Like many people, March Madness was driving me bonkers. I needed something to change my emotions after the few ups and downs I was experiencing.
Wait, I should clarify here. I’m not talking about the all-eyes-on-college-basketball run for the national championship. No, I’m talking about the nutso scary stuff happening in Washington, D.C., with the folks running our nation. I've lost count of the technical fouls involving events there.
Things finally turned around a few days ago for me when I hugged someone I had not seen in decades. Seeing Ruby Coleman’s smile made most of the madness evaporate, at least for a while.
Here’s why. Many years ago, my dad was dealing with multiple strokes that left him confined to a wheelchair. He lived with me for a while, but being the independent person he was, he decided to be on his own.
Ed Pratt
We shopped around and found an assisted living facility that he liked. Always the talker, in a few months, he had become a member of the facility’s community room in-crowd.
For the most part, he was able to dress himself. Nurses would come by to check on him, and he found the independent lifestyle to his liking.
One day, a shy young woman came to visit her grandmother who lived in the building. While there, she met my dad, and they talked a bit.
Over time, she would stop to see him when she visited her grandmother. My dad became her unofficial grandfather. She would run errands for him and make sure he took his medicine.
Ruby never asked for nor accepted a dime.
Sometimes, Ruby would help straighten up the apartment, but mostly, she and he would sit outside and chat. When I dropped by, we all would have a good time. Ruby liked to hear my dad and me talk about anything.
“He always tickled me with what he talked about,” she said.
Ruby was not there every day, but every day she was there was special. She would encourage him to take his medicine and she would know if he had not been out visiting with the other residents.
When his health declined and my dad had to enter a full-time nursing facility, she would drop in when she could. “That was my buddy. I had to see him,” she said.
When my dad died, I tried to reach out to her, but I couldn’t find her. That’s when I realized I didn’t know that much about Ruby.
When my family and I were walking out of church at my dad’s funeral, a young woman was standing in a corner with her face in her hands, crying. It was Ruby. I went over to comfort her, then told her to ride in the family car to the gravesite. It lifted her spirits.
When we came back to the church, I waved goodbye with the idea that I would try to keep up with her. Sadly, that didn’t happen.
Flash forward around 20 years. A church member told me a few months ago that after church, she went to a local store and a clerk who worked there asked her what church she attended. “When I told her, she asked if Ed Pratt went there?” she told me. Ruby gave her some background on how she knew me. But how did she remember that’s the church I attended?
I was stunned and excited when my church member passed the information to me.
When I walked in and saw her last week, she knew immediately who I was, and we hugged. I told her again how much I appreciated what she did for my dad, and said that it was so good seeing her.
She smiled and said again, “That was my buddy.”
We took a photo and hugged, and I got her phone number, because she will be a part of my family. Ruby, who also works with preschool children, promised, “I’ll come by as long as y’all don’t have a dog,” she laughed.
On the way home, I promised myself that I would reach out more regularly to Ruby. She was, and is, a blessing.
Yep, the emotions of March Madness, both of them, don’t stand a chance against Ruby Coleman’s genuine goodness, kindness and thoughtfulness.