Deborah J. Smyth Debby

A celebration of life visitation for Debby will be held Tuesday, March 22, 2022 from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM at Murphy Funeral Homes, 1102 West Broad Street, Falls Church, VA 22046. A mass of christian burial will occur Wednesday, March 23, 2022 from 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM at Cathedral of St. Thomas Moore, 3901 Cathedral Lane, Arlington, VA 22203. An interment will occur Wednesday, March 23, 2022 from 11:30 AM to 12:00 PM at Columbia Gardens Cemetery, 3411 Arlington Blvd., Arlington, VA 22201.

When I tried to put together a video after my father died last year, Debby and I were blown away by this song that popped up on Facebook. I thought it was a good choice to more or less sum up my feelings at the time. Never, ever, in a million years did I think I would draw upon it once again...for the untimely death of my friend. The early photos in this endeavor are from her dear friend, Adrian Bass. They grew up in Arlington and first met as Girl Scouts. I often heard of Debby's crazy camp stories...her love of camping, hiking, canoeing, singing, and playing the guitar. Debby was truly a gentle soul. She hated conflict, loved fields of flowers, mountains, and the beach. Poetry was her first love, next to Winnie the Pooh! Debby was a card carrying hippie back in the day. When we compared our lives up to the time we met, we could not have been any more different from one another. The only thing we had in common was that we liked each other right from the start. We met at a journalism workshop in Athens, Ohio, the summer of 1981. My friend, Sister Peggy, with whom I would be living with in community, and working together at St. Agnes, always took the future editors of yearbook and/or newspaper to summer workshops. She would often tell me about Debby and hoped she would be at Ohio University that summer. She thought we would get along because, as she said, "You both teach the same way, sitting on a desk with your legs crossed. You two like to 'rap' with the kids." Peggy could not have known then how all our lives would dramatically change by the beginning of the next decade. In 1990 I moved here for what was going to be a one year leave of absence from the convent.

Debby loved to cook. She would make meals for twenty people, even if it were just the two of us. Italian Wedding Soup was a favorite, and many folks in Winter Hill enjoyed her generous portions. She'd take me along to drive around as she dropped off her carefully packaged sometimes three course meals.

If Debby ran into a student who was having a little difficulty in getting into college, she would immediately give him or her her phone number. She tutored Korean and Chinese kids who were trying to get into Thomas Jefferson or a good college. Debby was generous with her time and talents. She took up the guitar after not playing for almost the 32 years we lived together. She would practice in her room for hours on end. Poetry was a passion, both reading and writing it. She had an insatiable appetite for books. If she found one she really liked, she bought a bunch of copies to give away. Recently we watched the series on Emily Dickinson from Apple TV. Since we met for the second time at a workshop in Amherst, it was particularly interesting to me. I had gone through the Dickinson house near the college. But, despite Debby bemoaning the fact she never got to do that, she could recite any poem whose first lines came across the screen! To my astonishment, she usually knew all the Jeopardy questions every night.

There is so much more to expound on. The workshops she gave, the writing groups she belong to, her love of Bridge and always looking for players, wanting to have an "elegant" home with her antiques (yes, we WERE very different)!

Please add your own memories and stories. Oh, how Debby loved stories.

That old phrase, "You don't know what you've had until it's gone," is painfully true. What I wouldn't give for another 32 years together...or even just one more.

Please share your memories and condolences with the Smyth family and her significant other, Gail.

To view the memorial tribute video please follow the link below.

https://youtu.be/sitKgNvJEq8

.