On a visit with Debbie Brown

Going on a visit with Debbie Brown

The blue Hyundai turns right and drives down the narrow Staunton street, the sun bobbing heavenly against the trees. Debbie Brown parks her car at the corner, in front of a modest one-story brick house with white shutters. She exits and walks up the brick pathway toward the door.

As Paralee Dunnings opens the door, she initially seems confused. She asks why Brown is here when their appointment is tomorrow.

“You knew we were coming today!” Brown lightly says with a laugh. “That’s why you got your hair done!”

Dunnings invites Brown into her home and goes to check the small, magnetic refrigerator calendar. The date of the appointment is indeed Wednesday, April 5. With that, she dashes off to put on some lipstick. It seems she is not quite ready for her close-up.

Brown regularly visits with Dunnings, whose husband, Ophie, passed away in February 2004. Visits do not usually extend beyond 13 months after the death occurs, Brown says, but Paralee has had extenuating family circumstances that have kept her file open.

The mutual affection between Brown and Dunnings is obvious, as Brown hangs on Dunnings’ every word and offers well-placed interjections to steer the conversation.

“She just opens up her heart to you,” Brown says. “We tease each other.”
Dunnings is quite the firecracker. In a denim peasant skirt, sensible black shoes and a striped turtleneck, she and Brown converse as would old friends in Dunnings’ cream, brown and gold-themed living room.

The phone rings.

“You’re younger than I am!” Dunnings says. “You go get it!”

It is Dunnings’ relative, calling about her brother. His condition has worsened. As soon as her house sells, she is moving to Illinois to be with him. She will be leaving behind the house she and Ophie built during their 49-year marriage.

“I’ve got to get this house sold because it’s got to pay for my house up there,” she says. She was ready to drop everything and just leave the house, but her lawyer passed away and Raymond understood. “He told me, ‘Stay there and take care of your business,’” she says.

The house is now spotless, packed and ready for the move. Several items remain sprinkled throughout: An NIV Study Bible resides besides a vase of purple, white and yellow flowers, the water milky against the glass. A grandfather clock regally stands in the corner, it’s pendulum removed and packed away.

“After my husband died, I had the whole interior painted,” she says. “The clock had to be moved. It hadn’t been running for years, no chiming, and suddenly it began working and chiming again.

“I said it was because my husband wanted me to know that everything was working, that everything was fine and I was doing all right — at least, that’s my philosophy.”

Beginning
Ophie and Paralee met outside of the college they were attending, where he was studying dentistry and she was studying business. He was a resident of Staunton, while Dunnings herself resided in Tennessee.

He continually wrote her letters, Dunnings says, that she never responded to.

“My daddy said, ‘These soldiers aren’t any good.’ And I believed what my daddy said,” she says.

They later discovered through a mutual friend that they lived in the same apartment building. After a period of dating, they were married during her junior year, his senior year.

“Back then, we didn’t have anything,” Dunnings says. “Now I look back and I can’t picture life without him.”

The couple never had children, pets or very many problems. But Dunnings says that doesn’t mean there weren’t ever any disagreements.

“When he got real angry, I didn’t try to fuss back… I waited until he said everything. And then I said, ‘When you get some free time, can I talk to you?’ And he’d say, ‘I’m free now.’

“Sometimes he’d say, ‘I’m sorry I acted like that.’ And I’d say I was sorry I misunderstood.”

Middle
Ophie became sick in 1993, “and from then on it was all downhill,” Dunnings says matter-of-factly. Hospice entered the picture in December 2003 after his heart condition worsened. They wanted to place Ophie in respite care, where he would stay in AMC until his passing.

“‘I don’t want to go,’ he said to me. ‘As a matter of fact, I want to die at home.’” she says. The workers wanted Ophie in respite care due to concerns that she might not be able to properly care for him. He was blind and needed to be regularly turned over, which they feared Dunnings could not do alone or afford to hire someone to assist her.

But they respected her husband’s wishes, and he passed away at home on Feb. 22, 2004. While he was sick, Dunnings said, she never left the house — not even to get the mail.

Before his passing, Dunnings said she sensed the end was near. A girl named Karen was working the AMC’s late shift, and spoke to Dunnings every 30 to 35 minutes. Once he touched his chest, Karen told Dunnings that Ophie would probably only live another two hours.

Before then, Dunnings said, Ophie’s age spots and liver spots just disappeared from his face.

“They just all cleared up,” she says. “He got his youth back like when I met him.”

About 10 minutes before, she smacked his leg. “And I said, ‘Ophie, if you love me, just squeeze my hand.’ And he squeezed it and let it go. And I smacked him on the leg again and said, ‘I knew it all along!’

“When he took his last breath, I was there talking to him,” she says. She continued to speak to him until five minutes after he had passed away.

At the time, Dunnings says she was angry with the hospice workers for wanting her husband to go to the hospital. But now she understands they were just doing their jobs. Her relationship with Brown is evidence that no hard feelings remain, and she has given Paralee reason to know that great things are yet to come.

Each month on the 22 and 26, Dunnings says she still feels badly in the mornings, but then perks up by the afternoon. She’s been to the cemetery twice since Ophie’s passing.

He didn’t want to replace their car when he was living, she says, despite the fact that it would stop running at every stoplight. Dunnings has since replaced the vehicle — along with the house’s roof, walk and driveway. Without her neighbors and her church, she says, it would not have been possible to accomplish.

But one thing that has not changed has been her love for Ophie.

“I’m not looking to remarry, because I’d be looking for the qualities that were in him,” she says.

End
Brown glances at Dunnings.

“I’m afraid it’s about that time,” she says.

“Already?” Dunnings exclaims. “But Debbie, you just got here!”

Brown says she has another visit to attend. She asks if Dunnings would like to set up an appointment for next Wednesday, and jokingly stresses that she means next Wednesday — not Thursday. The two whip out their respective day planners — Brown’s a sleek black notebook, Dunnings’ splashed with the American flag. Thus, they coordinate next week’s visit in their opposing armchairs.

Brown stands and begins her walk to the door. When Dunnings asks if she would like a bottle of water and a cookie, Brown graciously accepts. The two hug inside and Brown exits through the white doorframe. Dunnings waves goodbye until Brown reaches her car.

The Hyundai comes back to life and turns right. And literally, so it seems that Brown’s ability to touch another’s life with her gift of patience and understanding is just around the corner.