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PART TWO, FOR MY FRIEND, RUTHIE
Ruthie’s Collage Click Here (Ruth, I hope you will enjoy this and the memories represented.) Don’t forget you can enlarge this to see it more easily.
This post follows Sunday’s (Part One) and fits in with many thoughts and emotions triggered for me by recent events, past experiences and I suppose, by the aging process I sometimes try to ignore, but know I cannot.
As I just wrote to my coaching colleague Dania, from Lebanon, ( http://coachingur3ps.wordpress.com/) whom I have not met, but like and respect, I wonder sometimes about the purpose and benefits of blogging. My hope is that even when the reader indulges our egotism in running on and on about the details of our lives , there will still be some learning and good takeaways for that dear reader. I feel that blogging truly causes us to perform a juggling act. We bounce back and forth, attempting to share our own innermost ideas and passions, teaching, revealing, encouraging further thought and introspection, hopefully enlightening, but also being self-indulgent.
This segment is about my friend of many years, the incomparable Ruthie (Ruth Z. Deming). I am grappling with myself concerning the etiquette of this, since I have not yet asked my friend’s permission to post this and probably should. Before I hit the publish button, I expect I will do that. I realize that even as I think about what I will say here in order to pay tribute to a person I have now known for a mind-boggling total of 46 years, though much of what I write here is about my friend, it is also about me. It reflects my views of her, which may or may not be how she thinks of herself. I don’t want to make this about me, but it is a reality that I am processing what is going on in my head as much as writing a tribute to someone I admire and of whom I am very proud.
I exchanged several communications throughout the week with my friend, a warm, creative, talented person who has been a part of my life from my very first week at college to the present day. There were times during those years when we saw each other a lot and then not so much. I haven’t had an in-person visit with her for years, but that makes her no less special to me. During our early San Francisco days, she lived in our first neighborhood in South San Francisco and when we moved to a large apartment on the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park she lived in our building at 1911 Oak St. When we moved back East and settled for some years in New Milford, CT, she and her then-husband lived only an hour or less away in New York State. While visiting wasn’t frequent, it was always an interesting and pleasant occurrence. Ruth was there through some important phases and events in my youthful life, such as falling in love with Kim, my first husband and the birth of our eldest son, Jesse. The day I went into labor I was on the phone with her many times. We had planned a special dinner at our apartment that evening and I had prepared for days. I wasn’t sure if we should go ahead with the dinner, or if I was really ready to deliver my baby. I remember that Ruth brought lovely French pastries, though I never actually got to eat them.
A few years earlier, she had accompanied me to my Brooklyn, NY family home for a visit at a time that was tense in my relationship with my parents, as I grappled with young adult independence issues. In retrospect I think I had invited her to act as a buffer between me and my parents, but I always enjoyed her company and her creative outlook on most topics. She got a firsthand glimpse into my roots, as I also had the privilege and opportunity to do a few times with her family. Now that my entire family of origin is deceased, it makes me feel good that there are still a few select friends of mine who remember what my family was like.
I well remember anecdotes Ruth told me about her growing up years in Shaker Heights, Ohio and even some of the names of people about whom she told me colorful stories. Recently she wrote a blog post about her visit to Cleveland and some of the names popped up and stimulated my memory. I recall what a change it was for Ruth’s family when they moved to New Jersey due to her father’s new job. and then the move to Huntingdon Valley, PA. I remember the warmth I felt being among the interesting, loving and active Greenwold crew. Ruth was the eldest of six kids (Ruth, Donna, Ellen, Lynne, Amy and David). I was the youngest of three and my sister and brother were so much older that I often felt lonely and envious of friends with siblings closer in age. I am certain that Ruth’s family had normal bouts of bickering and disagreements, but it was fun for me to meet the relatives and to imagine myself as part of such a family. I will not forget a visit to her family’s home with my eldest, who was about three at the time and how enchanted he was by Ruth’s brother, David, unique and fascinating in his own way. David, the youngest in her family, had autism and later took his own life when in his twenties. That was such a tragedy. I always knew that though David did not say much, he was a Greenwold, and Ruth’s brother so must have had a rich imagination and inner life, but he could not communicate his ideas, dreams and fears easily. We all visited Ruth’s father’s store in New Hope, a family venture he undertook after his corporate life ended.
I will also not forget the loving way in which her entire family rallied around her father when he developed a fatal brain tumor. He died in the midst of their devotion and affection, with dignity and support. This memory was sharpened for me this week when I read one of Ruth’s poems about her father, that brought me to tears. Another memory I cherish is how her mother sent me a Chanukah gift not long after Kim died, and continued sending me cards for a few years afterwards. That meant a lot to me.
There was a period of some years that Ruth and I lost contact. I thought of her quite a bit during that time, but was too overwhelmed with life to have been able to invest much energy in trying to locate her. We didn’t have the Internet or Facebook in those days. I think we lost touch when Kim was first stricken with MS and when he died in a fire that damaged most of our house and destroyed our belongings. Ruth and I were not in touch again till after Kim died and she read about what happened in a college newsletter. I found out later that she had been living through her own personal hell. Ruth is my kind of “survivor”. I consider myself someone who has also lived through my own brand of personal hell and made it back to tell about it.
I learned only later how Ruth had struggled with bi-polar illness, which her daughter mentions in a recent blog post, as well as letting readers know that Ruth is now dealing with late-stage kidney disease. http://sarahdeming.typepad.com/spiralstaircase/2010/11/paintahosen.html Of course, I was aware that Ruth has been undergoing evaluation to determine her eligibility for a kidney transplant. I have been very saddened by all of this, but have not wanted to ask too many questions unless Ruth demonstrates that she wishes to share more than she has already done on her blog and in our e-mail exchanges. As she pointed out to me a short while ago, she is not someone who needs to feel sorry for herself and doesn’t want others to feel sorry for her or to pity her. She says she has lived a good life, (and I might add that she has helped a great many people ) has no small children and if necessary, she is ready. She refuses to go on dialysis because she has researched this and knows that the quality of life most people have while undergoing dialysis treatment is not what she wants.
Meanwhile Ruth is ever-busy, in spite of all of this and in spite of a painful, debilitating bout with sciatica over the last months. Ruth founded and directs New Directions of Greater Philadelphia, a remarkable and active support group for people with depression, Bipolar Disorder, their families and friends. http://www.newdirectionssupport.org/ She does speaking engagements, writes grants, puts out Compass, the magazine of New Directions, has become a trained psychotherapist specializing in running groups, works with private clients and runs New Directions meetings and special events. She is an impassioned champion for people who suffer as she once did, but most important of all, is that she has used her research, her intellect, her determination and excellent medical care to cure herself of BiPolar Disorder. She has written a book to help others learn to manage their illness and hopefully do the same. She does not hold out false hope, preach quackery, or suggest that people do it on their own without good professional help and care. There are skeptics, certainly, but the life Ruth has been living for years and her accomplishments attest to her success and to her ability to conquer her earlier condition and symptoms. Ruth is also a talented writer/poet, has recently written a novel, maintains an active blog http://ruthzdeming.blogspot.com/ and, as her daughter puts it, “If you walk around the Philly burbs with my mom, it’s like being with the mayor, only a mayor who cares most about the people who are the worst off. “
Read any of Ruth’s blog posts, her poetry or the articles she has written over the years for various newspapers, and you see how astonishing, sharp, creative and individualistic her perspectives are. She looks at the world in ways most people don’t and finds something of merit in every person and every experience. None of this surprises me in the least. I knew from our very first contact at college that Ruth was an amazing person, but the ensuing years would reinforce this in my mind. Nietzsche said about originality, “Not that one is the first to see something new, but that one sees as new what is old, long familiar, seen and overlooked by everybody, is what distinguishes truly original minds”. Ruth’s is one of the most original minds I have ever encountered. This unusual package of sheer willpower, humor, quirkiness, intelligence, compassion for others, on top of a fierce determination to enjoy everything she can in the universe, makes Ruth Deming someone I know I don’t ever want to lose from my life.
Unfortunately, loss is part of life. I have already had a lot of loss, perhaps at a younger age than many have to face such things. I know there is more to come. Ruth is a tad older than me ( only about six months) and though she has grabbed life by the horns as much as possible and seems youthful and still very full of life, none of us can predict what will happen. The lithium that was once prescribed to keep her on an even keel and to save her from the wild roller coaster ride from mania to depression and back, has severely damaged her kidneys
Sarah Deming, Ruth’s eldest of two, says, ” She got fired from her job as a reporter when her boss found out about her illness. Now she suffers from late-stage kidney disease as a result of lithium toxicity. These things would have embittered a lesser woman, but my mother continues undaunted, fighting stigma and despair. She doesn’t want other people to go through what she did.”
I don’t have a whole lot of heroes and heroines that I hold up as shining examples. I believe that each of us is a hero in our own way, but sometimes we need a little help in recognizing that in ourselves. Ruth, though, is someone I greatly admire and I think for a lot of folks she would qualify as a genuine hero. I look forward to having her continue to enrich my life just by being who she is. I hope I can be one of the people who enriches hers in some small way. Mostly I hope she gets to stick around for as long as possible and that she can continue to do the things that are meaningful to her.
