Thursday, June 12, 2014

A Tribute (or memories of an Ex)


Debbie 1987
A few weeks ago, I learned through Facebook that Debbie lost her battle with cancer.  I started to collect some memories of my time with her and finally got around to finishing them… Hey, this month isn't half over and I've already published more than any other month this year!

Debbie was beautiful.  She turned heads with her broad smile, big eyes and hardy laugh. She wore flowing dresses with heels that clicked and gave shape to her calves.  And she was the Deans secretary.  I was in my first year of graduate school and I never thought she would have been interested in me, but a month before school ended for the summer, she invited me to Sunday evenings dinner.  Wanting to make a good impression, I brought along a bottle of Pouilly-Fuisse.   I learned she seldom drank, but she did seem impressed and suggested we open the bottle and celebrate. Then there was the problem of a corkscrew.  She didn't have one in her apartment and suggested she might borrow one for a neighbor but I told her I thought I had a solution and ran out to my car.  Ever the Boy Scout, I had a Swiss-army knife that had a corkscrew attachment in my glove compartment.   

On Easter Sunday, I was invited to dinner with her family on Pittsburgh's Southside.  When we arrived into her parents home, her brothers were watching a documentary on a race car driver. Elliott Forbes-Robinson.  Although I had never been a big fan of racing, I actually knew him.  When I was working for the Boy Scouts, he was an assistant Scoutmaster on a troop on Lake Norman.  I recalled the story of meeting him, at a scout camp.  When he told me he was a race car driver, I asked if he raced at Hickory speedway.  Hickory was a step up from the dirt tracks of the South, but most of the drivers were still amateurs.  No, he said, I have not raced there.  Where do you race? I asked.  He started listing off an impressive list of cities with Cam-Am and such races and I stood there thinking, "Yeah, right, and I'm Daniel Boone."  I later learned that he really was a race car driver, although at the time he didn't drive NASCAR, he did drive those fancy cars and was one of the top drivers in the world.  He had a boy in scouts and as he wasn't racing at that week, had camped out with the troop.  Telling the story, Debbie's brothers learned that I really wasn't a racing fan, but they were impressed that I had personally met one of the greats.

Over the next few weeks, we began having lunch together in the dining hall and went out every weekend.  I suggested a Saturday afternoon baseball game and she was up for it.  When I arrived to pick her up, she handed me two tickets!  I didn't know what to say, but as a poor student was thankful.  Then I looked at the seats and was humbled.  Her brother worked for one of the high-end hotels in Pittsburgh and they had tickets that no one had claimed so he gave them to Debbie for us to enjoy.  We sat directly behind home plate, five rows up.  It'd never had such good seats for a major league game, nor have I had such good seats since.  You have to love a girl whose brother arranges to cover the expenses of the date. 

Later that evening, Debbie and I walked up a hill and held hands as we watched the sun set.  I felt as if I was the luckiest man in the world.

Debbie was close to her family and on another weekend, she and her brothers had given their mother a evening ride in a balloon across Southwestern Pennsylvania.  When the mother got in the basket with a few other sightseers and a pilot, we raced along the countryside following the balloon until they finally set down in a cow pasture and we retrieved her mother.  This would be a lot easier today, with cell phones, but this was 1987.

The day I left school at the end of the semester, we had breakfast together at a local King's Restaurant.  I wanted to do something special and had purchased some of her favorite perfume, hoping that as she used it she would remember me during the summer.  She seemed pleased and we even talked about her meeting up with me in Delaware Water Gap as I hiked the Appalachian Trail.  Although we were not in a committed relationship, we talked about picking up where we were at in September.  After breakfast, I drove to my parents in North Carolina and a week later, I started my summer hike from Virginia to Maine.  At first, she wrote and seemed excited when I called, but as I continued to hike, I heard less and less from her.  I knew something was up.  Even though I had started hiking with the thoughts of coming back to her arms, I realized this was not going to be the case.  When I arrived back at school, I was on cloud nine, having just finished my summer hike, essentially completing the Appalachian Trail completed (I still had a 25 mile section to do).  That first day everyone seemed concerned about how I was going to take being dropped, but I had given up on her mid-way through the summer.  I learned she had connected with someone at a summer wedding (they may had known each other before) and was engaged.  One of the kindness things that happened was the Dean inviting me out to lunch.  He, too, was concerned with how I was handling things, but we mostly talked about my hike as my head was still in the mountains. After a summer of hiking, our short romance seemed light-years away.

A few years ago, Debbie sent me a message and a friendship request via Facebook.   A quarter century had passed as she left her position as the Deans secretary shortly after I'd returned from hiking the trail.  We chatted a few times and I learned her marriage had been horrible and she had spent most of her life on her own, but that she was blessed with a couple of boys who are now adults.  She apologized for having treated me horribly.  I thanked her for the apology, but told her my life had continued on and was going well.  Then she told me about the breast cancer.  Over the years since that chat, I would occasionally learn through Facebook about how each new treatment was less effective.  But she was strong in her faith and always maintained a positive outlook, but at times she'd ask for prayers and I would pray.  In early May, the disease finally took her and I found myself shedding tears.  She was a beautiful woman who was so proud of her boys (her sons and her brothers).  I felt a small piece of their pain.      

17 comments:

  1. A lovely tribute, Sage. She sounds like a wonderful woman and I'm glad you were so forgiving to her. I'm sorry for the loss of your friend.

    ReplyDelete
  2. i am glad she came back much later and apologized even if it was not necessary and i am sorry for her loss...cancer...ugh...wish we could do something about that...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sorry, Friend. You so nobly celebrate your life - and hers


    ALOHA from Honolulu
    ComfortSpiral
    =^..^= <3

    ReplyDelete
  4. So sorry to hear this, it sounds like she was a great person.
    You created a great and lasting tribute to her.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Such a sweet tender love story, up until the part where she found another love, or thought she had. I remember you mentioning here before not too long ago, and I am so sorry that she lost the fight she worked so hard to happen. Sometimes, there are just things in life that we just never truly understand the reason why. There is a bright side to your story with Debbie, because you will always have those wonderful moments to recall. I feel that every ex or person that enters our lives has a meaningful purpose, and we just have to treasure what ever amount it is. I trust she's smiling on you too.

    ReplyDelete
  6. What an amazing retrospective Sage...such a loving post. Sounds like she was truly an amazing person and I am so glad that you and her played an important role in one another's lives.

    ReplyDelete
  7. How kind of you to write this tribute...it's lovely.

    ReplyDelete
  8. A beautiful tribute.

    ReplyDelete
  9. I hope an ex writes such a lovely tribute when I die (if not, could you just write it for him? haha). I found it frustrating though. Someone should have spoken up as you left for the hike if this was to continue or to just see other people.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Murf, should I write it now so you can read it while you are still living? I do remember once writing you a reference letter for grad school or employment or something...

      Delete
    2. You do know that you will be doing my eulogy if I go first, right? ;-)

      Delete
  10. I'm sorry for the loss of your friend. She sounded like a very nice lady, and it's too bad the two of you weren't able to have something that lasted a little longer. This was a lovely tribute.

    ReplyDelete
  11. My sincere condolences to you Sage. An excellent tribute and one I'm sure was hard to write.

    ReplyDelete
  12. A beautiful post, Sage. I hurt for you. This was a magnificent girl. Please know you are in my immediate thoughts and prayers.

    ReplyDelete
  13. I am sorry for the loss, Sage. You wrote a lovely tribute for your past love. My thoughts go out to her family and hugs to you.

    ReplyDelete