I still cannot fathom your absence. For the five Taylor children, Debbie was the center, the middle child of five, the one who brought balance to our carelessness and style to our awkwardness. She is in the mutual assessment of her siblings, the singular best expression in each of us wrapped in one person. She was kind yet critical when necessary. She was lofty in aspiration yet down to earth. She was smart, funny, observant, quick-witted, and she found the best in each of us. She was an amazing wife and mom, a nurturing and creative teacher, a comedienne who would have easily fit into a Carol Burnett sketch, or found a career as a puppeteer on Sesame Street. She was an accomplished singer and musical entertainer. I never beat her at Nertz or Scrabble. She was of all the siblings the least interested in sports, and yet she once lit the scoreboard for 30 points in a 6th grade basketball game. She zinged and zanged and outwitted us while still keeping the peace. She made us laugh until we wept. And she knew each of us deeply and uniquely.

Most of us who write and create have an inner desire to be revealed, that our light may be taken from under the bushel. I never sensed this desire in her. It was her humility, her family dust bowl sensibility that saved her from the arrogance of self-absorption. You had to beg her to do one of her character sketches, a Lily Tomlin one ringy dingy gracious hello bit, or the Ticklish Reuben laughing song.

She found people as they were, all along her journey. She found a husband, two children, two grandchildren, she found friends and soulmates, she found strangers, the lost and the broken, gifted students and those left behind. And in her own way, she was grace to each of us who knew her. We were all different because of her, changed, often revealed for who we really were and are, but always better, more hopeful, more generous, and always laughing. She was grace, not just the idea of grace, but the very reality of grace, grace inhabiting body, soul, and mind.

It is a mystery to me why the people that are most needed in the world have to go home before we think they should. Perhaps Jesus disciples thought that 33 was too young to die. I certainly think this of my sister and have repeatedly asked God the why question like a stubborn three-year-old.

Mary Oliver wrote these words in a poem:

Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous to be understood. Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answer. Let me keep company always with those who say, “Look!” and laugh in astonishment, and bow their heads. ~Mary Oliver

I was fortunate to live under the same roof with my sister Debbie for a relatively short time. I count those as some of the best of times. She said to me a few months ago, “Thanks for the memories.” It was, I think, her understated way of telling me goodbye.

Death is painful. It was particularly so for my sister. And yet, she was graceful through the indignity of a failing jar of clay. And I prefer to think of her not in pain, but in victory, for her life was victorious. She is still needed here among us and I grieve her absence. We are not the same without her. And yet, she would tell us to press on, to keep on keeping on. And she would say this with a twinkle in her eye, as was her way, like a seer who knows something good that we cannot yet see. Laughter, according to Anne Lamott, isn’t something superficial. It is holy. And for those near to my sister, laughter came spraying out your lungs like sunlit foil and sometimes your nose, like carbonated holiness. Laughter helps us breathe when our breath is taken from us. It gives us back ourselves and gives us faith in life and each other. I will always remember Debbie and laughter, together as one, as holy and connected as the sun rising with each morning.

Debbie was the one who most often in my life said, “Look!” She could see a blue iris or weeds in a ditch and find beauty in both, beauty in children playing in leaves or holding the hand of the one you love. Be astonished, that you are part of this remarkable world, she would say. Now be grateful and bow your head.

I’m so grateful that you are my sister, the sensible and funny and center of it all sister. Somehow it astonishes me that I have gotten to spend some of my best days with you!

I’ll see you again, sometime, over the Jordan! And we will look and be astonished and laugh once again.