Deepwell mourns its friend

As the people of Deepwell struggled with the challenges posed by Ruby’s will, they posted their thoughts here in this blog – as well as events in their lives and the occasional bit of news about the bequest. Most of it is mundane I guess, but some of it I find quite profound. It’s all in reverse chrono order, so best if you start with the oldest posts and work your way up.

But maybe you don’t want to read it. You’re time-pressured, darn it! You shout, “Etta, GET TO THE POINT!” Okay. The point is: It was really hard to think about caring – but it was really necessary, too. It was really hard to talk to others about caring – but that was really necessary, too. In the end, thanks to the hundreds of people who shared, some amazing things happened and some really true things were revealed about the future of caring.

I especially want to thank the people who wrote to us about loss, who gifted us with wisdom they learned through hard experience. Because we in Deepwell are in loss today – one among us, Phil Geddings, has died of leukemia. You don’t know Phil – he didn’t post to this blog, or end up telling his story at Ruby’s Bequest. Like so many people, he was too caught up in caring for real to afford the luxury of talking about it in the abstract. But most of us here in Deepwell knew Phil, many of us worked with him (or wanted to).  He was one of those people you can openly like right away – he was so clearly a team player, and everyone was on his team. Regarding Ruby’s Bequest, he was very much with us in spirit – he still is – and our hearts go out to his family and friends.  Photo by Shad0.

I’m engaged!!!!

James has asked me to marry him. I’m thrilled, I’m ecstatic but mostly I’m really, really happy.

You know none of this would have happened if it wasn’t for Ruby Wood (who I still keep thinking of as an actual person who exists, its really hard for me not to).
If it wasn’t for the Bequest and the DCI and Columbia we wouldn’t have had the Mental Health Center and James would never have moved to Deepwell.

So I have Ruby Wood et all and all parties involved to thank for my happiness. Well ok, I have myself to thank for that because I have learned so much in the last few years about actually being happy. When I look back to January 2010, it’s surreal. I like myself now and I’m not sure that I did back then.

I am so fulfilled with the Furry Friends Foundation and working at the Deepwell Mental Health Center and my friends and family. I love taking Greta and Ingrid to the Deepwell Senior Day Center or the Ida May Foundation Altzheimer Institute and seeing faces light up. Its amazing the reactions we get, some from people who have not interacted with anyone else. We are branching out and I have volunteers from Ackley, Robertson and Austinville. This is pretty much the most fulfilling and inspiring thing I have ever done. I used to be so busy but I think I just kept going and going and going because if I stopped for just a minute, I would realize how unhappy I was.

Now I enjoy just taking a moment to just “Be”. We have been though a lot of ups and downs these last few years but hopefully we have all learned how to take care of each other and most importantly for me, how to take care of myself.

Also the weirdest thing has happened and I’m not quite sure how to feel about it. I mean I’m happy for them but it’s going to take some getting used to. My brother Nate has started dating my best friend Sam. It’s weird, I’m not gonna lie but they are so happy together. They are good for each other.

Love really does make the world go ’round.

We ended up with a DCI of 258. You know what? The Ida May Foundation has given Tau to more people than that. Silvercare has touched more people than that. More than 258 people have participated in Kids Care. So you know what I say? Rot to the DCI.

We know how much we care, and that amount is limitless. It can’t be counted in numbers, because we don’t have the vocabulary.

So even though this part is over, the whole cussed Bequest part (and all the pain it brought back when the story came out), rest assured that Deepwell cares more than anyone will ever know. But I, for one, am darned sure happy not to have to jump through a dead woman’s hoops anymore.

I love you all. Keep on caring.

Honestly, I had given up. Padma and I hit a brick wall in our database inquiries a few years ago, and with all the other things going on in town and my PODCare commitments, I just didn’t have the time or the energy to push further. I knew Ruby must be an alias, or a nom de plume, but I wasn’t getting any hits on that name. Then Nora went to France with her French class for their new Study and Care Abroad program. She came back with a charming accent and an iPod full of French music, among other things. The evening she returned home, she hung out in the kitchen with Brian and me, chattering away about the Louvre, and volunteering at l’hôpital, and plugged her iPod into the dock so she could set the mood. While we made supper (bouillabaisse, in Nora’s honor) we listened to Charles Aznavour, and Edith Piaf, and even some Maurice Chevalier. Then the song, “Puits profond de mon coeur,” poured into the room, with a smoky, sad voice. It’s been a long time since my one year of high school French, but even I could recognize the words “deep” and “well.” Oh yeah, Nora exclaimed, I thought that was cool, a French song with “deep well” in the title. It’s by an old singer named Rubi du Bois. I dropped my ladle in shock. It couldn’t be a coincidence!

So now I had a name and a place. Rubi du Bois in Paris, circa 1970, the year the song came out.  Was this really our Ruby?  I learned everything I could about her, depending on Nora and Google to translate as most of the material I found was in French.  The best I could piece together was that Rubi had moved to Paris in the 60s, and, most important, there was a mention of a sister named Evelyn who lived in Chicago.  I knew I was on the right track.  Evelyn must have lived in Deepwell at some point.

There haven’t been that many Evelyns in Deepwell over the years, which helped.  If you’ve lived in Deepwell for as long as MeelieSue and Brian’s parents and a few others have, you may have heard the sad story of Richard and Evelyn Broward.  That family was in the newspaper quite a few times over the years, none of it good.  Out of respect for the family, I’ll not repeat the stories here, but the curious can come down to the library and read the microfiche just like I did.  Just keep in mind that this is someone’s personal history, and there is still a lot of pain out there.

So things being what they are, I have put faces to those long-ago names and I know something that Etta doesn’t, for probably the first time since we both moved to Deepwell, heh. Ruby was originally Rosemary, and she is Etta’s aunt.

Rosemary Alice Carr, aka Rubi du Bois, aka Ruby Wood, died September 12, 2009 in Paris, and was cremated and interred there, the only place she truly felt at home.  Her gift to Deepwell was her attempt to reconcile with her past, and give hope for the future.  There is one other person who plays a part in this story, but I think she needs to tell her side of things for herself.  And no, it’s not Etta.  Although I’m sure Etta has a few questions of her own.

R, if you’re out there and you’re reading this, please speak up.

Well the cat is out of the bag since James and I were spotted walking in downtown Deepwell hand in hand. but it’s ok now, it’s been five months. James and I met at the Deepwell Community Mental Health Center where I am volunteering (earning my rubies!!) and he works as a Psychiatric Social Worker. We don’t really work too closely so it’s not uncomfortable or weird. I’m just really happy right now.

Someone else who seems really happy is Sam. She has joined a Panic Support Group at the Center and participates via their Telemedicine/e-health program, using a webcam and Skype. It has helped her a great deal to have more close interaction with others who have Agoraphobia and Anxiety Disorders. I can’t wait for the day when she can walk right into the center on her own.

Also as some of you know I have decided to start a small non-profit organization bringing therapy animals to the Deepwell Senior Day Center, the Mental Health Center and the Pediatric ward of the hospital in Robertson. It is a lot of work but I have decided to give up some other activities, mainly civic and political, in favor of this, which feels more fulfilling to me. One of the interesting things I have discovered is that several of our clients at the Mental Health Center already have service animals, mainly for Bi Polar Disorder and even a couple for anxiety related issues.

But here is a huge new development, with all this talk of therapy animals, Sam has gotten a therapy dog. It’s a cute Lhasa Apso named Suki. The change in Sam has been amazing! She is even walking Suki up and down her street!!

Throughout all of this, I’ve known that I’ve been avoiding a big caring issue in my own life. I knew I had to sit down with my father and talk about the future. My father lives up in Wisconsin, far from the rest of the family. I often wondered what we would do if something happened to him, but it wasn’t something we ever really talked about. Well, I finally bit the bullet. I sat him down and we talked. It wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and I don’t really know why I was ever avoiding it in the first place. All I really had to do was start the conversation and my dad rambled on and let me know everything he wanted. So here it is. Seventeen minutes of our heart-to-heart talk. (Can you take it?)

Hopefully, it might help someone else get up the nerve to start the same conversation with their parents.

Best maybe if I use an actual example, and YOU tell ME what this all means.

The circle starts with Hap

So this example starts with Hap Drupa, who lives three blocks from me. Hap is 70ish, widowed, and a bit lonely I guess. His son Tad, who lives in Atlanta, bought him a smart home setup and calls Hap quite often, but still. Hap wants “real people.” So Tad posts a request on PODCare, saying “will someone come take my dad for a walk once a week? Get him out of his bathrobe?” (LOL, Hap is not the lounge-in-bathrobe type)

So Andrea responds and says yeah, she’ll do it. Andrea’s in a wheelchair, which is kinda perfect, because shifted into low she and Hap cruise at the same relaxed pace. Tad wants to pay Andrea but she says “nuts” to that. BUT in an inspired moment Andrea gets on Silvercare and pokes around in Atlanta, and sure enough she finds Trish who’s looking for some casual help once a week with her grown daughter, Meg, who has cerebral palsy. So Andrea asks Tad if he will pay Andrea back by looking in on Trish and Meg instead?

Well this suits Tad fine because his daughter Kylie (you keeping this all straight? cuz there will be a quiz later) has community service goals in her school. So Tad and Kylie visit Trish and Meg there in Atlanta, and often Tad will call Hap from there, so it gets to be like a happy family.

So now Kylie meets Andrea, and they pal or friend or bf or however the young’uns verb it these days, and now I understand Kylie is helping Andrea on this biology game about the nervous system that Andrea runs for Deepwell High students every year as part of Kids Kare.

Now what’s amazing (to me) is: this is starting to happen all the time. PODCare and Kids Kare and Silvercare are all starting to use one another to build these “circles of caring,”often involving quite a few people who may be scattered all over. Or, I should say, these circles of caring are using PODCare and Kids Kare and Silvercare to build themselves. And they are really creative!

Now the part I had the most trouble with: making all this into an economy. dr00 for one has been saying that we could create a currency of caring, with money (called “rubies”) that people earn and spend, and I could never quite see it. Until Andrea had me talk with Kylie last week.

Kylie earns rubies because she helps with Meg and because she helps with Andrea. She’s really proud of the rubies she earns. Really proud. But that is nothing compared to how proud she is that she gives rubies to her grandfather, Hap, that he uses to help pay for his care. It’s forged a sort of secret bond between them.

Up to then I thought that rubies were about valuing caring – you know, like money. But now I see that they are about honoring caring. As dr00 says, we finally can make visible the vast amount of caring that goes on all around us every day.

So now I’m wondering: what other possibilities for “circles of caring” exist now that’s the year 2014? Do you see ways that this connectivity could help YOU care better? Have you earned (or spent) rubies lately? Please let me know, by going here or by email or by calling 1-888-64-RUBYS.

I must say, Kids Kare has succeeded in ways I never thought possible. We started out with adding caring issues to the curriculum at the schools, added a few after school activities and the next thing you know, we’re working with Americorps on the summer volunteer program and Columbia University sets up a research station here. Even some of Obama’s people stopped by to check us out. Pretty amazing, huh?

Now that Kids Kare, PODcare and Silvercare are joining forces, you can bet your rubies that we’ll be unstoppable!