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Brandi Nicole Stanley, daughter of Otteray Scribe, left us a year ago today. She was just 26, a vibrant young woman full of plans for her life. But the cancer that she had vanquished as small child came back, and this time it prevailed. The world is ever so much poorer without her, while also ever so much richer for her having been here.
OS will share some of his memories of his girl in a later post. For today, let us remember Brandi's irrepressible spirit with joy in our hearts.
To give a bit of insight into the person that Brandi was, about a week before she died, she had a hilarious time riffing with the two older ladies who came to her dad's house to help with her bath. These ladies were tough old broads, said in the admiring way. They loved Brandi and recognized a kindred spirit, deciding that Brandi surely was a tough old broad in training.
In the middle of the bed bath in the middle of her dad's living room, the three of them came up with a plan to move the entire show, hospital bed and all, onto the front porch. Ah, one of the tough old broads joked, surely the show would attract lookyloos driving by who would crash, police would be called, and all three of them would get into trouble. No worries! said Brandi, the police chief is a friend, and he'll set up traffic control in front of the house.
Later, laying in that hospital bed and hooked up to oxygen and intravenous happy juice, Brandi asked me to get her a good looking man. Of course I said I would, and I even had some idea of the kind of guy she liked --
Brandi and Hunting McLeod at Grandfather Mountain Highland Games
-- but really did not know where to start, other than the knowing what is good to look at part. I explained my quest to her daddy, OS, and he found several videos of guys who Brandi knew in person. Hey, they looked mighty fine to me, and I showed her the list. She took one look and said "they are too old!", grabbed her laptop, and proceeded to make corrections to the list.
Following is the resulting collection of videos -- may you enjoy them as much as we did when putting them together.
Here's to you, sweetie.
Eric Rigler
The Badpiper
Alex Beaton
Red Hot Chilli Pipers
Colin Grant-Adams
Hunting McLeod
Coyote Run
Crossposted at Flowers for Socrates.
☕
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