Last August I wrote about one of my muses in My Cousin Ruth’s Statuesque Leg.
Yesterday afternoon, Ruth slipped into a coma. While we’re waiting for her to wake up, I think about bunk beds and horses and camping; and sledding down an icy hill one Christmas in Independence, Missouri, and running into a parked car; and discovering burritos at Taco Bell in Huntington Beach, California; and sitting outside on her deck one night in Bollingbrook, Illinois, and singing so loudly a neighbor came to see what was wrong; and laughing hysterically at Garrison Keillor’s rendition of “The Twelve Days of Christmas” while her adult children looked on in dismay; and singing the first two lines of “Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott” so she would be stuck on it the rest of the day; and handing her a note that said, “Fourscore…,” just before we marched down the aisle at my wedding because I knew she would remember Paul Ford in “The Music Man” and therefore would laugh through the ceremony; and watching a video of “Chicken Run” together and knowing exactly which lines would make her laugh.
Kathy Waller 
Such a life is a true work of art.
Thinking of you, Kathy, and of Ruth. I remember the post well – it was one of the first of yours I came across.
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Thank you, Kate.
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She slipped into a coma. Just like that. She’s too young to slip into a coma. We’re not ready for mortality. And I notice something fascinating. After all we hear about “your life passing before your eyes” at the end, nobody has yet mentioned that your life may pass before lots of eyes … when it looks like it might be the end.
May you find comfort and strength in that life review, and may the life continue for decades yet to come to create more memories and more life to review on another occasion.
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I’d never thought of it like that–your life passing before lots of eyes.
Thanks for your words. We’re hopeful.
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