just been dealing with different issues - parenting and education."

Women who had been mentored by Gates - Julie Davidson of Woodinville, in particular - encouraged Armintrout to make the public step.

"I met Mary Gates through United Way and she mentored me," said Davidson, chairwoman of the breakfast. "It's appropriate that I complete the circle and include Libby."

Armintrout also was convinced when Washington's first lady, Mona Lee Locke, agreed to share the honorary co-chair role. Locke was at the first Women for Women's Health Pledge Breakfast last year.

"Then I was one of the few people in the audience who hadn't known someone with breast cancer, even though one in eight women have breast cancer some time in their life," Locke says. "Yet, detection seems so easy - self breast exams and mammograms.

"As a first lady of color, I can reach other women of color by talking about it, by the publicity."

That's another reason Armintrout will be at the DoubleTree Hotel Thursday.

She believes publicity will help women detect and prevent cancer, and help bring funds to find the causes and the cure. Possible causes for her mother's cancer periodically haunt Armintrout.

"I think and think: Could it have been hair spray? Not eating a low-fat diet? Some chemical in the food?" she says. "What explanation is there, what do we need to do to better detect breast cancer and prevent it?"

Daily life keeps her going, keeps her from obsessing. She and her husband, Doug, have three children under age 6. A former college-basketball player, she works out by running. She volunteers.

But not a day goes by, she says, that she doesn't think of her mother.

"She was my best friend," Armintrout says. "I got to benefit from all she had done, but I would give anything to have her around for my children.

"Anything." Sherry Grindeland's phone message number is 206-515-5633. Her e-mail address is: sgri-new@seatimes.com ----------------------------------------------------------------- Women's Voices: Quilts of Caring

An exhibit of quilts made in response to breast cancer is on display at the downtown Bellevue Barnes & Noble bookstore through Friday. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Health breakfast Women for Women's Health Pledge Breakfast, a breakfast to support Evergreen Hospital Medical Center's Community Health Care programs, at the Bellevue DoubleTree Hotel, 7:30 a.m., Thursday. Sponsored by Safeco, Nordstrom, Barnes & Noble Booksellers, Zeneca, Regence Health Care, Evergreen Medical Group, Cascade Health Care Alliance, Fast Lady Sports and the Center for Women's Health at Evergreen. For reservations, call 425-899-1903.