ON THE SIXTIETH ANNIVERSARY OF MY SISTER’S
BIRTH
Hers
a compound name
given
at birth uniting
that
of the Blessed Mother
to
that of a beloved sister.
Names
have a hidden
power,
her name, Mary Ruth,
a
compound word meaning
feisty,
determined, filled
with
purpose, making a
difference
compressed
into
short span of
forty-two
years that
virtually
nothing, not
even
death, can keep
from
pursuing that to
which
life is felt called.
You
two shared more
than
a name in common.
Intelligence,
compassion,
a
love for people, medicine
your
complimentary bond,
you,
the nurse, and
Mary
Ruth, the occupational
therapist,
impacting the
lives
of people long after
they
had left your care.
You
were the big sister
she
never had and
though
she had very
faithful
friends who
would
follow her, and
often,
did to the very
ends
of the earth
she
somehow reached
in
the few years she
was
alive, it was you
who
touched her life
most
deeply, most powerfully.
From
your body, you gave
to
her children, which
her
torn and tortured body
was
not able to create.
“Aunt
Dee” to our kids,
filling
their lives with
stories,
some true,
some
very fabricated,
movies,
ah, the horror flicks
the
consequence of which
kept
you and I up with
them
through the
night.
Possessing a
hierarchy
of values,
none
was more highly
prized
than that of
family,
she maintained
relationships
throughout
the
extended family,
the
history documented
in
the many family
portraits,
the stories
shared
at family picnics.
All
her surgeries, her
countless
hospitalizations,
the
drugs and treatments
that
reduced her bones
to
the consistency of
dried
twigs ready to snap,
taught
our children
the
power of resiliency,
to
squeeze from life
all
that can be found.
Many
were the long
hours
through her surgeries,
as
she took death to the
mat,
beating it to a pulp
while
taking a pounding
herself.
She was not going
to
go gently into that
dark
night, no, she
intended
to drag death
by
the throat with her.
But
eventually, bodies
wear
out, even her
will
power, superhuman
in
strength, started to
falter.
Though her eyes
yet
burned for one
more
day, one more
year,
she saw the signs
those
last couple of
days
when our passed
relatives
gathered in
her
hospice room to
greet
her with a song
she
was not prepared
to
hear. Alone with
me
she professed
how
dying so greatly
sucked
before lapsing
into
the coma that
would
take her to
eternal
sleep.
Throughout
most of
that
last day, you sat
at
side of my sister,
your
sister, holding
her
hand and calmly,
gently
stroking her
brown
hair, saying
little,
just being present.
In
the early morning
hours,
surrounded by
the
family she loved
so
much, and held
in
the arms of the
one
she so dearly loved,
Death
succumbed as
Mary
Ruth grew into
the
life that had
long
been awaiting her.
© 2015, from The
Book of Ruth by Bob Wagner OFS. All rights reserved.
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