My Mother Ruth Green
by Thomas R. Green
Submitted March 5, 2005

I wish I could be here with you all today to pay my due respects to my mother Ruth. Yet I was blessed that I was able to come spend time with her in Tucson before her death. I was blessed to be able to hold her hand, stroke her hair, and give her what comfort I could at a time of great difficulty for her. I think that time that I spent with her was much more important to her than would be my being able to be here today. We loved each other dearly and were able to say our goodbyes. I finally said goodbye to her just this January 31st. She fell to sleep after super human effort on her part to stay awake and keep me with her as long as possible.

Mom after the Inca City of Machu Pichu

I wish I could have had more time with her not just recently, but in this life. I have spent my adult life so far away. But Ruth learned to love to travel and we traveled together as the best of friends and companions. We shared interests in seeing different cultures and places and we crowded as much into those trips that we made together as we could. From Italy to Spain, Sri Lanka to Africa, East Coast to West Coast. We saw a lot of places and things together and it was a joy to my heart to spend those times with her. I will remember them for as long as I live and cherish each and every moment that I was able to share those times with her. For me there was no greater joy than to show mom the world. She relished every moment of those trips and kept a record of all her travels in a diary so that she could go back to her writings and photos and travel again and again reliving those experiences.

There are many photos from those numerous trips that we took together. Perhaps my favorite is one of her standing at the feet of a colossal statue of Ramsees II within the temple at Abu Simbel. Mother is holding her hat and looking up in amazement at the wonders of the ancient world there around her. It was my pure joy to bring her to these amazing places to see first hand the wonders of this world. Ruth became such an avid lover of travel she made trips to far corners of the world where none of us would have taken her for fear of her age and health. She went as far as the peaks of Machu Pichu and travels through Turkey. She learned to love travel as a little girl with her father and carried on that wonder lust after my father�s death. Ruth was a wonderful and curious spirit who appreciated people as they were and not for how she thought they should be. Her open mindedness and gentle nature was precious. I know our father loved her so much for those qualities.

I will sorely miss those virtues of my mother. However they have not been extinguished along with the end of my mother�s life. Those qualities will live on in my memories of her. I love her dearly and she will always be closest to my heart, although I have been physically far away from her for all of my adult life, she has always been close to my heart. What time we did have together we made the very most of it. She was my best travel companion and no travels will now be the same without the joy of showing her new and marvelous things. I will miss her more than I can express in words. I will love her as long as I live. She was a marvelous woman and friend.

Thomas Robert Green
Thomas R. Green
Emerson & Green Hotel
P.O. Box 3417
Zanzibar, Tanzania
tel.255-(0/4)747-423266
fax.255-(0/4)747-429266
http://www.emerson-green.com
emerson&green@zitec.org anything@emerson-green.com

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Photos: Tom and Ruth Green Travel to Egypt & the World
Ruth Jane Green's Memorial Service at Old Mission

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Ruth Green Photos

Jim, Dave, Mom, and Rick before Tom was born.


Mom with a Friend on the steps of East High.


Mom with a Friend in 1942.

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Tom Green Photos

Tom in the backyard of the Murray Court Family Home.


Tom with his 3 brothers on a Cannon.


Tom with the family dog Puddles.