Ruth loved life but now she needs to go
I heard from a former Bell operator not long ago. Her name is Ruth Mutton, and she called about a piece I’d written on the beautiful Coppley building on York Boulevard downtown.
Ruth told me that when she was a Bell employee in the 1940s, the trainers would try to stump new operators by asking really quickly for numbers for companies with long names.
And a favourite was Coppley Noyes & Randall Wholesale Clothing. Say that 10 times fast.
We had a good chat. Ruth is 91. I asked if she’s as healthy as she sounds.
“No,” she said. “I’m waiting to slowly die. I see myself going downhill.”
That’s when our conversation turned to Canada’s new Medical Assistance in Dying Act.
I asked Ruth if she’d be OK talking about that. “Absolutely,” she said.
So here we are, at the kitchen table of Ruth’s apartment near the Mountain Brow. Her daughter Ruth Ann has joined us.
The war was on and Ruth Atkin was in her third year at Westdale Secondary when her parents gave her permission to take that job at Bell. It was the summer of 1941, and she was 15. She had the voice and temperament to do the job well.
In 1950 Ruth married Russ Mutton, which in those days meant she’d soon need to be leaving Bell. Then they started having kids — Danny, Howard, Linda, Ruth Ann, Jeffrey, Wayne, Karen. The family budget was tight, but Ruth knew how to sew. She was a pro.
For her family, she made the kids’ clothes. And to bring in money, she made dresses. Her specialty, wedding gowns and bridesmaids’ dresses — hundreds and hundreds of them.
Ruth lost Russ 32 years ago, a heart attack at 64. Within four months, Ruth had sold the house on East 21st and moved into the apartment near the Brow that is still home today. She had a bright room for the sewing machine and, because she never drove, it was handy to be within walking distance of the shops along Concession.
In the past few years, Ruth lost all three of her brothers.
“They went in order and left me sitting here,” she says.
And there is the heartache of losing her youngest son, 16 years ago when he was 43.
Ruth has had a pacemaker for a couple of decades. And she should have had a new hip several years ago. But the doctors were concerned about her heart. They did the tests, declared there’s no way she’d survive a hip operation.
So it’s bone on bone with her hip. Her knee too. And breathing becomes harder every day. Last fall, Ruth Ann says, she could take her mother for nice walks along the Brow. “Now we’re lucky to make it down the hall as far as the elevator.”
Ruth has decided this is no way to live. She has made her will. She has made her Do Not Resuscitate order, and it’s right there on the fridge. She has made eight envelopes for her grandchildren.
And she has written her obituary, with lots of detail — her committee work at Mount Hamilton United, her dressmaking, the Bell days, her 50-year membership with TOPS. (That stands for Take Off Pounds Sensibly, and a long time ago Ruth weighed nearly 300 pounds.)
Now she just needs to die. Ruth Ann is on side, but some in the family are not.
Ruth, however, believes this is how it must be. No nursing home, no prolonged death. She’s looking at next steps now.
She will talk to the people at Dying With Dignity. Then to her doctor.
The perfect way, she says, would be in her big recliner in the living room — with her children who want to be there, and a glass of gin and Fresca.
“I really enjoyed life, but it’s time to let me go,” she says. “I feel there’s a peace coming. I’m not afraid at all.”