To Debbie From My Broken Heart
written by: Linda Imbler
That fuzzy bear still sits on a shelf. I’ve hauled it around all these years because I love it and I loved you. That bear, a slumber party gift that you hosted for me with several of our friends on the night before I moved to Texas.
You were my best friend as a preteen. It broke my heart to be driven away: from sharing Beatles records, wearing our go-go boots, riding bicycles, and planning our marriages to the entire band of Paul Revere and the Raiders.
Five years later, you called me when you and your mom passed through Dallas. But you two were too busy to stop by, and I had to go to work. What a wonderful talk we had.
We never spoke again after that. I don’t know what you became, but I thought about you on and off throughout the years. Like each best-intentioned person, I planned to get back in touch someday.
That day came in mid-December 2016. I googled your family. I found your mother’s obituary. I read that you had preceded her in death 10 years earlier. I don’t know how you died. I just know that it happened while you were home. I imagine to myself that it was in peaceful sleep. I don’t want to know any differently, so I will never ask any family you left behind.
I never felt it-your death. But, I do have a question that will linger for the rest of my life. It’s only this; who dies in the middle of the summer? Why then? People should die in the throes of winter, when the world is already cold and numb to match their final slumber. People should die in the winter when the noise of the wind overcomes all sound of splashing tears.
I can never send this to you. There’s no way for you to receive or respond. But, I’ll write this last part anyway. I have always loved you, and have always missed you. And, that fuzzy bear will never leave the shelf as long as I live. Rest in Peace, Debbie.
NOTE:
Based on the Prompt – The Last Letter
- To Debbie From My Broken Heart - June 22, 2025
- For Teri With Regard To Bill - March 11, 2025
- Reading To My Dead Friend At Her Bedside - July 30, 2024
