This the third birthday Debbie has missed, or I guess more accurately it’s the third we’ve all missed without her. I sat down to type with storyline in mind, but whenever I think of her, the rush of stories and memories hit like a tsunami. The Fellas are a couple of days into camp and I am filling their daily email notes with jokes, useless facts, ASCII art and life stories…already a chunk of them have involved Cool Aunt Debbie.
As I remember the stories, they are acute in both their joy and sadness. They bring and instant lovely feeling of long history and connection and a different time, but now they also feel like orphans. What is a memory that is shared by two people, but one of them is gone. The power of the memory has always been that it is a shared memory that can be revisited and re-joiced (re-rejoiced?). Some of them begin to feel more academic and discontinued because I can no longer put an extra air in tire by calling up Debbie and laughing all over again. Nobody REALLY cares about stories from the past except during specific moments — but as the co-creator/central figure with Debbie, NOW is always the right time.
As I key up to start each paragraph, my mental story before I dig into the main topic keeps going from “top 3 stories that leap to mind”, I mean “top 4 stories…” I mean…. So before I am lost to reminiscence and June 28th expires, I am just going to ID them, but not elaborate.
RAPID DEBBIE MEMORIES
- As I’m thinking about memories, I can “feel” our time in the Lord’s Company Choir at Northminster Church during high school and on communion Sundays we sang “In Remembrance of Me”. It’s from a musical we did called “Celebrate Life”. I’ve found this video and now am crying and also thinking this will be the song I remember Debbie with from now on. In Remembrance of Me. Ugh. Guitar pulled out, song played, tears wiped, commitment to call Dave Freihofer tomorrow (it’s been years)…
- Meeting for Thanksgiving in NYC, going to see shows, special year at my friend the Chef’s place
- Driving in the car singing “Vision of Love” by Mariah Carey and both screaming the words at the drop
I spent much of Debbie’s final weeks with her in Northern Virginia. Her husband was off trying to keep the wheels on car with three high schoolers and I was just the chauffeur, delivery boy, to do master, but mostly just a normal companion who wasn’t overwhelmed by the black cloud and could talk just as well about life insurance strategy as Vicky’s unfortunate puberty on the Love Boat.
However, one of my clearest memories of the final week was Debbie’s laptop on her bed, couch, then hospital side table as she tried to wrap up her duties for work. Yeah, I’m sure there’s a deeper level of a grasp for normalcy, or control, or just simple distraction…but it mostly feels like a ton of missed opportunity to give and receive love. The truth is that just a week of illness is a TON of empty hours, and there are only so many people that are worth having come by, and a smaller subset who can act like they are not already at a funeral. But what I think the lesson here hits long before the “final glide path”…either, what work way over the requirements (and with minimal return) am I letting crowd out better life, or how am I letting work life taint my personal times by not stepping completely into the moment. Debbie worried about being a good corporate citizen that last week I’m sure was really ten other things…maybe.
Happy Birthday my wonderful sister. Your lessons continue and the love you brought to the world continues to grow.