Coupeville Sports

Stacie “Farm Dog” Farmer

The beauty of Stacie Farmer’s soul remains with us every day.

When I run into people who went to school with her, when I see where life has taken them in the seven years since Farm Dog passed from our world, I hear echoes of her.

Whether she’s explicitly mentioned or not, Stacie is still here with all who knew her.

Her joy, her embrace of life and everyone living it, her utter devotion to all she embraced as friends — and I have yet to meet someone who knew Stacie who didn’t feel like they were her friend — was as deep as that shown by anyone.

Farm Dog didn’t sit back and wait for life to come to her. She reached out and seized every moment, and, in her 24 years, she made everyone, and every thing she touched, better for it.

I remember her hanging out at Videoville and Miriam’s Espresso, her laughter bouncing off the walls, and I remember her charging in to every softball game she played with a wild, giddy abandon.

After graduation, Stacie toured the world, from foreign countries to little rivers in the back country of the US, and every picture I have seen, every story I have heard, comes back to the same thing — joy.

It was easy seven years ago, and it is easy now, to be mad at her death, which was tragic and senseless.

The pain was eased a bit, hopefully, by seeing how Stacie’s decision to be an organ donor helped others.

Five different people received an invaluable assist.

In one case, a woman battling a rare liver disease has since gone on to have a “miracle baby” thanks to the second chance Farm Dog brought her.

There are those who will forever have a deep, personal connection to Stacie — her family, her closest friends, those who now carry a physical part of her with them every day.

But she is with all of us, whether we knew her for a moment or a lifetime.

Stacie is with us when we choose to show kindness.

Stacie is with us when we embrace others.

Stacie is with us when we live life well, when we honor her legacy — “bhavuta sabba mangalam” — “may all beings be happy.”

She is with us yesterday, today and tomorrow. She is with us every day.