Earlier tonight a lifelong friend of mine who recently moved back to our old hometown posted a very surprising Facebook status. It’s snowing in El Paso, she said, and it’s sticking. Big white flaky snow. An accumulation of three to four inches is expected overnight.
Snow, in my experience, is both rare and special in El Paso, just like the memory it brings to my mind—a very special memory of a very special girl.
I grew up with Debbie. She lived not quite a mile from me. If I abandoned the road and cut straight across the open desert I could walk to her house in fifteen minutes. Maybe less.
Debbie was a beautiful girl, and more than that, she had a sweetness of spirit the equal of which I’ve seldom encountered in the years since I last saw her. I last saw Debbie a very long time ago.
Debbie’s social position was several rungs up the ladder from my own, but she was always humble and unassuming. She lived in a big house, but I’ve never known anyone more sensitive to the feelings of those who had less. Debbie was no saint, but all the saints I’ve encountered in my life wouldn’t add up to one Debbie. She was dear to my heart.
We were just kids when Debbie and I first met. I was in the sixth grade, she was in the fifth. I liked her right away, and she liked me. We tried being boyfriend and girlfriend for a little while in junior high, but at that age we didn’t know how. We settled on just being friends.
I’m not sure how to describe our friendship. I’m not sure what it meant to her, and I cannot articulate what it meant to me. I only know that it was special… a unique relationship that spawned a ritual all its own. A quiet, simple ritual we shared with no one else.
At the end of my eighth grade year, on the last day of school, our classes had a pool party to celebrate the beginning of summer vacation. Somehow… I can’t recall just how… both classes were transported to a large public swimming pool in El Paso. Debbie and I were both there.
At the pool she stayed close to her girlfriends, and I mingled safely among the boys, all congregated on the opposite side of the pool. But, when the party was over and we were all returned to the school, Debbie asked if I would walk her home.
We walked together slowly, talking as we went. I remember talking about two roadrunners that regularly played in her front yard, and she told me an interesting story about how her parents had met.
As we arrived at the base of the hill on which her house stood, Debbie led us off the road, maybe fifty feet into the desert, and took a seat on a small sand hill. She announced that her hair was filled with sand, and reached inside her purse for a small, wooden-handled hair brush. After making several passes at her thick, dark hair, she offered me the hairbrush and asked if I would mind. At first I didn’t take her meaning, then I realized she was asking me to brush her hair.
I took a seat directly behind her, a foot higher on the sand hill, lifted a handful of her hair in my left hand, and slowly passed the brush through it. I paid close attention to the occasional grain of gritty sand, grooming her carefully and deliberately until the last bit of sand was gone.
She asked me to continue brushing just a little longer, and I happily obliged. There was something about the feel of the brush passing smoothly through the strands of her hair that was comforting, calming and… special. For the next thirty minutes I brushed Debbie’s hair, not a word passing between us.
When, finally, the hairbrush was returned to her purse, we continued our walk up the hill to her house. I left her in her front yard and cut across the desert toward home.
Over the next three years Debbie and I remained friends. We didn’t socialize in the same circles, never dated regularly. We didn’t speak on the phone very often. I was dating a girl at Ysleta High, forty miles away, and Debbie dated… I can’t even recall who she dated. It wasn’t me.
Still, throughout that time, from time to time, Debbie would call me at irregular times and for unspoken reasons. I’d answer the phone and she’d ask if I was busy. That was her way of asking me to make the walk across the desert to her house. She would meet me at her front door, hairbrush in hand. We never discussed it, but I think it was supposed to be a secret. I’m not sure why.
We would watch television while I brushed her hair. We would sit quietly while I brushed her hair. We would sit outside and listen to a transistor radio, and we would talk about wishes and dreams, girlfriends, boyfriends, records on the radio and absolutely nothing at all while I brushed, and brushed and brushed her hair.
It snowed in El Paso on a day early in 1965. Debbie called with excitement in her voice, and asked if I was busy. I bundled up and set out walking. As I approached her house I could see Debbie and her mother outside, running around strangely, and I could hear them laughing. As I got nearer I could see the glass jars in which they were trying to catch snowflakes. They were happy. They were what a mother and daughter should be.
Debbie’s mother declared herself the winner… nine snowflakes to seven… and invited me inside. Debbie headed for her room. Momentarily, she returned with her hairbrush.
My family moved from El Paso to Atlanta two days after Christmas, 1967. In the days leading up to my departure Debbie called a few times. The last time I walked to her house tiny snowflakes were swirling around my head as I crossed the frozen desert.
Over the years I lost track of Debbie, but I never forgot about her or her hairbrush. I saw her once, only briefly, in a mall shopping center in 1974. It was a chance encounter, and we promised to keep in touch. We didn’t. I wish we had.
A few years ago I learned through a friend that after a long illness Debbie had passed away. It did not seem possible. Debbie was younger than me. She had young children. When last I had seen her she was a vibrant, strong and healthy young woman. Too many years went by too quickly.
I read her obituary in the El Paso newspaper, and I could not keep back the tears. Over the years I had often thought about Debbie and wished in my heart that all in her life had been happy. I learned it wasn’t always so.
I wish I had stayed in touch. I wish I could have been of some small comfort to her. I wish I could have prayed for her. I wish I could have brushed her hair.
Tonight it’s snowing in El Paso, and I remember Debbie.
