“The end is proving difficult…”

-Kasumoto, “The Last Samauri”

The Way we Were… A Love Story

(Deborah Brooks…Speech at Monsanto Hearing Press Conference 1/29/17*).

I am Deborah, wife of Dean Brooks, my Soulmate, my best friend, my love for all life times.

I am holding up the picture of a beautiful, gracious, loving man who left a mark on every life he touched, an athlete, a 7th Degree Black Belt, a Samurai, meaning to Serve, with Discipline, Compassion & Honor, an actor trained in New York & Hollywood, a noted theatre Director and a gracious man who was loved by all, a man who touched many hearts by the lovely books he wrote for my gallery. We would often fall asleep holding hands, our love was so great.

This is the man who taught others not to fight, but little did we know he was in for the fight of his life. I watched and loved and helped him as his beautiful athletic body was ravaged by a horrendous cancer, slowly debilitating his very being with pneumonia, outrageous sinus infections with nosebleeds that would not stop, scabies, shingles, sweating, freezing, chills, a cancer so voracious it took everything but his VERY SOUL.

Watching your loved one die slowly, and then very quickly, savagely through Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, the Chemotherapy, Hydration, infusion after…