Bruce and Debra Harrow
"Debra and I were high school sweethearts," Bruce Harrow relates, but
after graduation from Westchester High School in Houston, Texas, they
went separate ways. "We lost touch with each other." Bruce studied at
the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and spent a decade
as a locum tenens physician, practicing in six states, while Debra went
to Texas Christian University, became an occupational therapist, and
worked as a case manager in the mental health field for Kaiser
Permanente in California. They each got married, raised children, and
eventually divorced. Bruce was working for a hospice company in St.
Petersburg, Florida, in proximity to his aging parents, in 2009, when
he located Debra via the internet and invited her to visit. "I retired
from Kaiser after 11 years," she notes, "and married Bruce. I helped
with his parents." The couple also volunteered with Gaia Gardening,
establishing community gardens at local schools. "We did permablitzing
with 30 or more volunteers," Bruce elaborates, "building a garden in
one day." When Bruce's parents passed on, he and Debra moved to Oregon.
Her father and brother live in Medford, but they chose to settle in
Eugene. "Eugene looked promising for jobs," says Bruce, who worked at
McKenzie-Willamette Hospital for two years, then took a job at Cascade
Health Hospice. "About that time, we heard about Occupy Medical," he
adds. "In 2013, we wandered by the OM bus on the Park Blocks on a
Sunday." When clinic manager Sue Sierralupe let on that she was short a
provider that day, he returned to the car for his medical bag, Debra
announced that she had mental health experience, and they both became
long-term OM volunteers, who have also served in leadership roles. An
avid gardener, Debra joined the OM herbalist team as an apprentice. "I
learned to make the footbath we use," she says, "and the lemon balm,
our 'sunshine syrup,' uplifting and calming." Following a diagnosis of
lymphoma, Bruce Harrow has left his hospice job and toned down his
volunteer activities. "We're not sad," he says. "Our Buddhist practice
and everything else that life has given us has allowed us to laugh and
cry and enjoy the ride."
happening people
photograph and story by Paul Neevel
Eugene Weekly / 27 May 2021
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