Ruth Deming (1945-2026)
My mother-in-law Ruth Deming died peacefully in her sleep Monday night after a long illness. It was time, for Ruth had been afflicted by the terrible disease of dementia. She was diagnosed a few years ago; after a fall in 2023, she stayed at home and was cared for by a small team including her children, Sarah and Dan, and longtime boyfriend Scott. Sarah was there three or four days a week, cooking for Ruth and reading her the great works of literature out loud. It was a rather bucolic couple of years, and when I visited, it felt like going to a spa. However, this situation could not last forever, and last December Ruth entered a memory care facility. It was a top-shelf situation but an institution is an institution: To her credit, Ruth seemed to let everything go at once and initiate a precipitous decline.
I always felt lucky to have Ruth as a mother-in-law. She was brilliant, funny, and bohemian. When we would visit she would read us poems and stories out loud, and from time to time she even crafted a poem specifically about me. Part of her inimitable style was hand-decorating every surface and object in the house; another idiosyncrasy was an endless parade of postcards mailed to all her friends and relations.
Ruth was a single mother who modeled creativity, drive, and unimpeachable ethics to her children. At one time she was quite active as a journalist, telling the stories of local artists and immigrants for multiple Pennsylvania publications, and, before that, she was a skilled pianist. Ruth told me that playing the tricky counterpoint of three and four part Bach fugues “made my brain feel hot.”
Unfortunately, it turned out that Ruth was bipolar, and had a serious manic episode when Sarah was a young teenager. (Ruth humorously tells this story in a great little short video from 2018.)
After stabilizing, Ruth turned her life around and reinvented herself as a therapist, leading New Directions, a popular bipolar support group that changed lives and perhaps even saved lives. She was a supportive and interested listener, the sort of person who wanted to know everyone’s life story, and had no qualms when interrogating a stranger. I myself have a hard time talking to people I don’t know, and would listen in awe when Ruth started up her perpetual motion machine of friendly conversation.
Ruth had four sisters and a brother; the brother died young, but I got to know some of Sarah’s aunts pretty well, including Donna, Ellen, and Lynn, all of whom stayed local. (Amy went out to the west coast.) Most families experience trauma; what matters is how you deal with the pain. On one occasion, I was driving and listening to Ruth and Donna telling stories in the back seat. Apparently their father Harold had a terrible temper, and Ruth and Donna were taking turns remembering occasions when they had disappointed Harold. Somehow the catch phrase concerning their father’s wrath became, “It was the worst day of my life.” But, the sisters had learned to process those moments as comedy, saying “It was the worst day of my life” while exploding with laughter. This was an unforgettable moment, a nexus of sensational and confounding emotion.
Sarah and I are going to be married twenty years in a couple of weeks, an anniversary that is something of a milestone. Now all our parents are dead, so between everything it feels like a new stage of life. I’m grateful for Sarah every day, but also feel that she showed me something unexpected and utterly moving in her devotion to Ruth in these last years. (Sarah had already given a kidney to Ruth over a decade ago.)
Ruth wanted a cremation, and the family will hold a celebration of life in the spring. Yesterday at the memory care facility we had a small send-off with a death doula, including personal stories, body-washing, and a final shroud with flowers and trinkets. Not every dementia patient maintains their equilibrium, but Ruth was always pleasant to be around, she smiled and joked even at the end. It will be easy to keep her memory as a blessing.
What a wonderful tribute. It clearly was a blessing to know her.
That may be the lovliest obituary I have ever read. My wonderful mother also had dementia at the end of her life. Thank you, Ethan, for bringing light into the world through your magnificent writing.