The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, a Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life

by Rod Dreher

Tim also phoned in a prescription for a medicine cancer patients call “magic mouthwash,” which takes away pain from mouth ulcers. A few nights later Tim received a text from Ruthie:

  Magic mouthwash is wonderful! I’ve also been taking Lortab more, which helps. If only there were something for hand and foot syndrome, I would be set.;) THANK YOU FOR ALWAYS CHECKING ON ME!

  Around the same time I made my customary phone call to Mam and Paw on my way in to the office one morning. Mam was in an especially anxious mood.

  “Ruthie told us she’s been having dreams,” Mam said. “Julia came to her, and Mullay, and Dede.” These were, respectively, Mam’s sister, who died of cancer at forty-two, and our paternal grandparents, both long dead.

  “What did they say in the dreams?” I asked Mam.

  “Nothing. Ruthie said they just smiled at her.”

  I thought, They’re coming to help her get ready to die.

  That night I called Ruthie to confirm the story.

  “Yeah, they came,” she said, as matter-of-factly as if the deceased kinfolks had dropped by for coffee.

  “All at once?” I asked.

  “No, I had three dreams.”

  “What did they say?”

  “Nothing. They just smiled at me, and looked real peaceful.”

  “Do you think maybe they’ve come to, you know, prepare you for something?” I said, uneasily.

  “Nope,” she said. “I really don’t think so.”

  I believed these dreams were real, but I did not believe they were meaningless. Back in 1990, when my mom’s sister Julia was in the hospital being treated for cancer, my paternal grandmother Mullay, dead for fourteen years, came to me in a vivid dream. She told me to go to Julia and tell her death was nothing to fear. I did as I was told. Julia was gone within days.

  This is why I took Ruthie’s dreams seriously, even if she didn’t. I believed she was going to die soon. But when? Would I have time to see her? I hoped so. I wanted to save my vacation time and my money for one last visit from our family. Maybe Christmas? Yes, Christmas.

  On Monday, September 12, I called Ruthie to check on her. “I’m feeling pretty good,” she told me, which I knew was a lie. As usual she didn’t want me to worry.

  We talked about Hannah. I told her I was worried that Hannah wasn’t coming home often enough. Though she had been at college for only a few weeks, Hannah had spent most of the summer at camp and at the beach, away from her mother. Now, even though her mother was in steep physical decline, and her dorm at LSU was only half an hour away, Hannah never came.

  Judging by my conversations with Mam and Paw, and the eerie dreams, I was concerned that Ruthie could die any day, leaving Hannah crushed with regret and self-recrimination. But I didn’t dare speak that plainly to Ruthie.

  “Oh, don’t be worried,” Ruthie said dismissively. “Hannah’s doing what she needs to be doing. I want her to be at college, having fun.”

  I knew this wasn’t true either. Mam and Paw had shared with me their worries over how much Ruthie missed seeing Hannah. But I also knew that Ruthie had intentionally made it easy on Hannah to run from the catastrophe at home. She didn’t want Hannah to suffer. But how much will Hannah suffer if you die and she didn’t come home? I thought.

  I phoned Hannah the next night, determined to urge her to go home to see her mother. I knew it was a delicate matter, and if she told Ruthie I had intervened, Ruthie would fuss at me. After talking about her classes, and how she was adjusting to college life, I asked her how often she was able to go home to see her mom.

  “I don’t want to talk about it, Uncle Rod!” she shot back. “Just stop!”

  I tried again, but she cut me off. The girl was plainly terrified. There was nothing left to say.

  The next day Julie and I went with the kids out to the rolling hills of Bucks County, north of Philadelphia, to look at a Colonial-era farmhouse we were thinking of renting. It seemed like a perfect place for us, and our family was excited about the prospect of moving out of the city. We loved the house and the grounds, and left it that afternoon assuming that signing the lease was a formality we could execute in a day or two.

  Down in Louisiana Ruthie spent that day with Claire and Rebekah, who had the day off from school. Stephanie Lemoine, her chemo buddy, texted her that morning inviting her to come to Baton Rouge that night for a women’s spirituality class and talk led by Sister Dulce at her retreat center chapel. Ruthie and Mike had been to see Sister once since their first visit. Sister had prayed that time with Ruthie, and asked that God’s will be done. That day in September Ruthie thought it might do her good to be with Sister again. Sister always made her feel good.

  Ruthie texted Abby to ask if she would be willing to drive. Abby was all in. The best friends had not seen much of each other in recent months. Abby had met a man, a lawyer named Doug Cochran, and fallen in love. Doug lived in Baton Rouge, which meant Abby was around St. Francisville less often. Ruthie was thrilled for Abby, but it was hard not to see Abby’s smiling face and hear her sassy talk as often. When they spoke Ruthie confessed to Abby that she was tired and lonely. Nobody was coming around to see her much anymore. My sister was alone for long stretches of the day when Mike was at work and the girls were at school.

  When Abby came by that evening, Mike showed her how to work Ruthie’s oxygen tank. By that point, Ruthie could barely breathe on her own. And off they went to Baton Rouge.

  “All the way down, we talked about how she was feeling, her chemo, and the chemo nurses,” Abby recalls. “We talked about all her friends—the ones who came to see her, and the ones who couldn’t make it.”

  Ruthie was exhausted, and feeling miserable. Abby dropped her and her oxygen tank off at the chapel door, and drove off to park the car. Stephanie had arrived earlier, and saved a seat for Ruthie in the back of the chapel so Ruthie could leave easily if she became too tired.

  “All of a sudden, I felt a little light tap on my shoulder, and I turned around, and there was that angel’s face,” Stephanie remembers.

  Ruthie, Abby, and Stephanie sat together, and listened to Sister Dulce’s talk. Neither Abby nor Stephanie remembers what the nun said. When she finished Stephanie asked Ruthie if she would like Sister to pray over her. Ruthie said she would.

  Sister ran her hands under Ruthie’s shirt to feel her body. “We need to get you well,” the nun said. “Honey, you can’t worry about this cancer.”

  “No, ma’am,” Ruthie said. “I’m not.”

  Sister prayed quietly over Ruthie, then said good-bye. After the service Abby brought the car around to pick up Ruthie, who was standing at the chapel door talking to Stephanie.

  “Ruthie,” Stephanie said, “I don’t know why we met, but I know we met for a reason.”

  Ruthie smiled, and said, “It’s God.”

  On the drive home Ruthie was animated, even excited.

  “Wasn’t it weird how Sister talked about all the things we talked about on the way down?” Ruthie asked.

  Abby wasn’t sure what Ruthie meant, or even if they had heard the same talk. To Abby it had been simply a general sermon about the spiritual life. Ruthie, though, believed Sister answered all the questions weighing on her mind that night, and that that had been an incredible grace.

  That night in bed Ruthie and Mike stayed up late talking about Sister Dulce.

  “She was feeling so bad. It wasn’t an easy trip, but it was a good one for her,” Mike says. “She told me that Sister is an amazing woman, and the things she talked about made her feel peaceful.”

  “Peace,” Mike says. “That night Ruthie had peace.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  “I’m Scared”

  The next morning—September 15, 2011—Paw left before daylight with his friend Hershel Morris, headed to visit a sick pal in north Louisiana who had been their LSU classmate half a century ago. Paw’s usual habit was to pick the morning paper up out by the road, deliver it to Mike and Ruthie, and drink a cup of coffee with them. Not t
his morning, though.

  Ruthie woke up feeling out of sorts. She told Mike she wouldn’t be able to ride with him to take Rebekah and Claire to school. That was unusual, Mike thought. Ruthie always pushed herself to take that ride. But on this morning she made the kids’ lunches, and wrote her daily notes to the girls. Since she became ill Ruthie had been penning short, encouraging messages to her children, and leaving them in their lunch boxes. That way they would know that Mama was with them throughout the day.

  The girls kissed their mother good-bye, climbed with their father into the Excursion, and left for school. Mam planned to go to Zachary that morning with her friend Kay Graves to get her hair done. Mam’s hairdresser, Big Show’s wife, Jan, customarily held a Friday morning slot for Mam, but this week Jan changed the appointment.

  Mam rang Ruthie to see if she wanted anything from the store, besides cat food.

  “No, ma’am, the cat food is all I need,” Ruthie said.

  “Do you need me to come over?” Mam asked, worried by how weak Ruthie sounded.

  “No, I’m going to lie down for a few minutes and get some rest before we go down to get my blood work done.”

  “Okay, good. I’ll see you later, then. Love you.”

  After dropping the girls off Mike figured that if Ruthie was sleeping in, he had time to stop by the fire station north of town to check out the new four-hundred-thousand-dollar rig that was both a rescue truck and a pumper. He wheeled in, said hello to the men, poured himself a cup of coffee, and gave the gleaming red truck an admiring once-over. After an hour or so Mike said good-bye and headed home to be with Ruthie.

  When he arrived Mike walked to the back of the house and stuck his head in the bedroom. Ruthie was awake, but still in bed. She said she would join him up front shortly. Mike excused himself, went to the living room, sat on the sofa, and picked up the newspaper. Their routine was to sit together on the couch, read the paper, and talk about the day ahead. That morning Ruthie shuffled up the hall in her pajamas, sat down next to her husband, and did what she did every other morning.

  After resting quietly on the couch for a while, Ruthie lunged forward and began coughing violently. Mike saw a startling amount of blood pouring from her mouth. She had coughed up blood before, but nothing like this.

  “I’m having trouble breathing,” she rasped. “Turn my oxygen up.” Mike did, but the blood kept coming. Ruthie tried to wipe it away with tissues, but couldn’t keep up with the flow. Mike retrieved the pulse oximeter to check the oxygen level in her blood.

  “I can’t breathe!” Ruthie gasped. “I can’t breathe!”

  The oximeter reading was eighty-four—far below the normal measure. Mike knew this was a real emergency and phoned Tim, who was with a patient. He left a tense voicemail.

  “Hey, Tim, it’s Mike,” he said. “Ruthie’s having a real tough time breathing. Bleeding a lot. Her oxygen is about eighty-four, eighty-five. Just wanted to… see what we needed to do. Thanks.”

  Ruthie choked out words conveying to Mike that she couldn’t breathe at all. “Call nine-one-one!” she rasped. Mike was alarmed before, but now he was terrified. He ran to the kitchen, made the call, and before he could get off the phone heard the fire department dispatch notice go out on his police radio. Mike darted into the living room to look in once more on Ruthie, still on the couch. She was struggling to catch her breath, drowning in her own blood as the main tumor was most likely knifing through an artery in her lung.

  Mike, panicked and feeling helpless, dashed back into the kitchen and phoned the fire station where he had just visited, to tell the rescuers that the call was for his wife, and to please, for God’s sake, hurry. He hung up, shot back to the living room, and saw the love of his life, spattered with blood and terrified. For the first time since they had begun this journey, Mike saw fear in Ruthie’s big brown eyes.

  “I’m scared,” she whispered. Then Ruthie fell forward, into her husband’s arms, and died.

  “Ruthie!” he screamed. “Don’t leave me!”

  Mike, a trained EMT, put Ruthie on the floor and began CPR, but he knew it was too late. The paramedics arrived, pulled him away from Ruthie’s body, and began working on her.

  Across the road from Ruthie and Mike’s place, Ronnie Morgan was at home when he heard the emergency dispatch on the police radio. He knew this was the call he had been dreading for nineteen months. He followed the paramedics in through the front door. Seeing Ruthie’s body on her living room floor, all Ronnie could think about was the child whose diapers he had changed. She was like one of his own, he thought. And this is how it ends for that sweet little girl.

  Ronnie hustled Mike into the kitchen, away from the grim scene unfolding. Mike telephoned Mam, who was twenty minutes away in Zachary. Mam was loading Ruthie’s cat food into the back of her SUV when the call came through. Mike was crying so hard Mam had trouble understanding him.

  “Mam, Ruthie’s in trouble,” he choked out. “Come home quick.”

  Moments later the phone rang at the Leming house. It was Tim Lindsey returning Mike’s earlier call.

  “She’s dead! She’s gone! My Ruthie’s gone!” Mike shrieked. “The ambulance is here. I’ve been doing CPR on her. She passed out. I put her on the floor. She’s gone. She’s gone…”

  Mike was screaming so loud Tim had to hold the receiver away from his ear.

  “I’m on my way,” Tim said.

  Tim jumped into his pickup and flew south to Starhill. Meanwhile in the Walmart parking lot Mam had pulled the SUV around to the entrance and waited on Kay Graves to come out of the store with her bags.

  “Hurry, Katie!” she yelled through the open window. “Something’s wrong with Ruthie!”

  Kay swung the side door open and threw in her plastic bags so hard that they burst. She jumped into the passenger side and hit the button to turn on the flashers. They sped away. Within minutes Mam hit Highway 61, turned sharply north, and pushed her big Ford as hard as it would go. The speedometer, Kay noticed, read 120 miles per hour.

  Mam’s mobile phone rang. Because Kay and Mam have an understanding that neither will speak on the phone while driving, Mam told her friend that she would have to answer it. It was Ronnie. He asked to speak to Mam.

  “She can’t talk, Ronnie, she’s driving.”

  “It’s Ruthie,” Ronnie said. “She’s not here at the house. They took her to the hospital. Tim thought that was the best place for her.”

  “Ronnie, are you telling me that she’s gone?”

  “Yeah, she’s gone.”

  Kay ended the call and asked Mam if she understood what had just been said.

  “Yes,” Mam said flatly.

  “Dottie, do you need me to drive?”

  “No,” said Mam. “You drive like a grammaw. I need you to call Ray and tell him.”

  “But Dottie—”

  “I’m driving! You call him.”

  Kay looked out her window at the sky, and said silently to God, I’m about to tell a man that his daughter is dead, and You are going to have to help me do this. She dialed Paw’s number.

  “Ray,” she said, “this is Kay.”

  “Yeah, baby, what you need?”

  “Ray, Ruthie is gone. She’s gone, Ray. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”

  There was silence.

  “Ray, take a deep breath. Tell me, do you understand what I’ve just said?”

  “Yeah,” Paw whispered. “Yeah, I do.”

  “Do you have somebody with you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Go to the West Feliciana Hospital. That’s where she is.”

  Paw started to cry.

  “Ray, I love you.”

  “I love you too, Katie.”

  Tim passed the ambulance on Highway 61, on its way to the hospital. When he got to Starhill there was Mike, sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair, with his head in his hands. Ronnie Morgan and his wife, Carolyn, were there with him. As Tim approached Mike broke down in tears.<
br />
  “She’s gone. She’s died. My baby’s gone.”

  Mam wheeled her white SUV into the gravel in front of Ruthie’s house, slammed on the brakes, jumped out, and demanded, “Where’s my baby?!” She did not remember—or more likely, could not accept—the telephone conversations that had just taken place in her presence. Maybe Ruthie would be there after all. Maybe her body wasn’t really at the hospital.

  Carolyn tried to embrace Mam, but Mam brushed past and stood before Mike, who sat on a chair, hunched forward.

  “Mike, we need to go to the hospital to be with Ruthie,” Mam said. “You want me to take you?”

  Tim told Mam that Ruthie had passed away. For the first time Mam understood this nightmare was for real.

  “I knew this day was coming,” Mam wailed. “Oh, my baby, my baby. My Mike, my Mike. Come here, baby. We lost our Ruthie.”

  Mam took Mike into her arms.

  “Where is my baby, Tim?” she asked. “I want to see her.”

  “Listen,” Tim said, deflecting the question. “They’re taking her to the hospital. They’re doing CPR. They’re doing everything they can do. Mike said it was really, really bad, Miss Dot, but she hasn’t been pronounced. We’re going to go to the hospital, and we’re going to see. But I’m really distressed about this situation, and I don’t think there’s going to be a good outcome.”

  Kay turned to Mam and said, “Honey, she’s in a better place now. She’s not hurting. Let’s go to town and tell her good-bye.”

  Mam and Kay helped Mike climb into Mam’s Ford. The three of them drove on to the hospital in St. Francisville, with Tim following. Nobody said a word.

  At some point Tim called Laura at home and told her Ruthie was dead. She jumped into her Suburban and headed out to Starhill. She passed Mam and Mike driving north, with Tim behind them, signaling for Laura to call him. On the phone Tim told her to head out to school to pick up Claire and Rebekah.

  Laura phoned the office at Bains Elementary and asked to speak to Dot Temple, the principal, who is also Abby’s mother.

  “She’s in a meeting.”

  “No, I need to speak to Mrs. Temple,” Laura insisted.