July 10, 1958 – March 19, 2015
The Woodlands, Texas on March 29, 2015 given by Dr Gail Harrison
Good afternoon. Welcome Everyone. We are here to celebrate the life and the loves of Debbie Anagnostelis.
To Vickie, Deb’s love to whom she was married and with whom she only had just begun her life of love. I remember when Deb, after we had finished discussed some Society business, told me in a giddy voice, which was unusual for Deb,
“I’ve found someone… I love her so much…she makes me happy”.
That someone was you, Vickie.
To Vickie’s family who are here, her mom Dolores, and her daughters Sarah and Rebecca, and her grand sons Theodore, “DJ” and “Baby Mac”, whom Deb, you said, “spoiled rotten” with love.
To Deb’s parents Barbara and Gus Anagnostelis, and Deb’s Aunt Mary and her cousin Shelly, and her niece Kara, who are here today with us, and her two brothers Jim and Scott and her nephew Peter, who cannot be here with us today. She spoke to me often about you and how happy she was to have you in her life.
You are her family. And family is who brings us life and who, in all our love and craziness, sustain our life through our love.
To Deb’s friends who are here, and to especially her dear friends in the Northside Nomads, her meet up group of friends. She first entered this ring of friends with a cautious great toe, and then, I am told, jumped in with both feet. She had a wonderful time with you.
You are her friends. And friends are whom we choose to be with, because you fill us up, where we need filling in, and somehow you complete us to be the whole person we want to be and are intended to be, and you make our life more joyful.
To Deb’s colleagues, who are here from what is affectionately known at “The Central Office” for the American Pediatric Society [APS] and Society for Pediatric Research [SPR] and their affilliated Societies. To Linda, Kate, Belinda, Jana, Brenda, Deb Zirkle, Barbara Anagnostelis who served dual duty as Deb’s mom and her work colleague, and Antonio and Scott, also Stephanie Dean managing editor for our journal “Pediatric Research” and her assistants Nicola and Toni, as well as Carmen, Mary, Lisa, Allison, and Meeya, you are also Deb’s dear friends, and many of you have known Deb and me, for decades, and she often told me how much she cared for “the staff” which were ”her staff” at the Central Office, and how she fussed over making your work as fun and positive as possible. She even told me about those random, silly “special vacation days” she would announce every year for “her staff”.
To Deb’s colleagues and friends in the leadership and membership of the Pediatric Academic Societies, and those pediatricians who have attended the Pediatric Annual Meeting from around the world, some of you who are here today with us.
You are her colleagues but also her dear friends as well. And colleagues and friends who also work together, who share a common vision to make the world a better place, are a fulfilling and vital part of our life, and we in the Pediatric Academic Societies dedicated ourselves to the common goal of good health and well being for all the children of the world, and we shared the vision that children are our future, and Debbie Anagnostelis was the very heart and center of that visionary work.
Deb loved you all so very, very much. She told me so. And no matter how prepared you think you are for the death of a person you loved, it still hurts deeply.
You are all here because Debbie, in some way, touched your life. Your being here today is an expression of your love for Debbie.
So, we come together today to celebrate the life and the love of Debbie Anagnostelis.
She was born on July 10, 1958 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, no doubt a very hot summer day, and she died, way too soon, at the age of 56, near The Woodlands, Texas on March 19, 2015, a very sad day indeed.
Hers was a life well lived, a life well loved, and a life well done.
A life well lived is one that leaves the world a better place. And through her professional career, she did just that.
Deb graduated from Highland High School, and shortly there after, in 1979 she began her 35 - year, life long professional career of loyal, loving service to academic pediatricians.
In 1979, she was secretary to Dr John Johnson a neonatologist at the University of New Mexico, who also, at the time, was Secretary Treasurer of the SPR.
When I asked her about how she started to work for the SPR, Deb once told me
“It all began with one little drawer, in a small wooden desk, in a very tiny room.”
In his Tribute to Deb, Dale Alverson said…
“We at the University of New Mexico, Department of Pediatrics remember Debbie very fondly. She was an important team player in organizing our research and manuscripts and abstracts, as well as our grant applications. She did this before there was Microsoft office…. and “white out” was the key to managing our corrections…”
Deb eventually became the Executive Director for both the APS and SPR, and joined these two Societies with the then Ambulatory and now the American Pediatric Association [APA], and the American Academy of Pediatrics {AAP], to form the Pediatric Academic Societies [PAS]. These four Societies became the core four organizations for the Pediatric Academic Societies Annual Meeting, which Debbie was also Executive Director, and which now is host to a tapestry of over 30 organizations from around the world, and thousands of pediatricians who meet every year under the same big umbrella, to present pediatric research. She moved with the Central Office from Albuquerque to Chicago, to its current location in The Woodlands Texas. For her life of dedicated service, she received the Thomas A. Hazinski for Outstanding Service Award from the SPR. And now, the PAS Opening Session, where we all gather together at the start of the annual meeting, before we scatter to our separate rooms of academic discussions, will now host the “Debbie Anagnostelis Keynote Address” in her honor.
The Earth was certainly was not a resting place for Debbie Anagnostelis.
And in the words of Bill Berman, in his Tribute to Debbie…
“Debbie was a tireless and dependable worker, an innovator and a developer…”
I first met Deb at the Chicago APS-SPR office, which at the time was within the AAP headquarters building. It was 1996, and I was a newly elected SPR Secretary Treasurer. She and Maureen Andrew, who was serving as the outgoing SPR Secretary Treasurer and then served as SPR President, were both there. It was a long afternoon of orienting me to meeting planning and Society business. Back then the Secretary-Treasurers and Debbie and her staff did most of the Society business and meeting planning. But the most challenging thing I struggled with was how to pronounce Deb’s 5 syllable last name. So she walked me through it. First, she said, start with “A Nag” and the rest will follow, because that’s what I will be to you for the next 6 years. I will nag you with phone calls, letters, emails and packages. Because I will stay here and you will go back to your busy work and your family. Remember, we have a Society to run and a Meeting to put on. So I said yes ma’m, and from that day on, I had no trouble pronouncing Debbie’s last name!
And so began my life with Deb for the next 18 years with the SPR, as Secretary Treasurer, then as President, and then with the PAS as their Program Committee Chair. And I also became her friend.
This picture here on the podium is a time travel tool. Like Amy Poehler, in her New York best selling book “Yes Please!” I believe people, places and things help us time travel with those we love. Here Deb and I, as SPR President, are “cutting the cake” in 2004, at the SPR 75th Anniversary Celebration at the PAS Annual Meeting in San Francisco. Leading up to this meeting Deb and I spent count less hours sifting through the historical documents, letters, and artifacts and treasures of the SPR. Deb had lovingly kept all of these previous documents in boxes, through the years, as she moved the SPR office around the country. And while we were looking through the documents, piecing together the history of our beloved SPR, we both realized what a significant portion of those 75 years were part of Deb’s professional life. And I looked at her, and I asked her, what’s it been like, working with academic pediatricians all these years? And she answered
“Kind of like herding cats….really…. smart… cats”.
Not only did Deb herd us academic cats, she made us look good.
As Bruce Gelb, former SPR Council Member and PAS Program Committee Chair, said in his Tribute to Deb …
“I pretended to run the PAS meeting as the Program Chair for two years, 2010 Vancouver and 2011 in Denver…. She effortlessly made it so easy to take on that daunting role. And she never let on how much she was really running things, letting me (or whoever was the Program Chair) look like they were the one. But it was always her, and with a smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye. “
Dan Bernstein said in his Tribute to Deb…
“When I was SPR President I quickly realized that Debbie was the real force behind the successes of the organization.”
Russ Chesney said in his Tribute to Deb…
“Debbie was an amazing leader of a great group of stewards of the Pediatric Academic Societies. …… Any of us fortunate to have been on a Council or in a leadership role recognize how effectively she organized our meetings and pushed forward the agendas of the Societies…”
Deb was our bass player…our bassist. In a rock band, jazz band, any band, the bass player is the glue, the foundation that holds it all together. The best bass player, when there, is hardly noticeable, but when they are not there, it is very noticeable, because it all falls apart.
So like this classic Fender PJ bass here standing to my right, Deb played her life like a righteous, happening, all knowing, ground breaking, “hepcat” bass player, who held us “academic cats” all together and in line, as we played our songs.
One of her favorite things to say to us academic cats, was
“We can do it!” “We can do this”.
When we academic cats came up with new ideas, or new projects, or new directions, sometimes it was “We can do this…” and sometimes is it was “We can do this…but…
but rarely was it “We can’t do this...”
Because Deb had her own set of diplomas, a degree in “Know How”, a Masters in “Grit” and a PhD in “Can Do and Get It Done!”
But as busy as she was running the Societies, she was always available to help.
As Sarah Long said in her Tribute to Deb…
“---As a fledgling fellow submitting an abstract,
---At the keyboard for the first electronic abstract submission
---As a neophyte at the first planning meeting
---As an elder, confused about something…
She was at my side, wonderfully competent and happy to help….”
Deb’s gift of organization was also expressed with her friends. Vickie told me a story about how Deb especially enjoyed planning the get togethers of their friends in the Northside Nomads and making sure everyone had a great time. And at one special outing, I am told, to a Sandra Bullock movie, Deb spent hours and hours planning the whole thing, down to every detail, including popcorn and drinks, making sure everyone had a great time. Deb just loved doing that sort of thing.
Deb’s was also a life well loved.
Deb loved many things.
The evening after my first Council meeting in an SPR leadership role, she said “Come on, let’s find the bar and get a glass of [everybody say it now] wine! And so I had my first glass of wine with Debbie. We drank a glass or two of Frog’s Leap Chardonnay, like the very bottle I have here on my podium. Everytime I drink a glass of Chardonnay, especially Frog’s Leap Chardonnay, I time travel with Deb.
Deb loved wine! Especially buttery Chardonnay.
But she also loved the fellowship that a good glass of wine provided.
Many of us have shared a glass or two of wine with Deb, sometimes with laughter, sometimes with tears.
And at one of my last visits with Deb, when, during some of her last days, I was trying to take her oral history, we had lunch. We did not eat much, but we did drink a glass….or two...of Chardonnay together, as we struggled on how to say goodbye to each other.
“Let us celebrate the occasion with wine and sweet words” said both the Roman playwright Plautus and Deb Anagnostelis.
Deb also loved shopping.
Deb took me shopping one day. And it is a day I will never forget.
Amy Poehler and I share another thing in common, an indifference to clothes. Amy and I both would just as soon wear a uniform as fuss over our outfits.
I had this really cool steel blue, silk suit…I thought it was cool anyway, because it was four pieces, a jacket, a short skirt, a long skirt, and a pair of Annie Hall-like trousers. I wore variations of it all the time. In fact, if you look at pictures of me through about 10 years of SPR leadership pictures, which I have here on the podium to show you proof, I am indeed wearing that same steel blue silk suit.
Finally, my favored suit was beginning to wear out. And Deb told me,
“You are not wearing that same suit for your SPR Presidential Address.
I am taking you shopping.”
And she did. To Neiman Marcus and Saks Fifth Avenue (because when Deb shopped, she really shopped), where I bought two St John’s suits, one of which you see me in the “cutting the cake” picture here. And afterwards, we went to lunch, had wine, and celebrated.
Two St John’s outfits…$5,000. An afternoon of shopping with Deb… priceless.
I shopped once for the annual meeting. Deb probably shopped 35 times for each year, for a new outfit for each meeting each year of her career. And when I wear these suits, I once again, time travel with Deb.
Vickie told me another shopping story about how Deb “spoiled her kids and grand kids rotten” and loved to take them shopping. Deb took Vickie’s daughter shopping so much that the credit card bills were mounting, and Vickie finally had to put her foot down, and impose a $250 limit to their shopping sprees. And when her next credit card bills came in, Vickie noticed that Deb had indeed obeyed the $250 limit, but it was $250 at each store, many stores, all over the city!
Deb loved animals.
She loved wolves. She had pictures of wolves in her office. She and Vickie adopted a wolf from a Wolf Sanctuary. And I think wolves somehow expressed Deb’s hidden inner “born to be wild side” that she did not outwardly show. Vickie told me one of Deb’s favorite songs that she kept in her phone and played when she was a bit down or needed a pick me up was “Born To Be Wild” by Steppenwolf.
She loved dogs and cats too. I remember Deb had kittens, which she often fussed about because they would get into her plants, and she had two beloved golden retrievers during the time I knew her, Chase and Stormy, both of whom have passed on, and both of whom no doubt waited patiently for Deb until she met them on Rainbow Bridge.
Deb and Vickie have several rescue dogs now. And they have been very active in one particular dog rescue called “Save a Dog Rescue” www.saveadogrescue.com
A no kill canine rescue in Montgomery County, which rescues dogs from the Montgomery County Animal Shelter just before they are scheduled to be put forever to sleep. Deb and Vickie hope you will honor Deb’s memory and make a donation to this worthy cause in her name. It was Deb’s wish.
Deb loved her smart phone. Yes she did! She loved the efficiency and connectivity it provided her. It was always by her side.
Deb loved children. Not only the children in her own family, who, as I said earlier, she was known to “absolutely spoil rotten” …. but all children. Deb worked tirelessly by helpful us academic pediatricians spread our research, our clinical experience, our teaching, our advocacy, and our policies, to all the children of the world.
Alvin Zipursky in his tribute to Deb said
“… we all express our deep gratitude to Debbie for the support she provided to us and our Programme for Global Paediatric Research…”
Jake Krushner, the current President of the SPR, and who is here with us today, said about Debbie,
“She was a great leader and a tireless advocate on behalf of children”.
I agree.
Deb also loved The Farm. Vickie and Deb have a farm, where there are cows, donkeys, chickens, and many other creatures and foilage of nature. I never had the opportunity to visit The Farm, but Deb talked about it. Deb loved it there. The Farm is where Deb will remain. Her ashes will be scattered under her favorite tree, and there is where she will be taken up by the earth, for eternity.
“Unable to leave the loved to die. For love is immortality”
said Emily Dickinson, and which was posted as a Tribute to Deb by Gale Braun
And finally, Deb loved you….all of you…her family and her friends and her colleagues.
She would want you to smile thought your heart is aching.
For hers was a life well lived….a life well loved….a life well done, but not done, because she died before she was finished with her life and her loves.
So, Deb must live on, in all of us.
Deb’s lasting legacy, her over arching life theme, was bringing people together.
That is how she loved us.
In this room, and beyond this room, are many eulogies, “good words”, about Deb in people’s hearts and minds. Take a collective moment to reflect on a fond memory, a funny story, a favorite time you spent with Deb. Share it with one another or on her Tribute page www.forevermissed.com/d-l-a/#about.
I’d like to close with a short poem by William Wordsworth.
“That though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now forever taken from my sight.
Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower.
We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind. “
Deb’s strength remains ….
So now play the music, turn it up, “Take the world in a love embrace.”
Deb would have wanted it that way.
