Debbie was like a twin that I never had. We thought alike, we shared the same morals and values and desire to help people. We were both Scorpios born on dates 6 days apart. We shared the same passions and convictions and she brought so much joy to me. We literally thought alike without even communicating.

One of my fondest yet saddest memories that will forever be etched in my mind is that Debbie and I were on the roof of the World Trade Center about two weeks before they came down. She was visiting me in NYC in August, 2001 and I took her down there with no intention to go up top, we were looking for the TKTS booth to get tickets to the Broadway show Chicago. But if you know Debbie, you know she was adventurous and she wanted to go “check out the top”. Well we did just that. We passed through the restaurant “Windows of the World”. We saw a mural on the wall where I showed her my neighborhood where she was staying with me. Then we ‘discovered’ that we could go all the way to the roof. We sat on a bench at the top of the South Tower (the one that would eventually fall first) and we looked out at the spire on top of the North Tower next door and we felt as if we could reach out and touch it. Debbie actually and I kid you not, said Tyrone can you imagine if these things were to come down as big as they are. You literally had to be up there to know what she was talking about. We literally saw the curvature of the earth–TRUE STORY! We also looked north toward the Empire State Building. You see when we were on top of the Tower, we did NOT have a camera at the moment because it was not planned. And Debbie said “Don’t worry Tyrone, we’ll have one next time”. Well as we know, next time never came for the towers. But on the brighter side, after we did see Jennifer Holiday in the Broadway show Chicago later that same night (and by the way, it was Debbie who during the intermission said “that looks/sounds like Jennifer Holiday, then she looks inside the program and says “That Isssssss Jennifer Holiday”—so, the whole second act was watching Jennifer Holiday, LOL, ROTFL!!).

Two other fond memories I have of Debbie was for both of President Obama’s inaugurations, Debbie invited me to stay with her family in DC for both weekends. During the 2013 inauguration, she somehow came up with tickets for an inaugural ball (I was thinking, who does she know and how does she do this?). Debbie and I, along her best friends Dana and Ayoka went to this fantastic ball and spent the night dancing and just having a blast and just feeling proud about that moment in history.

I cannot say how much I miss Debbie, it’s too cliche to say Debbie was truly one of the rare “good, humble, beautiful, decent people out there”. I met her right before I moved to NYC because we interviewed for the same job in NJ that neither of us got but we developed a beautiful kinship from that and we became and remained fast friends. We visited and stayed at each other’s house in literally EVERY PLACE WE LIVED respectively since we met. And every time we hung out, it was like we were not apart but yet had a blast catching up.  Debbie was the sister I never had and I was the brother she never had. I love her and I will never forget her and to this VERY day, she is one of the 8 people that I put inside this special thing I have called “The Inner Circle”. It’s been like my personal “Board of Directors” of friends who are with you for a lifetime, not just a season or a reason and this time of year is bittersweet for me because she is no longer with me. But I get tremendous amounts of strength to get through no matter what I’m going through because I know that’s what Debbie would do.

Godspeed and Rest In Peace Debbie, I Love You.