Deborah McCoy's Obituary
“You’re the best.”
A simple phrase she said often that can also be used to describe the life of Deborah
Kay McCoy. Born on October 13, 1955, in Texas to parents, David and Magdalena Hill,
who went on to settle the family in Magnolia, Arkansas. She grew up in the shade of
pecan trees, their branches climbed with her brother, David, to launch Barbies and GI
Joes onto unsuspecting cars below, and the glow of Friday night lights as the Drum
Major of her high school’s marching band. As comfortable with a paint brush as she was
playing the flute, she went on to major in Marketing at Southern Arkansas University.
A desire to beautify the world around her was reflected in all parts of her life – from her
careers in jewelry and department stores throughout the next decades to hand-smocked
dresses and coordinating bows for her daughters to elaborate flower beds around her
yard and homemade birthday Oreo cheesecakes. Moving back to Texas in the early
1980s, to the home she would live in for the next forty years, brought her closer to her
beloved Dallas Cowboys that she would root on every Sunday they played, red nails
flashing and rings sparkling as she cheered and clapped. This type of fierce devotion
and support was given to her loved ones freely and generously and she received it in
return. She remarried in 2001 in Las Vegas to her husband, James, a trip to the desert
where she finally got to ride in a PT Cruiser and visit City Hall for a forgotten marriage
certificate.
When the Multiple Sclerosis diagnosed in her teens finally took her ability to walk, she
responded not with platitudes but by zooming around the house in her scooter – leaving
plumes of drywall in her wake as she took corners a little too close, belly laughing all the
while. When her own fingers could no longer open the clasps to her necklaces and
bracelets, her husband James was always there to secure them. And he would remain
by her side through all the days of their almost quarter of a century together – whether
driving to see longhorns in nearby pastures or lunch dates at their favorite spots or
yelling at squirrels on their birdfeeders.
And each of her daughters, Erin and Alexandra, grew up knowing that it was her
strength and love that propelled them forward in their own independence but their roots
would always lead back to her and East Texas. And when her grandchildren, Cooper
and Sophia, came to fill the house with laughter and shrieks of “Dee!,” she dutifully held
the toys they handed her and let them beep the horn on her scooter, laughing and
smiling. This laughter was more powerful than the disease that eventually took her – to
laugh in the face of pain and an illness that constantly crept closer is a rare bravery. And
she met every single one of those days with her own warpaint of glitter and sparkle and
grit.
She was the best.
Deborah is survived by her husband, James M. McCoy, two daughters and a daughter-
in-law and son-in-law, Erin Elizabeth Wommack (Rachel) of Silver Spring, MD;
Alexandra Wommack Cheramie (Patrick) of New Orleans, LA and her grandchildren,
Cooper James Cheramie and Sophia Kay Cheramie. She also leaves many other loved
ones and friends who will dearly miss her.
In lieu of flowers, please considering making a contribution in her memory to the MS
Society here.
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