Aunt Ruth
I didn’t appreciate her then when forced on someone to care for me, but when she was long dead, I became a Jew (She wouldn’t have approved) and made the promise of Ruth on the Bema moved by things taken for granted: Socks perfectly white bleached into submission every night, reddened knuckles on a washboard. Fresh squeezed juice with every dawn, dresses ironed to perfection, and angel food cake beaten by hand.
She raised someone who didn’t want to be there. I only knew her in her middle years. A barren woman who loved me more than I did her. How do you pay back a roof or place to be from a woman once young enough to give me an Uncle Don who opened a mind to classical music by osmosis, and taught me to read when I should have been too young to read at all.
Aunt Ruth read condensed books when she read at all, but bought me Alcott rather than unwanted dolls and the Great Books for graduation with a quote by Hume on the dedication page. She didn’t lead a happy life. There were too many reasons to complain, and she never learned to say thank you for favors done. They didn’t exist when she had to clean up after everyone while no one understood her pain.
But then again I must have loved her. I still can’t stand juice made from concentrate, and when she was gone, I took her name.
