A model for how we all should live

Aug. 27 marked five years since I lost my wife. A lot has changed in those five years. And a lot has stayed the same. I know that our family isn’t alone in our grief. I know that especially now, people across our community are hurting and are afraid. I know that a lot of us are angry and feel like the world is unfair. I also know that we can keep going.

She was 45 years old, a successful lawyer, with four amazing children and a loving (if somewhat heedless) husband when cancer took her. She fought the disease itself but also the anguish that came with the diagnosis. Being told you are going to die soon will cause you to go through some things. How could you not be angry? How could you not feel alone? How can you not just give into rage?

How can you keep working for others up until the day you die? That one, I hope to ask her one day. She never quit. She never stopped caring for others. And I don’t mean just her family (which she did of course — she was planning an end-of-summer vacation from her hospital bed).

She worked for the child victims of Kane County. Victims of some of the worst crimes imaginable at the Kane County Child Advocacy Center. Her garden is still there in Geneva, welcoming those victims to a shady spot with a flower or two so they can see there is still beauty in the world even in the darkest times.

Debbie Bree taught me a lot. Not just by the way she died but how she refused to stop living. Hopefully we can all make this place a little better while we have the chance. Just like she did.

Joseph M. Gay

St. Charles