Deborah Elaine Taylor

Deb Taylor was born Deborah Elaine Groce, three weeks early on May 31, 1958, to Robert and Laurie (Salo) Groce, but they called her 'Debbie Doll'. At the time Bob and Laurie had an apartment in the Wallingford neighborhood about three blocks away from the little house Deb and Bud would share when they were first married. Deb's mom said that she took her time learning to walk, but was running from the moment of her first steps onward. Graced with beautiful blue eyes and an infectious, joyful smile, Deb had a pretty idyllic childhood in the Juanita Beach area of Kirkland with her parents and brothers John and Bill. Summers were spent camping and boating with family, neighbors and friends. Deb's grandmother bought her a sewing machine when she was twelve and she began to learn a craft that would evolve into the foundation of her later work as an artist. Deb spent her high school years in the company of best friends Mary Anne and Michelle.

After high school Deb, Mary Anne and Michelle drove to California in station wagon, visiting Disneyland. It was on this trip that Deb felt the first signs of what would turn out to be thyroid cancer, which had already spread to her lungs. Deb endured a radical neck surgery, followed by radioactive iodine and a year of brutal chemotherapy. During this period she attended Bellevue Community College and worked as the manager of the fashion shop on campus. She always wanted to get back to class and work as soon as she could after her treatments. After completing her Associate of Arts degree at BCC, Deb worked in retail for some years, becoming a bookkeeper for Ben Franklin Crafts in Redmond. This job let her indulge her love of art and craft while relying on her talents for keeping track of myriad complex things to earn her living. One night while out with friends from Ben Franklin, she met Bud, also out with friends. Bud and Deb quickly found they shared values and ideals and Bud was smitten with her enthusiasm, her excitement about life and people and ideas, and her pretty blue eyes. Deb and Bud learned to explore together; they became accomplished backpackers and students of the Pacific-Northwest, its geography, environments, cultures and traditions.

Deb confided to Bud her dream of attending the University of Washington, and so they made that a priority of their early marriage. Deb put herself through the UW taking one class a quarter while she worked full-time at Ben Franklin; her employers went out of their way to accommodate her schedule. When she was within a year of graduation she left work and went to school full-time. In that last year Deb completed a rigorous honors thesis in Anthropology studying primates including gorillas and lemurs under the guidance of Dr. Joan Lockhard. She graduated with distinction in 1999, her parents, husband Bud and mother-in-law Ruby in the stands at Husky Stadium to see her.

Deb and Bud were married on September 19, 1992 at Bud's mother's house, with both of their families and their good friends in attendance. They lived in a small house in Wallingford and would walk to Food Giant together each night to shop for dinner and tell each other about their day. In the spring and summer, they would often walk around Green Lake after work.

Not long after the wedding, they learned that Deb's cancer had returned in her lungs and she underwent more treatment. This process recurred every few years and there were times when they feared losing one another. Deb and Bud made her cancer a subject of study so that when it recurred they would have enough knowledge to ask the right questions, locate the right doctors and make good decisions about how to treat it. Deb never let her disease define her or keep her from living life on her terms, but she and Bud always took it seriously and worked at managing it.

Deb worked at the University of Washington in a regulatory compliance program after graduating. Her friend Susana suggested in 2004 that she try the Danskin Triathlon. Deb thought I'm pretty fit, I'm a hiker and backpacker, I could learn to swim¦ So she signed up for the 2005 Danskin Triathlon in Seattle, and then she signed up for swimming lessons. She learned how to swim and Bud helped her find a road bike, a sexy Felt F70 that she loved. In the summer Deb had another run-in with her cancer and she had lung surgery six weeks before the race. The surgery did not go well and Deb was left with a large hole in the side of her chest. It was two weeks before she could walk part of the way around Green Lake, but Bud didn't have the heart to tell her she should give up on the race. It was a low point in Deb's life and it was then that she found her way to Team Survivor and the Triathlon group coached by Karen Johnson. That group of wonderful ladies took her under their wing and taught her how to swim in open water, ride her bike up hills, and helped her learn how to take back control over her life from a disease and treatment process that in a real sense takes control out of the hands of those who go through it. Deb and Bud were overwhelmed by the support of the Team Survivor Northwest community, and over the next decade they supported and volunteered with the organization, helping with swim and bike practices, retreat planning and other events. Each year this organization helps women regain their sense of control through outdoor activities, friendship and community. Deb completed the 2005 Danskin with the help of her Team Survivor teammates, and within the week after the race she and Bud also completed a four day backpacking trip and then a 2 day bicycle camping trip around San Juan Island with her UW work friends.

In 2009 Deb left the University of Washington to take on the challenge of managing a regulatory compliance program at Seattle Biomed, a not-for-profit biotechnology company whose mission is the treatment of diseases that plague people in the third world. Deb was excited to apply her regulatory compliance expertise in support of bettering the lives and health prospects of people around the world. She and Bud continued backpacking and playing with Team Survivor; Deb completed eight sprint distance triathlons over a five year period and numerous bicycle and foot races including half marathons in Seattle and Vancouver.

Deb began to take her art more seriously during the middle 2000's and she branched out from sewing-based fabric arts to other fiber media arts and then to the broader realm of surface design. Her journey from crafts person to artist brought out the excitement and enthusiasm that characterized all of her endeavors. The excitement and the smile she had at discovery were among the things that drew people to her. She found another community of wonderful people in the mixed media arts scenes in Seattle, in particular in the Washington Surface Design Association and the Fiber 19 arts group. Deb greatly enjoyed learning new techniques from the people in these groups, and she admired their work immensely. She would take Bud to openings where her friends had their work on display, and she would excitedly tell him about each new thing that she was learning to do. Several of her friends encouraged Deb to teach and once she tried, she found that she had a knack for it and really liked it. Deb taught seminar style classes in a variety of fabric dyeing methods that she incorporated in her own art work.

On the evening of Tuesday September 29, 2015, 23 years, one week and four days after Deb and I were married, Deb's wonderful, kind heart stopped beating and our journey together on this earth came to an end. Deb and I adored one another, and we shared a wonderful life of discovery and adventure in one another's company. I love her and I miss her and I am so grateful for the life that I was able to share with her that any further words simply escape my grasp.