For A Moment (Debbie)
I met Debbie Cicero in 1977. The details of exactly how and when we became friends are fuzzy, but she had been my friend Patti’s best friend when both their families were stationed in Germany, and they reconnected after the army moved them to Texas. Debbie was tall and leonine, with beautiful olive skin, dark hair, and the passionate temperament to back up her Italian bloodline.
She also had the most intense green eyes I’d ever seen. They were unapologetic, assertive, and could bore a hole right through you.
The three of us spent most of our time at Patti’s house and her parents were always happy to have us. Her mother, Renate, was the most amazing cook and kept us well fed. We spent some time at my house, but Debbie’s house was off-limits. I never met Debbie’s mother or stepfather. Debbie herself was barely tolerated there, with the dark ‘joke’ being that Debbie’s mother loved their scruffy little dog more than she did Debbie. If she loved her at all.
To be fair, by the time I met Debbie, she wasn’t easy to love. She was combative and guarded. Wary and suspicious, she trusted no one except maybe Patti and was completely ungovernable. While still in Germany, her mother sent her to a girls’ school in Chicago after she and Patti got into some minor trouble. She’d begged her mother to let her move to Texas with them. I don’t know what transpired or what their relationship was like, but if Debbie missed curfew, she was locked out for the night. She didn’t have a key to her own house. At the mercy of her mother, she had a roof over her head, but she didn’t have a home. She was already fending for herself.
Around the time of Debbie’s 17th birthday, her mother announced that her stepfather was transferring to another Army base and that Debbie would not be going with them. She had just started her senior year in high school when her mother dropped this bombshell and was given little notice before being left to find a place to live. Moving in with Patti wasn’t an option since her parents knew Debbie too well to agree to take her on, so the next obvious choice was me.
I don’t know what I said to convince my mother. Maybe it was simply that she couldn’t allow Debbie to be turned out on the streets when we had space for her. She contacted Debbie’s mother and worked out a woefully inadequate financial arrangement to cover her expenses until she turned 18 and Debbie moved into our spare bedroom.
From that point on, Debbie and I were almost inseparable. We were up before dawn, filling the house with music, laughter, and general chaos while getting ready for school. She especially loved Led Zepplin and the song “Thank You” held a special meaning for her that she never shared with me. She’d just become quiet and introspective while she listened. Andy Gibb was all over the radio that year and his songs sent her into fits of squeals as she raced to turn the volume all the way up. Zero-to-sixty was how she rolled.
The party continued after school and on weekends as even more people, all of whom were drawn to Debbie, began hanging out at our house. My siblings were older and left home years before my father died and I loved the energy that Debbie breathed into my life. This happy period lasted through the school year and the following summer. Debbie graduated in May and found full-time work waiting tables at Denny’s. When she turned 18 in September, my mother laid out some ground rules for her to continue living with us as an adult.
Debbie politely declined to abide by those rules and moved out a week after her birthday.
I wish I could say I remember where she went, or that we remained as close as we were during the year she lived with us, but Debbie was very good at ending relationships. Patti and I moved in the same social circle while Debbie seemed to fade in and out. At one point she was extremely upset with me because I’d gone on a single date with a guy she’d been interested in several years before. She was angry to the point of blocking me from getting in my car while threatening me with bodily harm, but in the end, she let me go. I’d like to think it was because of our previous sisterly connection, but I know it had more to do with Patti’s dad intervening, allowing me to leave unscathed. Would she have hurt me? Possibly. She was nothing if not unpredictable.
The last time I saw Debbie was in 1982. She was living with her boyfriend who was in the Army, in a motel near downtown Killeen. Par for the course of our relationship, I don’t remember how I found her, or if the visit was intentional but I hadn’t seen her in several years. I remember thinking, while looking around the dumpy little room, that she seemed happier than I’d ever known her to be. I hope that was true.
I married the following year and completely lost track of Debbie. Patti and I have stayed in touch over our lives and through her I learned Debbie’s was killed in a car accident in 1987. I knew nothing more than I ever have about her life. Did she marry? Have a family? Was she happy? I still don’t know the answers even though I found her obituary through Ancestry a few years ago. No mention of anyone but her wretched mother and stepfather, and her maternal grandparents.
This past week on the anniversary of her birthday, I began connecting Debbie’s family tree. I learned that Debbie’s mother was 17 years old and four months pregnant when she married Debbie’s father. I found that both of her parents had several siblings each, so Debbie had an abundance of grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins yet she was all alone in the world. Even as a kid I knew how sad this was and wanted so badly for her to know I cared. I fell short and now, as an adult all these years later, it still breaks my heart.
Maybe Debbie’s mother hoped to live happily ever after with her high school sweetheart, and it just didn’t work out, or maybe she never wanted any of that to begin with and resented Debbie. I included her in the tree I built as a memorial for Debbie, only to lead me to the other women in Debbie’s maternal ancestral line. I hope Debbie’s grandmother, who was still alive at the time of her death, loved her but if not, I know the mothers of both her maternal and paternal lines have welcomed and circled around, completing their chain where this strand in their tapestry ends. And although she was unable to trust and accept it, she also had the love of my mother, as well as Patti’s.
Debra Ann > Georgene Alice > Hortense Lillian > Zona May > Naomi Emarine > Elizabeth. Surrogate mothers Anastasia and Renate, and all those before: Hail the travelers, the mothers of Debbie. Those who are remembered in love, live. I will remember all of you.
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