Aunt Ruth left peacefully to meet her maker during her sleep early in this coronavirus pandemic. The vicious virus was not the cause, but it has limited our ways of celebrating her life. Like many other families, we have postponed our time together to share our stories, our memories, and our grief. In the meantime, writing them helps as I look at a wish fulfilled.
My relationship with eleven-year-old Aunt Ruth began the day I was born in Papaw’s house, and she came home from school to meet her first niece. Her mother’s death the previous year had left my grandfather with four children, eight through teenage, still at home in a time when men were inept in the kitchen and house. My parents, in the early years of a struggle to make a living as a young country preacher, moved back to the family farm in a symbiotic relationship that gave them a roof over their heads while Mama did the “woman’s work” and helped with her younger siblings. The story goes that we lived there until discipline fell apart because I cried when Papaw reprimanded Aunt Ruth, and she indignantly reported to Mama any correction Daddy gave to me.
My earliest memories of her were a bit later as I watched the prettiest teenager I ever hoped to see and longed to look just like her. Unfortunately, those stars were not aligned. She had naturally curly hair the color of rich chocolate. I had naturally straight hair the color of dirt. Mama soon gave up efforts to put a perm in it and let it grow into braids. Aunt Ruth did her best with beauty tips by the time I started to school and told me that if I kept my cuticles pushed back, I would have lovely nails by the time I was her age. That one actually worked, and to this day, I have no visible cuticles on my lovely nails.
Eventually, I got too old for braids, and we moved back to the home permanents. With Mama’s belief that God gave you the right color hair, dyes were not an option, so my hair remained the color of dirt. Aunt Ruth’s remained the color of chocolate until some grey began to creep in along with some taming of the abundant curl. Eventually, her head was covered with a nice silvery wave. Oddly, a few years later, gray began to creep into the dirt color on my head along with some body. When the color change finished, I had a nice silvery wave. Both of us by this time were keeping our hair short.
I hadn’t thought much about my long ago wish until a few years ago when I went to visit my uncle, her brother who was in hospice care in Arizona. He introduced me to his caregiver and said, “If you want to know what my baby sister looks like, this is it.” Final proof that my wish had been granted came a few days ago when Facebook tagged me with an array of pictures they had of me. One of them was Aunt Ruth. Wish long delayed, but granted!