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Debra Lynn Shirley

ByS.H. Johnson

Debra Shirley passed into the next life on September 29th, 2018. She was the foundation of our family and my wife, partner, lover and friend for twenty-eight years. She was a person of unusual sensitivity and exceptional character; fiercely intelligent, an accomplished actor, poet and creative artist, and a very caring and giving soul with an extra large capacity for love, empathy and kindness. She shared a deep, loving bond with our daughter, Georgia, and held our family together through all of the joy and heartbreak of our lives with her steady support, independent mind and loving spirit. She valued family, friends, love and laughter, sincerity and respect in all meaningful things, and relationships above all. We shared half a life together, built our home and family together, worked and traveled together and had a deep love that will be joined in the afterlife forever. My heart is full of gratitude, love and respect for all that she was and all that she gave our family in this life. As our physical connection recedes, our spiritual bond gets stronger with each memory and thought of her in this spirit world: the sound of birds in the thick forest that was her emotional center, the crashing surf of the ocean on our wedding day, the magical swarm of the bee hives we built together, the crackling electricity of the thunderstorm rolling in off the prairie and the countless other fleeting moments of our mysterious world, large and small, profound and mundane, that make up people’s lives.

Debbie’s poetry and writing: One Word After Another

Artist, Designer, Photographer, Filmmaker & Craftsman. Traditional filmmaking and sound recording enthusiast, devoted film photographer and collector of vintage cameras. Committed to National Parks & Public Lands, Organic Gardening, Heirloom Apples & Native Flowers. Working on Handmade Arts & Crafts.