The Little Way of Ruthie Leming: A Southern Girl, a Small Town, and the Secret of a Good Life (38 page)

These are my people. This is where I’m from. Ruthie showed me that.

I have wandered in my own way for half my life, and have no regrets. That was my role for a time. Now, though, I want to track, at my own pace and rhythm, the Little Way of Ruthie Leming.

If you had driven past the Starhill cemetery late one hot night in May, you might have seen strange figures lingering around a grave in the bottom under the hill. After a year-end meeting at school, Abby Temple, Ashley Harvey, Karen Barron, Jennifer Bickham, Tori Percy, and Rae Lynne Thomas came to be with Ruthie on her birthday. They called Mike, who met them there. They opened a bottle of wine, poured seven glasses, and drank to the memory of their brown-eyed girl. There, where all the dead of Starhill are gathered round, they laughed and told stories, and remembered the good times. Had you been there on that night under the live oaks and the crape myrtles, you would have seen that even from the grave, Ruthie Leming bestows life on those who are willing to receive it.

THE END

Acknowledgments

It is difficult to find people at the very top of the journalism profession who are humble, kind, and generous, but David Brooks is exactly that. His columns in the
New York Times
opened the door for me to tell the story of my sister, my family, and my community. I owe him more than I can ever repay. Gary Morris, my agent, believed in Ruthie’s story, and advocated for it beautifully. I thank my editor, John Brodie, for also believing in this story, for making it incomparably better than it would otherwise have been. The man has earned a platter of oysters and a bottle of cold Sancerre—and I promise not to insist that metaphysics is a reliable guide to dinner.

I also owe a debt of gratitude to Steve Waldman, Gary Rosen, and Wick Allison, all of whom at some point gave me the opportunity to write a blog, from which this book was eventually born. Additionally parts of the narrative appeared in an earlier form in a column on
National Review Online
, and in a piece in the
Wall Street Journal
; my thanks, respectively, to Rich Lowry and Erich Eichman for publishing my work. My blog readers, too, have my deep appreciation; their loyalty over the years makes my vocation possible. I also owe a profound debt of gratitude to Howard and Roberta Ahmanson, whose generosity pulled me out of a deep hole and gave me my writing career back.

Ruthie had been dead only four months when I began interviewing her family and friends for this book. It was difficult for some—especially in her family—to speak of her so soon. I am grateful
to them for their courage, and in particular want to thank Mike Leming. Mike is a man of strong emotion but few words. Only four months after the love of his life died in his arms, he opened his heart to me for this book. Watching that good man tell of his life and times with Ruthie, and her death, felt to me like standing at the base of a mountain during an avalanche. He knew, though, that sharing his part of the story with the world was both the greatest tribute he could give to Ruthie and an enduring legacy for their children. This book would not have been possible without him. Along these lines, I thank Hannah, Claire, and Rebekah Leming for talking to me about their mother, and for allowing me to invade the privacy of their lives for the sake of telling others about Ruthie’s life and legacy. The same is true of Ray and Dorothy Dreher, my parents, who did not find it easy to talk so intimately about their daughter so soon after her death. Their openness and courage have bequeathed to generations of our family yet to be born a priceless inheritance.

The people of Starhill, and of West Feliciana, have my profound thanks, first for what they gave to my family in our time of need; second, for sitting with me for hours, talking about Ruthie; third, for welcoming us so warmly. “I hope you know how special that place is,” said a Washington journalist friend. “You come from one of the last real places in America.” I do, and I do. I hope they will read this book as a tribute to their own capacity for love and generosity. Ruthie’s story is their story too. It is my honor to be able to tell the rest of the world about these fine people.

In part this is a book about the difference in a life a teacher can make. Writing it, and talking to people whose lives were changed for the better by Ruthie’s love for them in the classroom, made me more aware of the debt of gratitude I have to my own teachers. First and foremost, there is Nora Marsh, who rescued me. My deepest thanks also goes to the teachers and staff of the Louisiana School for Math,
Science, and the Arts, in Natchitoches, who took a sad, lost kid and gave him a new life.

A number of friends read various pieces of this manuscript during the writing process. I am indebted to them for the gift of their time, and for their advice. I’m thinking in particular of Dewey and Michelle Scandurro, Leroy Huizinga, Erin Manning, Sela Ward, Jason McCrory, Paul Myers, Thomas Tucker, Josh Britton, Frederica Mathewes-Green, Mike Leming, Dorothy Dreher, John and Mia Grogan, Stephanie Lemoine, Abby Temple Cochran, John Bickham, Steve “Big Show” Shelton, James and Ashley Fox-Smith, and Tim and Laura Lindsey. They all helped me to tell this story more truthfully. To the extent I have fallen short of that goal, the fault is my own.

Finally I owe everything to my wife, Julie, and my children, Matthew, Lucas, and Nora. Writing a book is a family affair. Julie made it possible for me to devote long hours to this book. She knew how important it was to our family, and to me personally, to tell this story. She is my best reader, and my best friend. The kids stood every night with their parents before our icons, and prayed for Dad to do a good job on his Aunt Ruthie book. I trust the Lord heard them. Their father loves and cherishes them, and hopes they, along with their Leming cousins of Starhill, will treasure this true story of faith, hope, love, and family—
our
family—take it into their hearts, and build on what they have been given. May they know that wherever they go in this world, their father’s love and their father’s blessing goes with them. And may they rest assured that they can always, always come home.

About the Author

ROD DREHER has been a writer and editor at
The Dallas Morning News
and a columnist and critic for
National Review
, the
New York Post
, and
The American Conservative
. Dreher is a popular writer on issues of religion, culture, and localism. David Brooks called him “one of the country’s most interesting bloggers.”

The author’s first book,
Crunchy Cons
, was published in Crown Forum hardcover in 2006.

Ruthie Dreher Leming, February 2010, days after her cancer diagnosis.
Courtesy of Jeannie Frey Rhodes

Ruthie at age five.

Mam, Rod, Ruthie, and Paw, on the day Rod left for Washington, DC; 1992.

Mike Leming and Ruthie Dreher; December 30, 1989.

Mike arriving home in Starhill from his tour of duty in Iraq; July 14, 2008.

Aunt Hilda
(left)
and Aunt Lois
(right)
holding baby Rod; 1968.