Starts with K
Grief, it is said, is the price of love.
It was a heavy week, both nationally and in my own life.
As I write this column on Sept. 13, we are three days removed from another political assassination. There was a school shooting that day, too, the nation’s 47th attack on academic grounds in 2025.
I have no words of wisdom. I refuse to join the cacophony of empty words about how “something has to change!” No kidding.
But while we’re all defending our respective stances about gun ownership and rights and resistance to change, bodies continue to drop, families continue to mourn – that price of love – and politicians continue to point the other way.
On Sept. 8, my sister texted our sibling group chat. Her husband of 49 years was being placed on life support after a brief illness. Their children – including a son stationed in Qatar – were summoned home to Virginia.
A day later, he was gone. Ours was a complex relationship; I didn’t think he was kind to my sister, he didn’t think it was any of my business. We were both right. My sister, niece and nephews are grieving, and his grandchildren are devastated. The price of love.
Three days later, a call from a church friend. One of the most precious women to ever occupy a pew at the Presbyterian Church in Claremont had just hours to live. She was 91, but when I tell you I was stunned, believe it.
Her name was Ruby Gray, and she is who I hope to be when I grow up. Her 68-year marriage to her husband Don was the purest relationship I’ve ever seen.
This is how impactful Ruby was in the Fate household:
When my children hit their teens, their choices were often … less than sound, shall we say? This was always my advice as they ventured out: “If you’re thinking about doing something that you wouldn’t want Ruby Gray to know about, you probably shouldn’t do it.”
I’m serious. She was the barometer of behavior, and while I know my sons still did plenty of things Ruby would have rolled her eyes or grimaced about, it sent a message.
She never would have judged them, though. She always listened with compassion, then put things in perspective with a sincere, yet frank, “ah, heck. What do you do? Just keep going.”
Ruby was also an unwitting stand-in for my mom, who died before I was finished needing maternal advice, and before my sons understood what it meant to have a grandma who loved unconditionally.
She made all of my kids – and dozens of others, I’m sure – a beautiful afghan in their school colors, and gave it to them for high school graduation.
She never missed sending a birthday card, or an anniversary card to my husband and me.
She made angel food cakes and probably thousands of her fabulous monster cookies for church events. Every week, it was Ruby who provided flowers fresh from her yard for our altar; in the winter, she brought her vibrant plants.
She ordered Easter lilies for our sanctuary every spring; she was the poinsettia organizer every Christmas season, without fail.
She showed up to every event, always the quietest person in the room, but her very presence felt … confident, and safe.
A farm wife from the jump, she had a physical and emotional strength that amazed me. She never complained – and with me, she had plenty of opportunity.
She tolerated me calling her Reuben, shaking her head and laughing.
Ruby died just a few hours after that call; we told her goodbye Sept. 19, in a church filled with fresh flowers and cardinals – because what else would someone named Ruby collect?
I will miss her more than I can say. It’s the price of love.