Loaves & Fishes, March-April, 1988

A MEMORIAL TO DEBBIE

by Virginia Johnson

Tonight I carefully checked the Wayfarers' House log for words to help create a clearer picture of that "free spirit" that we called Deb--she came to us on Christmas Eve 1987. A Christmas present?

I choose to think of her in terms of those loving words from Matthew 25:35-40

She was hungry and we fed her, she was thirsty and we gave her water, she was a stranger and we took her into our home, she was sick and imprisoned (by her own body) and we visited her.

What better way to follow the greatest of all injunctions, "Love your neighbor as yourself." She did not make it easy to love her. Years of hurt and rejection taught her to be wary, street-wise, quick to anger. Yet never openly rejecting love, she just made it tough enough so that one had to really reach down deep into faith just to offer over and over the all important words,"I love you," and truly mean them.

She broke every rule and regulation with a wide-eyed response when it was mentioned, that lasted about two seconds and the battle was on. She knew and I knew that it was truly an Old West showdown, all that was lacking was six guns.

But as I read those notes I realized an interesting fact. For all of my rumbling and threats I never packed her clothes or locked the door when she stayed out late, not because she simply went up the outside stairs and climbed into a window, but because I really did love her and our relationship was important to me and crucial for both of us.

Another interesting item--in many years of volunteer work the only time I have ever been physically threatened by a resident: Debbie, who lay virtually helpless on the couch where we could tend her, gathered strength to yell roughly and unexpectantly to my attacker, "Don't you touch her," surprising her enough that I received respite from a truly violent confrontation.

As we realized the truly fatal nature of her illness she clung to me for comfort, not for the warm peppermint water that was all she could tolerate, but for the touch, the clinging, head-on-the-shoulder soothing as we wept together, neither of us quite knowing why.

She would argue at the drop of a hat, fight to the last breath for the underdog. She could grin and swear black was white, not because she was wrong or bad or evil, she had simply been forced by life and by circumstances to survive; and in that strange half world of the homeless, the unloved, our "throw away society," that's the name of the game isn't it? Survival!

We could offer her love that for the first time in her life asked nothing of her in return, and she finally gave it.

Debbie Farin's life and death did not make a ripple in the flood of humanity around her. But in the life of one worker at Wayfarers' House she was a tidal wave of emotion from the moment we met. I guess it will always wash through my heart and mind with such warmth and love, and a sense of wondering what "might have been."

Adios, Debbie. We love you, Virginia.