Goodbye, Debbie. Love you..
Leave your thoughtsBirthing Babies, Saying Goodbye
Driving through Hemet yesterday, somewhere near the Scientology ranch, we passed something that looked like a beached elephant seal on the side of the road. We were driving too fast to make an accurate assessment. Mary thought it was a super-large pillow, but it was just too big; the closest thing I could imagine was a bean bag chair— which is obviously wrong because this thing was large enough to consume Goliath, had Goliath been struggling with bloat. It was the bean bag chair from the big and tall and super fat shop.
Never mind. It left me pondering the concept of bean bag chairs and the contribution of bean bag chairs to western civilization.
“Didn’t we,” I thought, “have a relative who gave birth to all of her children in a bean bag chair?”
Yes, we did, and we were in fact talking to the sister of the very relative on the car phone at that very moment.
“Hey,” I asked, “didn’t your sister give birth to all her babies in a bean bag chair?”
There was a pause, but then: “Right. She was scared of hospitals. She had them all at home in a bean bag chair.”
“That,” I said, makes for a really great scene in a movie. “Picture a guest, visiting your home. You are all hanging out in the room with a big view, kicking back in an arc of bean bag chairs.”
“These are really comfortable,” says the guest.”
“They are,” you say, “Especially the big one. Janey had all her babies in a bean bag chair.”
“Oh really?”
“Yes, in fact, that’s the one you’re sitting in right now.”
“Oh, it is, is it?”
Even Mary laughed, which is really something. It has to be funny for Mary to laugh.
We were driving back from Hemet because we had just said goodbye to a dear friend too early. It was a celebration of life. Our friend was whip-smart, witty, generous and very counter-culture. Our friendship deepened during Covid when we all worshipped in a house church together.
She would have enjoyed that story. She would have howled. Love you, Debbie. Until we meet again.
Categorised in: Farm Journal
This post was written by Jim Riley