
{"id":5075,"date":"2009-03-05T11:42:13","date_gmt":"2009-03-05T19:42:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=5075"},"modified":"2009-03-05T11:42:36","modified_gmt":"2009-03-05T19:42:36","slug":"%e2%80%98we-can%e2%80%99t-all-be-stars-but-we-can-all-twinkle%e2%80%99","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2009\/03\/05\/%e2%80%98we-can%e2%80%99t-all-be-stars-but-we-can-all-twinkle%e2%80%99\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWe can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t all be stars, but we can all twinkle\u00e2\u20ac\u2122"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Valarie Schwartz<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Many social contacts this year have been made while saying goodbye to a beloved community member. At all such gatherings that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve attended, the deceased were blessedly ready to go, having lived long, fruitful lives, giving more of themselves to others than most of us ever consider providing outside our families. Though sadness permeated each occasion, the prevailing and lingering feeling was of the inspiration each brought by the life they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d led. <!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Sunday\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s cold rain could hardly have provided gloomier circumstances for celebrating a life, except that we were saying goodbye to the daughter of Swedish immigrants, who had reveled in her roots. That we ventured out with the promise of awakening the next day to snow must have suited her, especially as Bill and Libby Hicks lured us into closing with song and dance, the falling rain outside the windows behind them creating a backdrop. <\/p>\n<p>Though her name was Ruth Alfva Richard, everyone called her \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Richie.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d From the time I read her obituary (www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/sections\/obituary), I regretted having not known her; but knowing her kind and humble daughter Sherry Jones, a former neighbor, led me to attend The Chapel Hill home of Sherry and Rodney Jones was filled with people touched by the life Richie had made since moving to Carrboro in the 1970s. Richie was evident throughout the Jones home, from the art on the walls to the food on the table. Sherry pointed out a handwritten saying on the refrigerator that Richie had lived by: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153We can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t ALL be stars but we can ALL Twinkle.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>A slideshow of Richie made by Sherry\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s daughter, Katie, ran on two computers stationed where people could watch it and share their stories. One image projected her youthful beauty from the cover of a nursing magazine in 1938; another of her flight-attendant days. Tables were spread with her favorite foods \u00e2\u20ac\u201d crab cakes and shrimp, fresh fruit and vegetables, soft and ripe cheeses, ginger snaps and jams. <\/p>\n<p>One after another, family members and friends shared stories of the woman who found and shared adventures throughout her 95 years. <\/p>\n<p>Her daughter Patricia Thompson read a poem she wrote a few days after Richie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Richie loved life,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Pat concluded. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Her goal was to be useful.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Pat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s husband, Charles Thompson, said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Any time you met Richie was memorable,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as he shared his second meeting with her, at her home in New Hope, Penn., where the house was full \u00e2\u20ac\u0153of every variety of antiques,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d including an array of antique bowls and pitchers in the hallway. It was his first time in the home of a Northerner and, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I thought it was the way things were done in the North.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d He may have gotten a clue that Richie was not the norm when dinner was served and she pulled a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153braid of spaghetti\u00e2\u20ac\u009d from an elegant dish she called a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153thundermug,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d which he later learned was a Limoges chamber pot!<br \/>\nEnergetic and spunky, she left everyone with memories of her stories. <\/p>\n<p>She was a woman who, upon realizing one night that something strange lurked in her Elm Street driveway, threw a bowling ball into the dark and, though it didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t strike, scared up and away an owl; not your standard owl, but \u00e2\u20ac\u0153an Arctic owl.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d This story, which many had heard and loved repeating, leaves me with this Richie lesson: We can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t always know what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s waiting for us, but we can use what we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got to find out. It will be worth the effort, if only for the story we are left to tell.<\/p>\n<p>So here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153sk\u00c3\u00a5l\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to Richie, and thanks for a life well lived and remembered.<br \/>\nContact Valarie Schwartz at valariekays at mac dot com<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Valarie Schwartz Many social contacts this year have been made while saying goodbye to a beloved community member. At all such gatherings that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve attended, the deceased were blessedly ready to go, having lived long, fruitful lives, giving more of themselves to others than most of us ever consider providing outside our families. Though&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,28],"tags":[433],"class_list":["post-5075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-community","category-recently","tag-recently"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5075"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5077,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5075\/revisions\/5077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}