Deborah Brannock Guerdat

June 29, 1948 - July 24, 2023 The first of five Brannock sisters, Deb hailed from deep in The Great Smoky Mountains of East Tennessee. A born nurturer, she possessed a gentle maturity well beyond her years as she cared for her younger siblings with a profound reverence and sacred purpose that would come to be her trademark in life. Like her father, Deb delighted in the natural world, the ocean, the mysteries of heady, Southern, summer nights, lightning bugs, swimming, campfires, and music, especially in the form of camp songs sung in palpable rounds beneath starlit skies. Like her mother, Deb was independent and strong-willed, unconventional, and forever marching to the beat of her own drum. Deb raised three daughters in the Dilworth neighborhood of Charlotte, North Carolina, and at whose elementary school of the same name was a well-loved and highly sought-after volunteer creative writing teacher. She was a poet in her own right, an artist, a true creative, customizing murals for community spaces and making costumes out of thin air upon request- and not just for Halloween. A staunch sentimentalist, Deb kept all her children’s drawings and homemade Christmas ornaments; in fact, her live Christmas trees remained freshly watered, decorated to the nines, year after year, tucked proudly into the front bay window for all the neighbors and passersby to point at in amusement. Deb was a brilliant thinker, writer, and conversationalist; as her friend Steve once famously said of her, “Talking to Deb was like playing chess on a 3D chessboard”. Deb had wit in spades, an affinity for puns and wordplays, and a deep, enduring love of the absurd, evinced by her taste in authors, her favorite of all being Richard Brautigan. Deb was a handy-woman, self-taught painter, lemon pound cake-baker, conductor of imaginary voyages, and explorer of dreams and other worlds. But mostly she was a mother… to all. Deb saw the best in people. She rescued spiders, opened her door to strays, spoke fluent dog, and stopped to help any person (or opossum) in need. To know her was to be immersed in love- and to feel at home (her favorite place) in her presence- to bask in the glow of her kindness, hopefulness, and belief in your greatness. Deb taught her children to love fiercely and fully. She answered every call and came rushing to offer support whenever there was a need. She saw life not as it is, but as it should be. Humble as she was, Deb didn’t want anyone to know when she got sick- or perhaps that she wasn’t immortal as we all believed her to be- not out of a sense of ego but rather out of her refusal to let anyone walk alone in their struggles. She only wanted to be assured that she was effective in loving the lost, orphaned, and wounded souls in her midst during her time on Earth. As our mother’s children, we were pushed outside of our comfort zones regularly- to find our voices, speak our truths, navigate the impossible, and to never judge another person’s situation. We understood in our hearts what our mom so often assessed when someone had “had a hard life”; her greatest quality and legacy remains her compassion. Deb left the physical realm just after reaching her own 75th birthday on June 29th, passing what would have been her father Casey’s 100th birthday on July 20th, and finally departing for his mother’s, her beloved Mammaw’s, special day, on July 24th. Her daughters were on the phone together as her youngest held her hand in beautiful Northern Colorado- maybe not “her” mountains (The Appalachians), our sister remarked, but mountains all the same- those ancient, kindred spirits of Deb’s. As our Aunt Chris surmised as she concluded in prayer with us, “I think we all know that a great choir of angels awaits your mother… and a whole host of misfits do too”. That was our mother Deb’s gift to the world: Her unconditional love for anyone who felt unloved, forgotten, unheard, or misunderstood. She valued each individual and every story ever told. Deb is survived by her sisters: Pamela Brannock, Betsy Brannock (Mike Mitchell), Claudia Haselton (Bill Haselton), Chris Brannock, her many nephews and nieces, her daughters, and their families: Eliza Harris (Chad Harris), Izzy and William Busch, Chelsea Guerdat, grand-dog Cool, Madeline Harvey (Matt Harvey), and Aliya and Levi Harvey. A Celebration of Life Service will be held on Saturday, August 26, 2023 11:00 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. Eastern DST/ 9:00 a.m. - 10:30 a.m. Mountain DST. at St. Paul's Episcopal Church, 161 East Ravine Street in Kingsport, Tennessee, 37660. Virtual attendees can access the event by visiting St. Paul's website: https://www.stpaulskingsport.org and/or YouTube channel: https://youtube.com/@st.paulsepiscopalchurchkin3125