ROARING FORK BROADCASTING COMPANY
There wasn’t much Carolyn Golbus didn’t do in her 60 years on Earth and nearly 30 years in the Roaring Fork Valley.
The UCLA theater major was a musician who recorded two albums and played at local venues such as Belly Up Aspen and the Wheeler Opera House. She performed with Aspen Community Theatre and did one show with Theatre Aspen.
Spiritual and a believer in the metaphysical, Golbus and her partner of 11 years, Gary Gleason, were living an idyllic life in Aspen together. They were excited about the upcoming release of a coffee book they collaborated on — “Meeting Your Magnificence: 111 Ways to Live from Your Higher Self” — and due to be released Sept. 17 by Dallas-based Brown Books Publishing Group.
Gleason, Golbus’ children, family and friends have been grieving over her untimely death that was the result of a freak bicycling accident earlier this month.
“We had 11 beautiful years of traveling, of music, of art, of working on this book together, which we’re both so proud of,” Gleason said last week. “I did the photography and she did the writing and in truth, I did a lot of the editing and she helped with a lot of the photography, too. The last few years especially, we had just emerged into a beautifully blended partnership of lovers, best friends and business partners and driving everything forward in our life.”
According to her friends and relatives, Golbus traveled to some 40 countries and took approximately 50 river trips. She also had three children from her previous marriage to Ronald Golbus, also of Aspen. She was a life coach and relationship coach. And she was pursuing her doctorate in spiritual studies at Delphi University.
Her energy knew no bounds, friends and family said.
“She was a really good mom, and I feel like she was a guiding light to a lot of people in the community in a few different ways,” said Ryan Golbus, 31, her oldest child, who lives in Aspen, is a DJ and works in the music industry. “The biggest thing for her was her energy. She was bright, smart, funny. She’d always walk into the room and be the loudest person there but in the best way possible. She just had that magnetic personality as soon as you saw her.”
Ryan’s mother also was going to officiate over his wedding on Sept. 14 in Evergreen. It will still go on as planned, he said, adding it would be a disservice to his mom not to.
In a tribute to her on Facebook, Ronald Golbus said, “The fantastic life Carolyn enjoyed as the Matriarch of our fantastic family, will always be the spirit that our family enjoys, and will never be forgotten. NEVER! Carolyn’s inexorable boundless zest for life, combined with her sense of adventure, and fun, defined her and spirited those around her to push their boundaries and enjoy life to the absolute fullest.”
Family and close friends celebrated her life on July 20 in Basalt, and a larger community event is in the works for October in Aspen.
“It was beautiful, but it was not easy, as you can imagine,” said friend Jayne Gottlieb, who led last weekend’s celebration. “But it was absolutely beautiful in every way.”
It was a little after 10:30 a.m. on July 4, the town’s old-fashioned parade was coming up at 11 a.m., and Aspen was putting on its small-town, Independence Day charm with music and events throughout the day.
Gleason and Golbus were riding their bicycles — “our bought-from-Replay-Sports-for-75-dollar townie bikes, tooling along,” he recalled — to downtown Aspen from their residence in the Stillwater neighborhood.
Riding on the asphalt bike path parallel to Highway 82, the couple were “having the most wonderful morning talking about the book, talking about the band, talking about our relationship being so awesome, talking about how much we love each other, talking about how the sky is blue and the flowers are beautiful and it’s Fourth of July, so everybody is open and happy and not their bitchy Aspen selves,” Gleason recalled. “We like Halloween and Fourth of July — where everybody is happy and having a fun time.”
Carolyn Golbus spent nearly 30 of her 60 years in the Roaring Fork Valley.
Courtesy of Chandler Golbus
The bike path ends near where Highway 82 becomes East Cooper Avenue. It was there where Gleason and Golbus crossed the road and pedaled in the direction of vehicular traffic moving on the three-block section of East Cooper Avenue between the bridge crossing the Roaring Fork River and City Market. Parallel-parked cars lined the side of the street.
Gleason said he was riding a block or two ahead of Golbus, who clipped the vehicle’s passenger side door, which was cracked open, according to an incident report from the Aspen Police Department. A witness told police it appeared that either her arm or shoulder clipped the door and her head hit the asphalt surface before any other part of her body did. A witness said that “she must have been riding very close to vehicles to avoid traffic,” the report said. Witnesses said she was riding around 10 mph to 15 mph.
Golbus, who wasn’t wearing a helmet for the quick jaunt into town, would not regain consciousness from the impact. She died on July 12 at a hospital in Denver.
“I believe she left her body when her head hit the ground and I felt her energy still in her body a little bit through the nine days that I was with her, 20 hours a day, during that time,” Gleason said. “And one time on the second-to-last day, she squeezed my hand faintly twice … the message I got was I love you, I see you and I’m sorry.”
Gleason did not want to dwell on the accident but said it was preventable.
“People should be aware of this and elected officials should think about how we can fix that bike-path problem so it doesn’t happen to others,” he said. “There probably have been other incidents in that three-block corridor. But the big thing was that Carolyn was big, she lived large.”
Family poured in from around the country — and world — when they heard the news. Local support also has been strong.
“This community wraps you up in love,” Gleason said. “I’ve watched it when it happened to other people. People can be catty in this community, but in a moment like this, it is just all of the love that makes me grateful to live in this beautiful, small town of ours.”
Golbus’ one daughter, Chandler, 28, who lives in Melbourne, Australia, traveled to Aspen because of the news. Chandler and her mom had a mutual affection and appreciation for the arts, she said.
“She really believed that spirit was eternal and she would always say, ‘If I go tomorrow, don’t worry. I’m good, don’t worry,’” Chandler said. “And two weeks later she was in a bike accident. A freak accident. There wasn’t one scratch on the rest of her body. It’s just bizarre.”
Golbus was their biggest cheerleader and advocate, whether their life was up or down, her children said.
“She always looked out for us even if we didn’t know she was looking out for us,” her son Garrett said on July 19, one day before Saturday’s celebration.
Garrett, 24, was preparing his remarks for the next day.
“She was my superhero and she was beautiful, kind, loving, talented, energetic and above all, optimistic,” he read from his draft.
Golbus’ youngest child, Garrett lives in Hawaii. He and his mother spoke regularly. She was a source of encouragement for him, he said.
“We actually talked just about my life and my struggles and that I’d end up figuring it out and that I would do great. She said she was proud of me and that everything would be alright,” he said. “And this was a saying she had with me all through my life: ‘We’re not going to let you slip through the cracks.’ She used to tell me that when I had bad grades in school or when my friends didn’t work out and when worries would come up for me.
“Her just telling me that, she just wanted to make sure that she told me she had my back and everything was going to be OK.”
Chandler said, “She’d always encourage people to do what’s fun and say yes to the next adventure.”
Though Golbus was a trained actor, she didn’t get serious about music until she was in her 40s, friends said.
Local musician and bluegrass artist Gary Baines met Golbus about 20 years ago and forged a musical relationship.
“And that started a collaboration and it wasn’t long before we finally put a set together and we started playing together,” Baines said. “It was amazing and I just put her in the spotlight and she then said she was writing more songs and wanted to make an album.”
Gary Gleason and Carolyn Golbus were partners for 11 years. Golbus tragically died from head injuries she suffered after a bicycle accident on July 4 in Aspen.
Courtesy of Gary Gleason via Facebook
They formed the Callie Angel & Wade Waters Band, got in the studio and went on to make two albums and toured together.
“We were in my truck for hours and there was a lot of talking going on. Most of the time I was listening,” Baines said with a chuckle.
“She was my spiritual mentor as well,” he said, “and was into the metaphysical and started to explain to me how the universe works. She believed we’re all one, and I thought, this is what I think, I just didn’t know what it was.”
Gottlieb, who is immersed locally in theater, dance and yoga, much like Golbus, said their shared spiritual traits included believing that death marks the beginning, not the end, of a person’s transition.
“That was really the core foundation — our spirituality and we shared open-mindedness and open-heartedness and spoke the same language,” she said.
After last weekend’s celebration of Golbus’ life, Gleason went on a river trip, something he and his partner enjoyed doing together.
“She was a very spiritual person so that on one hand, I know that she’s still here,” he said. “I know that she’s not her body. I know that she is luminous and omnipresent now. And I also have that smaller human side that resists.”