Seventeen-year-old Olivia Love is a bright, bubbly teenager and Nease High School student who has a tight friend group and changes her hair color almost every other week. She is the type of girl who loves the people around her and makes friends with her teachers. She has a warm smile and uses it, often.
On Jan. 2, Olivia Love was riding in a Yamaha 2 passenger golf cart with the driver and two other passengers on State Road 16. At some point while driving, she fell from the rear cargo area and struck her head on the asphalt. She suffered potentially life-threatening injuries from that fall. Just like that, a smart, vivacious girl’s life took a turn in an entirely different direction.
Currently, Love is learning how to speak again at the Shepherd Center in Atlanta. The clinic specializes in rehabilitation for people with acquired brain injuries and is one of the best in the county. Love is looking at a long, slow recovery. She will need multiple years of therapy to learn how to communicate and use her right leg. She will have to be taught how to understand language and form words all over again. Her sister, Danielle Love, has been posting regular updates about her condition on Instagram.
One thing that Danielle is sure to mention when speaking about positive outcomes is the wealth of support from the community. One such community member has stepped up to the plate in a way befitting of her position.
Mama G
Kelli Gebauer is a math teacher at Nease High School.
She had gotten close with Olivia in geometry class and when she visited during “Excel” breaks to study in her room with friends. Gebauer is a school favorite; many students find her to be welcoming and stay at her class after hours. Enough so that she has earned the nickname, Mama G.
“You develop a better relationship with the kids, and you find out more about their personal lives,” Gebauer said. “It got to the point where I’m kind of like a mother to my students. I am at that age now where they look at me like a mom, but not their mom. They will come to me and talk to me and ask me questions about their teenage problems.”
Olivia’s family owns a bagel shop, Bite a Bagel, in St. Augustine. Gebauer went there often and eventually found out the owners were her parents. Since that realization, she has been close with the entire family.
When she found out about Olivia’s accident, she said it hurt her as if it were one of her own biological kids. She went to the hospital the very next day, and she has been back many times since.
“She is such a great girl and has such a great personality,” Gebauer said. “Fun loving and easy going. Just a sweet, sweet, sun-shiny kind of person. I wanted to be the connection for the students at school to be able to send something if they couldn’t get out there.”
A teacher teaches her student
On Jan. 17, Gebauer went to the hospital in Orange Park where Olivia Love was recovering. She brought “get-well” cards and gifts from the students at Nease. Olivia laid on the bed as her mother, Kathleen Borsody, and Danielle were speaking with the neurologist.
At that time, her recovery involved trying to get her to follow commands to understand her condition. Although her responses were weak, her family had just received the news that her brain stem was unharmed and maybe other areas of her brain were not as badly affected as previously thought.
While the neurologist was reviewing Olivia’s case with her mother and sister, Gebauer occupied herself with Olivia.
“She likes to touch your hand because she was sort of getting that kinesthetic feeling back,” Gebauer said. “She was touching my hand and playing with the rings on my finger. It wasn’t my place to listen in to what her mom and the neurologist were speaking about and she kept touching my finger one at a time. I said to her, ‘Well, do you want to count?’ At that time, she could look at you and kind of stare at you, but they were saying she wasn’t following any commands.”
So, Gebauer just did what came naturally to her, she taught her student. Gebauer touched each one of Olivia’s fingers and counted one through five. When she was done, she asked her to do the movement by herself.
“I was just holding her hand and not touching her fingers,” Gebauer said. “I said, ‘All right, well, you're going to count for me. Are you ready?’ She literally put her first finger up again like she was going to count in the order. Sometimes she would do her ring finger or pinky at the same time and I would say, ‘No, do it again. You're going to count every single one of those fingers separately.’ I would say the number again. Eventually she did all five fingers. In a row. On her own.”
Gebauer called Olivia’s mother and sister over to witness the experience. They cried as they saw Olivia count her fingers one by one. She was counting, responding, and mostly, showing them that she was still Olivia. Her mom said, “Leave it to the math teacher to get her to count again.”
Olivia liked the game. After she counted to five, she rubbed Gebauer’s hand to communicate to her that she wanted to play again.
“It was the coolest thing,” Gebauer said. “She’s told me numerous times that the math is hard. If you wanted my opinion, I mean, I’m not a doctor, but I think … I think she knew it was me. I push the kids to whatever their ability is. So, when I ask them to do stuff in my classroom, they do it.
“Whether they want to or not, whether it’s hard or not, I ask them,” Gebauer continued. (With Olivia,) I don’t really know what's going through her brain when it’s had that much damage, but I really do think that she was trying to say, ‘Hey, I know you're here. Watch me do this.’”
Moving forward
Presently, Olivia is brushing her teeth by herself, giving high-fives, waving, applying Chapstick and making silly faces to get her family to laugh. She can say “Ow,” when something hurts. Her family is teasing her, telling her they will finally be able to see what her real hair color is now that her head is shaved. She has a long road ahead of her.
Danielle, who has taken a semester off from college at the University of Central Florida to be with her sister, said the family is doing okay, “considering.” She uses the word “optimistic” when speaking of Olivia so often it resembles a mantra. She is trying to practice positivity. No matter what, Danielle Love works at focusing on the brighter side of everything that has happened.
“My parents are hanging in the best they can,” she said. “I think this whole experience under the worst circumstances has brought us closer together. We are just standing together to get through this — for her.”
Gebauer said when she finally gets to speak with Olivia again, she mainly wants to just, “talk to her about stuff that kids talk about.” She did add, however, “Of course I’ll make her talk about math. But we will also joke around. Maybe I’ll say, ‘Now that you're doing better, let’s do some math. You know math is a brain workout. Let’s get back on track.’”
Danielle Love asks that anyone interested in Olivia’s case or wanting to stay up to date with any fundraisers follow her at @PrayersForOliviaLove on Instagram.
