Debbie Bauman

One Sunday evening in 2016, soon after my wife, daughter, and grandson had traveled to Pittsburgh in order for Grayson to have the kind of medical treatment he needed, my doorbell rang. At the door was Debbie Bauman, and in her hand was homemade dinner. She brought it over because she knew I was living by myself. 

I could not have been more surprised or grateful. The food was delicious, but the notion that someone would go so far out of her way to share food from her family’s own table, in such a generous manner, just blew me away. The food was delicious, with dessert of course, and I do believe she also left a bottle or two of beer to wash it down.

I thought to myself that the world needs more people like Debbie Bauman.

The next Sunday evening, my doorbell rang. At the door was Debbie Bauman, and in her hand was homemade dinner. These were all together different dishes, deliciously homemade. I could not believe it. I hadn’t asked for this but seeing her, with such a cheery smile, with something to give that she had personally created, and then sitting down to such delicious food, filled me with much more than what was on the plate. It helped to fill the emptiness of living alone, knowing that Lana, Piper, and Grayson were struggling on the other side of the country.

I thought to myself that the world needs more people like Debbie Bauman.

The next Sunday evening, my doorbell rang. At the door was Debbie Bauman, and in her hand was homemade dinner.

Debbie brought this gift of food, along with that generous spirit, for weeks and weeks and weeks, until I finally suggested that she had done more than enough. I didn’t want what started as a spontaneous, thoughtful act of caring to become an expectation or to be felt as an obligation.

I lived by myself, and our two dogs, for nine months. For a large chunk of that time, Debbie brought dinner to me every Sunday night.

Generous? Yes.

Thoughtful? Yes.

Will I ever, ever forget it? No.

We were new to the neighborhood in 2016. Debbie is one of our neighbors and lives across the street, so we didn’t know her or her family very well yet, and still there she was, every Sunday evening. I have already described one act of generosity Debbie’s husband Rob and son Randy gave us (What If We All Took Bows?), and those are just two instances from a long list of examples that I could share. Randy has helped us often, and he won’t take any money from us, when we needed to move something to or from our attic; Rob came over right after we moved in to our house and offered to help me with a special problem that our sprinkler system had – he, and I believe Randy as well, had been regularly helping the single, older woman who lived in our house before us with that  and other needs she had. And the list goes on.

And on.

The Bauman family is the kind of family that makes neighborhoods special places of community. And we are so fortunate to be surrounded by other neighbors here who drop a gift off now and again – it could be a book or flowers or a special soup or cookies. Out of the blue. Or out of a special concern. One time, for example, with a storm raging and the electricity out, our next door neighbors Steve and DeNean Wilstead, knowing that Grayson was living with us and needed constant care through electric devices, showed up at our front door offering to hook us up with their electric generator. They could have stayed warm and dry in their house, but they reached out to us with wild, wet wind blowing.

The world needs more people like Steve and DeNean.

Families with kids play in our cul de sac, and I love to hear the sounds of laughing children. We’ve now lived here long enough to see some grow from youngsters to youth to young men and women.

We are blessed with neighbors to our right and left and across the street and down the street, and across the backyard, who are, well, neighborly. Who may have divergent political values (for the most part, we don’t even know what those are), but have deep family values, who care about others, and who are just wonderful to share a street with. 

But sometimes an act of kindness can stand out. And that is why I’ll always remember Debbie Bauman, on our front porch, with the gift of Sunday dinner in her hands, a smile and a question or two, “How are you doing?" "How are Lana and Piper and Grayson doing?”, reaching out to share all this with me.

Thank you Debbie Bauman, for bringing me food for the spirit when I had never asked for it, but hungered for it. Thank you Debbie Bauman’s of the world, for acts of generosity.

Thank you and thank you.