Ruthy's Story

Ruthy's Story

I want to tell you an important story from my point of view. I hope you’ll understand how I see things, if only for the few minutes it takes you to read my words.

I have a sister-four of them, to be exact-all of them special and unique in their own way. Martha is the eldest one, a proper and devout Christian whose faith never waivers, no matter what life throws at her. She taught us our table manners, expected us to behave appropriately in social situations, and always sends Christmas cards with pretty Bible verses. Life has given her disappointments and tears, but no one will ever hear of them, her propriety prevents crying on anyone’s shoulder. She taught me inner strength.

Nancy is the softy, the sister who’s generosity and goodwill reminds us that the goodwill we present to the world will return to us in time. She shows the world her crusty side as a means of protection, saving her kind-hearted understanding for those who need it most. As a child, following the perfect elder daughter, Nancy was the one spanked the most, scolded the most; the maker of mudpies. When confronted by life’s curveballs, Nancy takes a swing at it, connects, and changes the disappointment into something she can use. Nancy is as dear to me as is our mother, for she has taught me that giving kindness away costs you nothing.

Ruth is the sister my story is about, so I will return to the subject of her in a moment.

Patricia is the shy one, the daughter who needs to please others to be happy with herself. She worries what everyone will think, and then openly lives her life as half a lesbian couple in a small Midwest town. Raising three happy and healthy children, she reminds me of Martha, careful to do the right thing no matter who says her right is wrong. I respect that, but I won’t ever tell her, we fought too often as children;it’s not time to make amends for that with her, yet. Family, Pat has taught me by example, comes in many viable forms.

Me? I am the youngest sister and the youngest of all 13 children. I will be treated and considered by the other 12 as the bay-bee until I die, most likely. I write a bit, and I can juggle, other than that I’m just like you.

Ruth isn’t like anybody else. She was born in 1953, during an era when physicians often prescribed to pregnant mothers a type of drug to alleviate morning sickness discomfort. If I ever heard the name of the drug mentioned by older family members, I have long ago forgotten its name. Sometimes, unexpectedly and without care, those drugs that settled the stomach also dampened the parents’ ecstatic joy of birthing.
This drug had a side-effect of causing birth defects in a small percentage of the population. Our mother took a drug to alleviate her morning sickness discomfort, in the winter of 1952. Ruth was born with birth defect on July 6th, 1953, sharing her day of birth with our father.

I’ve never asked Dad how he felt to receive a child on his 37th birthday. I don’t need to; the pride he shows when we all get together to celebrate their special day is proof enough. I’ve never asked him how he felt to receive a child with twisted lower limbs for his 37th birthday, either, and I don’t need to; in our
family, such things don’t matter much. Family is family. My father taught me the importance of family.

Ruth was 2 years old before anyone realized there was something different with how she moved. She crawled differently and failed to begin walking as the elder four had. See, subsequent tests showed the balls and sockets of her hips were fused together in the womb, that her ankles were missing something important that made her feet capable of lateral movement. I guess doctors and other people call those birth defects.

She spent most of her childhood in the Madison Children’s Hospital, seeing the family only occasionally, mostly significant birthday’s and the regular holidays. Farming is a 24-7 occupation, and the family couldn’t always get away to visit. Can you imagine the logistics involved in carting 10 little kids into a major hospital to visit one lonely little girl? A little girl no doubt frightened by the innumerable surgeries needed. I imagine her scared and confused by the painful therapy sessions required to heal her body for the next surgery.

Nancy tells a story, sometimes, when a family gathering turns nostalgic. The story she tells is about a time Mom and Dad picked up Ruth for a visit home. It was sometime around Christmas, and Dad was driving an old station wagon. Dad always drove an old station wagon of some variety;he had no other choice, with all us kids in tow. They bundled up the four eldest kids, packed in all the little boys, and drove to Madison to get Ruth.

Mom had birthed six little boys in the five years following Ruth’s birth, complete with a set of twins. Nancy says, when Dad carried Ruth out of the hospital and carefully placed her in the front seat with Mom and baby John, Ruth peered over the back of the seat at the other eight, and said, “who are all those kids back there?!” Hearing Ruth tell the story is even better; I can hear the awe in her voice, surprised and pleased that there should be 10 brothers and sisters she didn’t even remember!

It’s sad, too, I think. She lost a piece of her childhood in that hospital. The doctors did all they could, you know, but medicine was not as advanced in the 1950’s. There were surgeries and new procedures, hospital beds in the livingroom and bedpans in the bathroom. A used mechanic’s cart, intended to enable a tech to slide effortlessly beneath cars for repair, was Ruth’s only transportation for the longest time. The surgeries of the kind she needed required extensive recuperating time in stifling body casts. Physical therapy and further operations followed the casts, more procedures followed that;a cruel cycle for a child alone.

The medical doctors told Mom and Dad-Don’t bother sending her to school like other children, the
physical defects may hamper her mental faculties. Mom and Dad sent her to public school with their other children. The doctors professional opinion warned-She’ll never be able to walk-period. Not with a walker, not with a cane, and certainly not with crutches. I first saw Ruth walk with crutches when I was five. I was five and Ruth was out of the hospital bed and crutching to the rhythm of Pomp and Circumstance, receiving a high school diploma she earned like everyone else in line.

The same doctors told her-Don’t get married, don’t believe you can live a life as other people live. When I was older, my hair forcibly done up in a home perm, my body wrapped in a blue dotted-swiss dress, I watched Ruth walk down the aisle of our tiny country church. Clutching the arm of our father, not for support to walk, but as a young woman excited and worried about the future. Our Dad presented Ruth to the special man that didn’t care he would have to cook and clean a little more than most men. Even at the age of seven I knew to appreciate an extraordinary experience when I saw it.

For God’s Sake, don’t have children! her doctors admonished, concerned about damage to her hips.
Ruth’s oldest daughter Melissa graduated law school this year;something tells me the triumph of human spirit she learned at home will make her a damn good lawyer. The youngest, Melanie, is also in college, but we haven’t been able to pin her down to a specific course of study. Judging by the casually dry sense of humor she often displays, I’d watch for her at a comedy club near you.

Ruth gets around pretty well, these days, the wheelchair doctors told her she would be imprisoned in by age thirty has never materialized. She has had more surgeries than I can count, but she can walk and chase after a four year old granddaughter, an adorable kid with the boldness to wear red shoes as bright as
her red hair. Live has a way of living itself out the way it will. We're really just alone for the ride.

I asked Ruth, once, what it felt like to be her, living with physical differences most people never
understand. I know the pain in her eyes when a stranger stares a moment too long for comfort. You know what she said? “I figure God doesn’t give you any problems you can’t handle. I was born with physical problems because God knew I would be strong enough to handle the troubles that came with them.”

Birth defects? The only defects I see are in the medical expectations of what her life could be-which were all wrong. She turned out to be extraordinary merely by being ordinary. I also asked her, once, if you could have anything you wanted, what would it be? I thought, maybe, she'd wish for the defects to be gone forever. Would she want to be taller than her 4'9"? Would she want a "cure" for her afflictions?

She answered: "I want to get up and run like crazy, to feel the wind in my face;I want to run."

Sisters are special people no matter how they're shaped, and Ruth is one of my heroes. Always has
been, and always will be, even though I've never told her so. If God made her like that because she could handle the adversity, I wonder if he put me here to learn what great things can be done by someone who will never run?