Today I celebrate and honor the origins of one of my oldest and closest relationships–today I celebrate the birth of my “baby sister” Ruth. It is hard to describe the depth of my relationship with Ruth. As is true with many siblings, we fought a lot and during our childhood years, she drove me crazy. I eventually came to realize–in my early adulthood (early 20s I think)–that Ruth was one of the sweetest people I’d ever met. (I can imagine her rolling her eyes and saying, “Oh please, Ter.”) I don’t know as much about her life now as I did when we were younger and growing up, but I do know that as a child there was not a mean bone in her body.
Perhaps that is part of why she drove me so crazy. She tagged along behind me always wanting to be part of what I was doing (she is four years younger than I am) and I never seemed to be able to get away from her. I was mean to her, yelling at her, excluding her from what I was doing, even being physically abusive to her at times. Rather than be deterred by this exceedingly unkind behavior, undaunted, she kept coming back around. My mother used to try to reason with me. “Your sister waits excitedly for her big sister and brothers to come home from school every day. She sees the bus coming and is ready to run out to meet you. And look at how you treat her.” I probably snorted and shrugged it off, as I was want to do back then, not recognizing that what Mom said was a true reflection of the genuine love Ruth had for all five of her older siblings, and especially for me and the brother just older than me. The three of us were kind of like a subset of the six–closer in age and got into more trouble together than did the older three.
When I was about 24 I was suddenly struck by how mean I had been to Ruth. She and I were sitting at our sister Sandy’s house in Washington, DC. I think we were both visiting there for Thanksgiving or something–Ruth from college in Connecticut and me from graduate school in Pennsylvania. I can’t even remember what precipitated it, but suddenly I burst into tears and said to Ruth, “I am so sorry for all the times I was mean to you when we were kids. I was so terrible to you. Can you please forgive me?” Now mind you, I was/am not the kind of person who suddenly bursts into tears, so this was rather unusual. Although she was likely somewhat taken aback by this, she nonetheless calmly replied, “Well of course I forgive you, silly.” And that is the essence of Ruth–loving, forgiving, caring, compassionate and all those kinds of adjectives that describe the kind of person I would like to be.
The cynical part of some people might say, “Pshaw, nobody is completely like that.” And it’s probably true that no one completely embodies the qualities that we would ascribe to saints and holy people. But saints and holy people were also human and subject to human frailties and emotions. Like anyone else, Ruth gets cranky and ill-tempered, overwhelmed and anxious, fearful and uncertain. But those things are not her essential nature, and sooner or later, regardless of what whirlwinds or tumultuous events are swirling in her life, her gentle, loving nature always finds its way to the fore. I will restate for this record at least–and I invite and encourage my siblings and those who know her well to support (or even challenge if you feel it important) my assertion–that Ruth Chamblee is one of, if not the sweetest, most loving people I know.
I don’t wax deeply emotional or sentimental very often in this blog, but I find myself with tears of gratitude and deep, deep respect, love, appreciation and admiration for my baby sister Ruth. She is my example and role model for so many things and I am blessed beyond measure to have her in my life. Today I am praying for and wishing all good things for her as she celebrates her birthday. I hope she feels as loved and blessed by the people around her as I have felt being in her presence all these years.
In 1976 in honor of “Little Sister Weekend” at my college, I wrote and performed a song in honor of my little sister Ruth. Enjoy, “Little Sister” and celebrate Ruth Chamblee with me today.
(P.S. I realized somewhat belatedly after I’d re-recorded the song and written this blog that I’ve written about my admiration for Ruth before. You can see that at http://walkinyourpower.com/blog/?p=369. So what can I say, she inspires me!)
Little Sister Where are you, my little one, who followed me around? Where’ve you gone? Where have you gone? It seems I haven’t seen you for so long. Where’ve you gone? Oh, where have you gone? Well there you are, my old friend. Hey kid, where have you been? Well you’ve grown up much too fast Or am I living in the past? Hello Little Sister, my old friend. I remember how we argued and we fought. Those were the days, those were the days. We didn’t care if it was right or not. Those were the days, Oh, those were the days. Hey kid, do you remember when, Those days when you were my best friend? Well you’ve grown up much too fast, Or am I living in the past? Hello Little Sister, my old friend. Well you’re not so little any more. Where’ve I been? Where have I been? I guess I never noticed it before. Where’ve I been? Oh, where have I been? When I look at you I smile at what I see; ‘Cause you’re everything I knew that you could be. Well, you may be pretty tall and make me look pretty small; But you’ll always be Little Sister to me.© Marquita T. Chamblee, 1976
© Marquita T. Chamblee, 2012
