She wasn't so deluded as to think that three tattoos inked into her chemotherapy-ravaged skull could somehow defeat cancer. They can't, of course. Cancer will always win that face-off, and proved it last week. Sergent's disease finally got her. She died Jan. 25 at age 51.

Sergent was a highly visible figure in downtown Raleigh, where she worked as child support enforcement agent for Wake County. It's hard to overlook a short, plump woman with a shaved head. It's absolutely impossible to overlook a short, plump woman with a shaved head covered with tattoos.

Over one ear was a tattoo portraying a Jamaican sunset. Over the other ear was a moon-and-clouds combo. On the back of Sergent's head was the literal and figurative centerpiece: a big, black crab, whose legs reached for her ears and claws for the top of the skull.

Oh, it was eye-catching. When you spotted Sergent for the first time, you surely stared. Then when you got back to the office, or returned home, you told somebody about her: "You wouldn't believe this person I saw today ...."

But the thing you couldn't have known was that the big tattoo had a subtle significance. Sergent, born in July, had a crab as her astrological sign. She was a Cancer with cancer.

When she told me that last year, after we first met, I thought it was bravado. I learned last week that it was just Debra.

One of the people who spoke at Sergent's funeral described her as "a free spirit." Another called her "a character." Yet another referred to Sergent's "feistiness." A pair of buddies stood together in front of the mourners to talk about their friend. One of them declared Sergent to be a "wild child." The other said, "I hope there's a statute of limitations on some of the things we did in college."

Her husband, Don Sergent, told several hilarious tales about his late wife. (And let me say, as an article of faith, that most funerals benefit from a few moments of raucous laughter.) For instance, he described the night years ago when Sergent -- who clearly knew how to have a good time -- got huffy with him when he confiscated her car keys after deciding she shouldn't drive. Sergent's response, he said, was to "lock herself in the car and blow the horn all night."

You could take that girl's keys away, but she was gonna let you hear about it.

All this put Sergent's shaven head and her trio of tattoos in a different light. It wasn't an act of defiance to her lung cancer so much as it was a totally characteristic act of defiance against convention. As Sergent's friends and family made clear at her funeral, she'd lived her life the way she wanted, public opinion be damned. You have to admire that.

Sergent's son, an eloquent young man named Corwyn, also spoke. He confessed that during the hour in which people offered recollections about his mother, he'd learned much about her he'd never known. "There was more to her than the little things that drove me nuts," he said.

Now you also know a little more about that plump, bald woman with the tattooed head who you'll never see downtown again.

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