So Long Debbie

 

Around the corner and down the street about a block  lived a lady that we got to know.  Actually she lived here longer than us.   When we first moved here at a neighborhood social or something we met  Debbie, her husband, a pilot, and teenage son.  She was a school librarian.  In time Debie and her husband divorced and their son went to college and went on to become a CEO in Boston.

I walk most mornings.  I passed her house about the time she was picking up her morning THE ATLANTA CONSTITUTION Newspaper off her driveway and we always wished each other good morning.

And then one morning she said the previous morning her morning paper was waiting at the top  the stairs on her front porch and asked did she have me to thank for that.  I said no.  I don’t know who or why that was.

However, I started doing it the next day, putting her newspaper up on the front porch.  She was always thankful when she saw me.

If she was out in the yard when she saw me walking down the street she was always wait on me to have a few pleasant things to say.

One time she told me it was her birthday.  I said, “I would be rude and ask her “How old?” but you might be rude right back.”

She jokingly whispered her age, jokingly looking around while she said it.  She was in her mid 70s.

We got each other emails and phone numbers.  She visited us a couple of times and we swapped emails from time to time.

After my sciatic nerve hit me my walks were limited.  I don’t think I have seen her in months.

Yesterday her neighbor called and wand asked what was going on, the friend’s mail is piling up, apparently she is not there.  We didn’t know and suggested she call the lady across the street, thy were friends.

She called back this morning and told us our good friend is in a nursing home with cancer and had dementia.

It hit us hard.