Beek on being

The phone calls come to me at different times throughout the day. But the topic is always the same, the deep lonesomeness she is experiencing. Though her schedule is always packed and the house filled with noise, the grief of losing a life partner and the solitude that comes with that sometimes gets to be too much for her bear. My mother Ruth Garber Shere talks about what it means to be widowed and what to do when that loneliness strikes. This is Beek on being WIDOWED

Creators and Guests

SC
Producer
Steven Chen
Songwriter/Composer, Producer, and residenet Recording/Mixing/Mastering Engineer at Penthouse Studios Miami. Credits include: The Emmys, Tyler Perry, French Montana, Love & Hip Hop ...

What is Beek on being?

A place for people to share personal and professional perspectives, talk openly and ask questions. From serious to silly to sublime it is all about making connections.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Hi, I hope you are well. This podcast is a place for people to share personal and professional perspectives, talk openly and ask questions. From serious to silly to sublime, it's all about communication and connection. Always coming from a place of kindness and curiosity, we talk about shared humanity, discuss ideas, and highlight people creating a better world. We've got to keep learning, keep growing, keep being.

Melissa Shere Beek:

I'm Melissa Beak, and this is Beak on Being. Hi, everyone. I hope you're well. Today's episode is Beak on Being Widowed. So today, I've got the mother of all mothers here, my mother.

Melissa Shere Beek:

We are discussing a very serious topic that we talk about often. What it truly means to lose your significant other? The after effects of such a great loss and the deep loneliness she has experienced. And what brings her strength to move forward so fiercely. So, Ma, introduce yourself and tell our listeners a little bit about you.

Ruth Garber Shere:

My name is Ruth Garber Sheer. My number one child has dragged me here. So, I don't know how dear and calm this is, but I fiercely have things I wish to say about the stigma of being a widow in groups of people that one has associated with for fifty years, and the loneliness.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Okay. Good. So, we're gonna get into not good, but we're gonna get into all of this. And I'm sorry, I know you were complaining before we started recording that I dragged you here, and you're not liking it at all. But I hope

Ruth Garber Shere:

That's true.

Melissa Shere Beek:

I hope that maybe in some small way, it helps you and helps maybe at least one listener out there who's experiencing

Ruth Garber Shere:

this I did come because I feel that all the years that my husband was ill, and all the years since I've been alone, that I might be able to help someone.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Okay, good. So, my my first thing is, I would love for you to tell my listeners the story of how you met daddy.

Ruth Garber Shere:

That story? Yeah. I want

Melissa Shere Beek:

that story. Don't leave out all the details that we love.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Leave all of them?

Melissa Shere Beek:

No. Tell us everything. How did you meet daddy?

Ruth Garber Shere:

He started calling me. He had dated my girlfriend. And in those days, there were too many fish in the sea as my nanny Rose would say. So one did not go out with someone who had gone out with a friend of yours. But she had given him my phone number because she told him I was pretty and I was smart and blah blah blah, and to give it to his roommate, Ira Cohn, whomever that is.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I never met him. So he started calling me, and he called me for six weeks, and I kept hanging up on him, and I said, you're a stalker. And, he was insistent. He he wanted to go out, and I said, no. And then I said, well, you're too old for me anyhow.

Ruth Garber Shere:

And finally, he would not stop and he was working. At that time, he was building in Pinecrest. And he said, would you just meet me in Sunnyland for a coffee? Well I was too young to really drink coffee so I had a tab and we met and it was cordial. Then he said can we go out Saturday night and I said well I have plans I go to this club on Saturday night because I like to dance and all my friends are there.

Ruth Garber Shere:

And I go and I'm wearing he comes to the door. Had there been someone behind me and had I not met him, I would have said Ruthie will be right out and kept on walking. He is in a gold velour V neck with an ascot. I'm wearing platforms, hip hugger jeans, bell bottoms, crop top, twiggy lashes, a bandana on my head, and that's how we looked. And so I had to go with him.

Ruth Garber Shere:

First of all, then he comes in his mother's car, which is this huge stretch limo Jaguar. So I'm mortified. My friends had VWs or what who knew the names of whatever cars they had. They were ancient. So we go to the club, and he's drinking.

Ruth Garber Shere:

In those days, we didn't drink.

Melissa Shere Beek:

You can say anything. Okay.

Ruth Garber Shere:

We we didn't drink. We smoked.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Right. So For clarification, you smoked pot.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Pot. So he goes up on the stage and starts and he's totally wasted. And he goes up on the stage and he starts playing the tambourine, but he had no rhythm and he was on the wrong beat. And I am mortified. And a guy is passing me with a tray of drinks and one of them looked like chocolate something.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I said, I'll have one of those. And I found out later it was a Kahlua and Cream. Well, had it. I told him I wanted to go home. I fell asleep in the car the entire way home.

Ruth Garber Shere:

So that was our first day. I said, you know, I never wanted to meet you. I never wanted to see you. Bye bye. You know, have a nice life.

Ruth Garber Shere:

And then he called me again the next day and he said, you know, you fell asleep on me. It's not right. Blah, blah, blah. I you owe me another chance. And he continued that entire week.

Ruth Garber Shere:

So on Saturday and then he said he was going to take me on his father's yacht. Well, I had never been anything bigger than a rowboat in Lake Echo in New Jersey. And I said, oh, well, I have no other plans Saturday night. So he picks me up and we go, but he starts chasing me from stateroom to stateroom. Later I find out he's like this big shot on Miami Beach and all the girls loved him and would do whatever he wanted.

Ruth Garber Shere:

So I went to the captain and I said to Steven, if you don't stop this, I'm gonna have the captain call the coast guard. So he took me back, and we went home, and I said, that's it. Do not ever ever call me again. I'm gonna have my father after you. My father was a tough New Jersey guy.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Sunday, that was Saturday night, Sunday morning I got a phone call, and I said, Listen, I have to get a restraining order. You're really nuts And and he said, No, no, no. I won't bother you again, but I think I left my wallet Yeah. In your purse.

Melissa Shere Beek:

That was his trick.

Ruth Garber Shere:

And I said, how dare you? And I looked, and the wallet was there. Meanwhile, he pulls up on his motorcycle and a pair of jeans and a T shirt, and he's hot as anything. And he comes in, and like he's a real normal nice human being, and we fell madly in love, and we got each other.

Melissa Shere Beek:

I love it.

Ruth Garber Shere:

That's that's how we and that was it. I mean, we just, like, clicked.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah. You did get each other. I think you guys were the yin and yang to each other. Yes. Because as wired and as wild as you were was as grounding and as mellow as he was.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Yes.

Melissa Shere Beek:

And so I think you balanced each other out. That was a very good story. I love that story. I just needed my listeners to know that story. Yeah.

Melissa Shere Beek:

It's a good one.

Ruth Garber Shere:

It was a good one.

Melissa Shere Beek:

It is a great one.

Ruth Garber Shere:

He had decided I was it.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah. And he pursued it until you you you actually asked. Asked. Yeah. Exactly.

Melissa Shere Beek:

A 100%. So so, unfortunately, this is all the great parts of the story. This is the we're talking today about you being widowed. And I wanted to give my listeners a little context about how that happened because the story of daddy is an amazing story for another time, but I'm gonna give my listeners a condensed version. So my father passed about ten years ago, almost ten years ago.

Melissa Shere Beek:

And for seventeen years prior to his passing, he was basically a miracle man surviving many, many, many unsurvivable health issues from a severe brain injury that left him in a coma, just about dead, resulting in over 12 brain surgeries, I think, and learning to walk and talk and eat and speak and do everything over again. Then he had stage four lung cancer with a pleural effusion, chemo, radiation, more extensive and serious life saving surgeries. And then unfortunately, he had a massive stroke leaving him to be an invalid for the last six years of his life. We were fortunate enough though that even though he was physically impaired, he was still so sharp mentally and with us. I mean, he was fucking incredible, and so were you, Ma, because you were his greatest champion and advocate.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I'm gonna make me cry.

Melissa Shere Beek:

No. It's okay. You want tissue?

Ruth Garber Shere:

No. I got a handkerchief.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Okay. I

Ruth Garber Shere:

don't blame you. It's okay.

Melissa Shere Beek:

But really, I think the strength of both of you is what helped him survive all of the unsurvivable assaults. And you've told me often when people ask you about saving him, you know, because you were heroic, and especially when the doctors said, you know, say goodbye. So many times they said, say goodbye to him. Get your affairs and orders. It's done.

Melissa Shere Beek:

You would say to the doctors with your skinny little finger and your red pointed nail right up in her face, because my mother is five two, and these doctors are like six something, and she'd stick her little fingernail right up almost into their nose, and she would say, you don't know me, and you don't know Steven. Right? In your

Ruth Garber Shere:

best in your best Jersey accent. He had a sign in his bedroom of a a stork half swallowing a frog, and the frog is saying, never give up. Right. And he wrote underneath it, never Right. Ever give up.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Right. But I I wanna introduce But

Melissa Shere Beek:

what I just wanna finish though, because you are the biggest badass bitch I have ever met, and it speaks to who you are that you never take no for an answer. And it speaks to who daddy was because he worked tirelessly to recover fully from everything because he never wanted to disappoint you. Right. That's true. I mean He was yeah.

Melissa Shere Beek:

I think so. So, where does that strength come from?

Ruth Garber Shere:

Well, I just heard something today, which fills in about daddy and maybe what you just asked me, which I didn't think about it in terms of myself. Mhmm. But I was listening to an orthodox rabbi, and he was talking to a group of people, and they said, the soul signs up for that light. Yeah. God presents all the good and all the bad, and I just heard this on the way Really?

Ruth Garber Shere:

Wow. And that soul has to sign that he's willing to accept it all. Mhmm. And that's how one becomes a sadiq, which daddy was.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Right. Right.

Ruth Garber Shere:

And I guess Right. I signed

Melissa Shere Beek:

you're up not for what a what a sadiq or a lamed vavnek is. It's in the Jewish tradition, it's eighteen Eighteen. Righteous souls that are on earth at any given time, and and they're there to really help heal the world and and help humanity. So where do you get all that strength from? Is it the jersey in you, or like, what really wait.

Melissa Shere Beek:

How are you so fierce that way?

Ruth Garber Shere:

I am. I was fierce with you girls too. Oh, we know that. There there is

Melissa Shere Beek:

Steven knows that now too.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I believe that each of us have a force, and we can either lay down Mhmm. And be walked on, or accept the trials and tribulations that Hashem has given us, or Push back. Push back and say, you know what? This is not gonna get me down. Listen, there was existential despair watching daddy.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Yeah. That was very difficult because he was

Melissa Shere Beek:

So sick.

Ruth Garber Shere:

So but he was so virile, and so strong, and so much in love with you girls. And then with his grandchildren that I think that gave me the strength so there would be a continuity in your lives of him still existing.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Okay. Good. Yeah. Sounds good. When you were when you were caring for him and you were in that caretaker role, did you feel at least that you had some sort of control of the situation that was going on because you were actively doing things to improve his health and well-being?

Melissa Shere Beek:

Total control. You always think you have total control. No.

Ruth Garber Shere:

It was total control. It was, teaching him to build a new sense as an individual in the position that he was. Mhmm. Which is hard for him because he's not as evolved, or I didn't think he was evolved as us. Oh, I

Melissa Shere Beek:

was gonna say I think he's But talking about meanwhile

Ruth Garber Shere:

I have proof here that he probably surpassed us by Yeah. A melanie. It's yeah. And we cherished we cherished every day. Right.

Ruth Garber Shere:

We really did. We firmly believed in never giving up.

Melissa Shere Beek:

No. I know that. I know you. I know you guys. Yeah.

Melissa Shere Beek:

And after he passed, did you feel this great loss of control, or did you have anger at the situation or anger at other people who still had their spouses? Like, what were what were your feelings? No, I never had anger.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I get angry at him

Melissa Shere Beek:

for Yeah. No, I know. Saying.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I know. I don't get angry at my life because I was so blessed. Yeah. I was so lucky. Yeah.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I had someone that was more than a partner. We Compliment to We were vulnerable, we were aligned, we got each other. There was an emotional loving depth that I had with daddy.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Mhmm.

Ruth Garber Shere:

That I thought was almost supernatural. Right. Really. Right. It was something that we were kindred spirits from many times over.

Ruth Garber Shere:

If one believes in that,

Melissa Shere Beek:

I do. I totally do. Yeah. What does it mean to you to be a widow? Like, when you when we think about, like, what is how do you define what a widow Okay.

Ruth Garber Shere:

But life didn't end with him, for me. Mhmm. It was different, so I had to have a new beginning.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Right. I like that. I like how you rephrase that. Yeah. Okay.

Melissa Shere Beek:

This new

Ruth Garber Shere:

Well, I had my girls, especially you, Melissa. Uh-huh. I mean, I could not have gone through any of this. You were by my side twenty four seven throughout everything over those seventeen years.

Melissa Shere Beek:

We were a fierce team.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Yes. We were. We were.

Melissa Shere Beek:

But what is what does it mean to be a widow to you?

Ruth Garber Shere:

Like, you hear that word to reconstruct your identity. Uh-huh. You're not a couple any longer, and it's very unsettling to be that fifth wheel. And you don't wanna be a charity case. Right.

Ruth Garber Shere:

That's very important. So, there's changes in your social network, and I decide beside the girls and the kids, which was like number one through a million for me.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Mhmm.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I had become more active in foundations, and implement movements for young people, which I thought was important in today's world considering the hate Mhmm. The anti Semitism, the anti gay, the anti color black.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Do you want it to be more of an activist

Ruth Garber Shere:

I want in to be more of an activist. So you you

Melissa Shere Beek:

But that's not about how

Ruth Garber Shere:

how you're thinking about widow. Sense as an individual.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Okay. So you took the definition of a widow of being lonely alone and made it something into a more active role instead of a passive role?

Ruth Garber Shere:

Yes. Because loneliness is suffocating.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Right. So how did you handle reorganizing your life in doing this? Like, how did

Ruth Garber Shere:

you get strength for yourself? Coming back that life that is my unanswered prayer is him coming back. So I I guess I had to use my love on people that I still have. Okay. All right?

Ruth Garber Shere:

I didn't know how deep emotional and psychological pain that I would have, and that loneliness would be mitigated by social interaction, so therefore each time I did that, it kinda numbed the pain for a

Melissa Shere Beek:

teensy Okay, so that's how you're taking care of yourself, because that was one of the questions I was is gonna how do you take care of yourself? So, how you're handling reorganizing your life and where you find strength and you get a support system is by being active in the community and doing things out there that make the

Ruth Garber Shere:

world And being active with you guys.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Oh, yeah.

Ruth Garber Shere:

That's the most important thing is that the trips we take, I get to, and I brought you all up to be independent, and you have brought my eight grandchildren to be thus.

Melissa Shere Beek:

But don't you like when they give the shtick that you gave them back right to you? So that's how you take care

Ruth Garber Shere:

of yourself, funny because there's eight girls, and then there's three boys.

Melissa Shere Beek:

No. Not eight girls. Five girls.

Ruth Garber Shere:

No. There's three of you and five girls. So I have eight girls.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Oh oh, you. Okay. Yes. You're talking about

Ruth Garber Shere:

your I three

Melissa Shere Beek:

have eight. You're talking about your three daughters Yeah. Your five granddaughters, and your three grandsons.

Ruth Garber Shere:

And there's the three boys.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yes.

Ruth Garber Shere:

And they love equally. You know?

Melissa Shere Beek:

You're so cute. Okay. So, no, that's what I'm saying. So so you're talking that family is a support system.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Yes. Because by doing the things I do Mhmm. Listen, they have soccer, they have parties, they have tutoring, they have friends, they have Hebrew school, they have downtime. I get them when we go on a trip. Yeah.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Because I have breakfast, lunch,

Melissa Shere Beek:

and dinner with them. So, that's a healing sort of supportive That thing is. That's what gives you strength to go forward is is having this special time with your children and your grandchildren and having their love and support. That keeps you moving forward.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Yes.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Okay. Because the reason this whole podcast and episode came about is because you and I personally discuss the loneliness that you feel. Like, I know in the house, you leave all the TVs on in every room Yes. That, you know, your your social calendar, like you just explained to our listeners, is filled. Filled.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Filled. Filled. Like, everything on the calendar. You're very busy with if you're on board meetings or you're starting programming or you've got cards or mahjong. I mean, you keep yourself super, super active.

Ruth Garber Shere:

My and the greatest thing is to say, oh, pick up a kid at school, or take a kid there, or you gotta go to New York and see Molly

Melissa Shere Beek:

and Remy. So those are all the things that you do to combat the loneliness?

Ruth Garber Shere:

Yep. Because

Melissa Shere Beek:

What do you wish you knew prior to daddy's death about handling loss or loneliness? Do you wish you had known anything about how to handle this loneliness? I guess I

Ruth Garber Shere:

didn't realize the depth of the loss and the pain. I mean, sometimes you have to breathe through the depression, is very strange for me because my glass isn't half full, it's pouring out.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Or flowing out.

Ruth Garber Shere:

And sometimes there is a persistent grief.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Mhmm.

Ruth Garber Shere:

And I don't think because there's a silence in your life. You talk about the TV hunt, there is such a silence. And then there's also the stigma. Do you remember when I called you from the bathroom in the federation thing?

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah. Tell our listeners the story if you want.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I went with all my friends, and they're very generous in asking me to come and be. But when you're in a crowd of 200 people and you walk up to this couple, and that foursome, and that sixsome, and you go from place to place Alone. Alone. I mean, it hits you with a sledgehammer in the middle of your forehead, you are alone. And I think one of the first ones I ever went to, you went to the bathroom.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Called from the bathroom. Can't do this. So how do

Melissa Shere Beek:

you wish people treated you or approached you?

Ruth Garber Shere:

Well, I guess some of them are lovely. Some of them I wish they would be more inclusive. Mhmm. Some of them I have deleted of a lack of that. Right.

Ruth Garber Shere:

You know? Right. You know, you wanna have lunch? You wanna go to dinner? You wanna come over?

Ruth Garber Shere:

You

Melissa Shere Beek:

wanna just You're not pick thought it up, so you've sort of deleted those, yeah, relationships.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Do you feel So, you feel all alone. You do feel all alone. Right. You do.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah. No. I know I've gotten those phone calls. That's why the whole reason we're having this this episode of the podcast Yeah. Do you feel that you started grieving daddy before he No.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Passed or he had No. Some sort of because I feel this his death was a little bit different than other deaths because we had a lot of time to have closure with him because he was sick for so long, where other people, unfortunately, god forbid, there's a sudden passing or an unfortunate experience. But I feel like you you didn't grieve beforehand or you didn't feel that Not

Ruth Garber Shere:

at all. I never thought he was gonna go. Yeah. I never ever thought he was going to go. I was a firm believer in never giving up, and I was shocked the day he passed.

Melissa Shere Beek:

No, I know. Was Shocked. Yeah.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Even what the doctor said, what they said, I want to take the table, turn it up over them when they said take him home, he's got a couple weeks. They don't know what the hell they're talking about. He's gonna make it.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Is that because you chose not to listen

Ruth Garber Shere:

to what they No, saying listened or you just to everybody. I listened to everyone, but it's like, okay, so when the first time I found daddy, and he had aspirated, and I went downstairs because I could not

Melissa Shere Beek:

This is for my listeners, he had a brain bleed and she found him on the floor.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Dead. Gray, dead, not breathing, he aspirated on his own vomit. So, I went and gave him CPR because I took it because Melissa made me learn

Melissa Shere Beek:

CPR because of her grandchildren.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Thank god. So I'm giving him CPR, and I call 911, and I've got Great Dane jumping all over me who's hysterical. Giving CPR as well. Yeah. So I'm giving him CPR, and at that time you did breaths and chest Compressions.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Mhmm. Compressions. So during the chest compressions, would tell 911, you've gotta come blah blah blah. And 911 comes in, and they say, lady Yeah. He's gone.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Let him go. And I decided in my head, excuse me, that I didn't want you girls to see him in a casket. It was my first thought. Because death is inevitable and I'm not afraid of death and people do die. I mean, it's just an afterlife to me.

Ruth Garber Shere:

So, I said, you have to keep him alive, because I want my girls to see him in a hospital bed, and not a casket. And one of them was away at university. Jessica was. In Connecticut, you and Sammy were here. So, they took him to the hospital, and serendipitously, I have two aneurysms, and I had to see a doctor at John Hopkins.

Ruth Garber Shere:

But he had someone come down to doctor's hospital who did what was called coiling in those days, and he was the only one south of John Hopkins who did coiling. So, they

Melissa Shere Beek:

took him to John Hopkins. No, they took him to doctors, mean?

Ruth Garber Shere:

Doctors, I mean. And we called in a neurosurgeon, and who did not know this doctor, Steve Primo, the Primo, and I said, can you stop the bleeding so you can keep him alive until Jessica gets here tomorrow? Mhmm. And this doctor was able to coil and stop the bleeding, but of course he was on full life support, and he had a tracheotomy and blah

Melissa Shere Beek:

blah blah. Comatose for a while. Nothing was working. He was

Ruth Garber Shere:

And they said to me, like, day later, later, you'll get more of a bowl of Jell O than you'll ever get out

Melissa Shere Beek:

of this man. Was there. I I even drew a picture that he said his brain stem was not There

Ruth Garber Shere:

was nothing between the ears.

Melissa Shere Beek:

And you know what you said to them? Okay. For our Jewish listeners and our non Jewish listeners, there's a special time between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. That's right. Holiest, holiest of holidays.

Melissa Shere Beek:

This happened just days before these holidays. And I said give me till No. That's not what you said. Kippur. No.

Melissa Shere Beek:

I didn't. You so that's when god seals the book about who shall live and who shall die. And you, with your little finger up in their face again, said, you can't tell me that. It's God's decision, and you're gonna keep him going.

Ruth Garber Shere:

When were two black

Melissa Shere Beek:

white doctors. God decide who lives and who dies. So we're not doing this until after Yom Kippur. Right. And these two Catholic doctors were like, okay.

Melissa Shere Beek:

And they gave you ten days while he stayed in a coma. And

Ruth Garber Shere:

Well, I kept yelling in his ears saying

Melissa Shere Beek:

Well, I'm gonna no. No. No. No. That's I'm bringing that up later for our listeners.

Melissa Shere Beek:

But so he they waited and waited, and they watched. And after Yom Kippur, I think a little bit later, there he moved like a finger in response to something or His toe. I was yelling at the said, wow. There are miracles. Two scientists said, wow.

Melissa Shere Beek:

There are miracles. Okay. There's something out there greater than us, whether it's the universe or god or whatever you believe in. And and everybody prayed of every religion and every race and creed. I mean, the I think there was power in prayer in multitude.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah. Power in prayer in multitude because he survived an unsurvivable thing.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Yeah. Really. And he was okay.

Melissa Shere Beek:

But I'm gonna go back to what you said about grief because I notice I've always said that grief comes in waves.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Mhmm.

Melissa Shere Beek:

There's like big moments and little moments. So how do you tackle those times? Because the love say recently, and I'm gonna say this too because you said something that was really important. We've had someone, close friends of mine whose father just passed as well, and I was talking about to them how grief comes in waves. And when I said this to you the other day at dance, you turned to me and you said, yeah, but love comes in waves too.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Right. So how do you

Ruth Garber Shere:

deal Love watches over you in different waves. There's an evidence of how you

Melissa Shere Beek:

deal with grief when grief strikes you? Like, when you hear a song or you do something and you're so sad, like, do you how do you deal with those moments?

Ruth Garber Shere:

Well, brings me down. But then I get up and realize that I have to live with this loss, and I have to carry it into a new narrative. Right. And but the loss is there all the time.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah. The loss is there all the time. It's, Where does your faith come from?

Ruth Garber Shere:

Oh, a firm believer in God. Yeah. Yeah. I think He controls everything. Yeah.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I can just think He's controlling what we're doing right now. I mean, yeah, I definitely do. I believe there's a God up there. Some of us worship Him one way, some worship another, and it's all fine.

Melissa Shere Beek:

But there's something out there in the universe that's greater than just ourselves.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Yes. I think probably the most painful, hardest thing Uh-huh. Is what you Oh god. And your sisters and the kids are missing.

Melissa Shere Beek:

I think that's the greatest loss.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Isn't that?

Melissa Shere Beek:

Because I think he's the bestest daddy and bestest grandfather, actively involved in every facet of our lives and took such great joy in being a part of it. And the kids, I mean, my kids were very lucky enough that they had him through everything. And I I think he had a real influence on their lives Mhmm. And the the way they look at the world too. I think appreciative and grateful for the blessings that we have because of all that they saw that he went through.

Melissa Shere Beek:

But they had the best of him, and I and I feel that loss Absolutely. For all the ones that didn't get to have that much time with him, and and for going forward, all the

Ruth Garber Shere:

with Sydney. After that, there's really all

Melissa Shere Beek:

the things going forward that daddy and the grandkids miss out on. So, what advice would you give to someone who's experiencing the loss of a partner right now?

Ruth Garber Shere:

You have to be realistic and pragmatic, or you'll wilt. You just have to carry that memory, make that person inclusive Yeah. In the stories that you do tell. And it part of my religion is that I believe he sees everything. His soul is there all the time.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Yeah. He's present. So I believe he's present. So I try and impart that to the kids.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah. But how do you how do you refocus to the present and create it like a continuous connection for yourself and the grandkids and the kids?

Ruth Garber Shere:

You mean what his legacy is?

Melissa Shere Beek:

No. We're not there yet. Oh. You're jumping ahead.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I don't know. I I tell them stories, especially when they do something that strikes a nerve, and I say, oh, Saba

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Would have loved this, or Saba participated in that, or he would be so proud of you because that was one of his longings and desires. So, that's how I try and connect it to each of them.

Melissa Shere Beek:

I think that I'm gonna say all of us. We do a great job of keeping him present in our conversation, in our life, in what the kids do, whether it be from the arts to music Yes. To anything that they do or song that he used to love. Even coming here to do this podcast, I know that daddy's approval, you know, when I first started doing this, and I was like, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing.

Ruth Garber Shere:

No. No. I walked in. He would be sitting on your shoulder.

Melissa Shere Beek:

No. But I knew he was sitting on my shoulder because I walked in, and Steven, my sound engineer says, hi. I'm Steven with a v, which is what my dad always said. And he had Dave Brubeck, which is daddy and I used to listen to. I know you hated the jazz, but daddy and I and there was a couple of other little things, and I was like, okay, daddy.

Melissa Shere Beek:

I see you. So I think we're very conscientious. Are signs. I have bodies

Ruth Garber Shere:

that are signs.

Melissa Shere Beek:

So that's what I was getting to. So you and I also talk about, like, a lot of visits that we get from daddy. It could be a song or discovering something in the drawer that wasn't in the drawer earlier or some lost letters or some sort of Well, they're

Ruth Garber Shere:

not lost. They never were.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Well, you never had saw them before, but you there was some sort of moment where we recognize that he's with us. Have you had any recent visits lately?

Ruth Garber Shere:

Yeah. The well, let me start with the first one because that's the most impactful to You

Melissa Shere Beek:

were scared, I think, the first time.

Ruth Garber Shere:

It was very scary. His room was a hospital bedroom with a wheelchair, and a breathing machine, and a suction machine, and a walker.

Melissa Shere Beek:

And the toilet is seat.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Was a total hospital room. Mhmm. And there were two end tables. Mhmm. Single drawers, and they were filled with papers.

Ruth Garber Shere:

The papers of all the things that I leased, the papers of all the things that I purchased, and I had them there, the access For

Melissa Shere Beek:

the medical equipment she's talking about.

Ruth Garber Shere:

So the access was there. And then after he passed, I gave away everything.

Melissa Shere Beek:

And you donated it to people that needed Yes.

Ruth Garber Shere:

And I emptied the drawers, and I shredded all the contracts. The only thing I kept was a cowbell. Mhmm. Because I didn't have anyone at night. Sunday, the gentleman that helped drive daddy

Melissa Shere Beek:

God gift on earth. Yes. Who helped to take care of our father when my mother and I could not do it all. Right. Sunday was a godsend, a real angel on earth.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I would have him leave at seven so that daddy and I would have Time. Time alone. Mhmm. And I would lay in bed, we would play Jeopardy together, but he had a cowbell because his room was downstairs and my bedroom was up. Our Right, bedroom we was had, yeah,

Melissa Shere Beek:

you had to create a room downstairs that would be a medical room for him. Yeah. So,

Ruth Garber Shere:

he had a cowbell. So, I kept the cowbell, it was on the bed.

Melissa Shere Beek:

That was his way of getting ahold of

Ruth Garber Shere:

And you that in his his way of ringing me. If he needed me during the night, which is like every night, that was okay. He needed you. He needed me. I needed him, he needed me.

Ruth Garber Shere:

And I put the cowbell in the empty drawer, and new bed, everything. Everything in the room was entirely changed. Dresser bed, and everything except these two end tables. I don't know what something rang in my head to go in the bedroom and open the drawer, because I didn't go in that room at all. Right.

Ruth Garber Shere:

It's a guest room downstairs, I have no guests, it Right. Was And I go in the drawer, so this is the 2016. Mhmm. And in the drawer is a letter, and the letter is dated 12/1090. At that time we were living

Melissa Shere Beek:

At another house.

Ruth Garber Shere:

At another house. Two houses prior, because we were on El Prado, and then we were in Kendall. You know, yeah. And the letter is from daddy. Now, when we moved into this house, he was recovering from his brain bleed.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Right. So he was in no shape to do anything. I packed everything. I unpacked everything. Douglas and My Mason husband.

Melissa Shere Beek:

My brother-in-law. Uh-huh.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Took him, put him in his room upstairs, he was still upstairs with me, but everything in that house was had been previously packed by me and totally unpacked by me. He was still not good. Alright. So this is the letter that I find, the first one. I have found five since.

Ruth Garber Shere:

But Ruth, if the dead can come back to this earth and flit unseen around those they loved. I shall always be near you in the gladdest days and in the darkest nights. Love, Steven. This is a letter I

Melissa Shere Beek:

find. Remember.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Twenty six years he wrote prior?

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah.

Ruth Garber Shere:

How did he get Through

Melissa Shere Beek:

two through two houses in a drawer that was empty after he passed.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Speaking about his passing.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah. Oh, I have chills just now. I mean, I remember when we found this, but I I have chills just now after thinking about all of this and reading it.

Ruth Garber Shere:

And who would have thought because this is the guy who came in the Ascot and played the tambourine off key. Who would have thought that he he was that type of a soul.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah. A deep soul.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Never. An older soul

Melissa Shere Beek:

It's than not, you thought yeah. He

Ruth Garber Shere:

We are the witches.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah. But you we didn't realize he was such an old soul.

Ruth Garber Shere:

And, yeah, so I have a bunch of those.

Melissa Shere Beek:

So, what do you have, you have a recent visit you said? What's your recent visit?

Ruth Garber Shere:

Okay, so the last one is the least significant, it's very tiny, but I was looking

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah, but it's a visit.

Ruth Garber Shere:

They needed, someone needed a picture of his grandparents who had gone aliyah to Israel in the late thirties. Mhmm. And they were from Alabama, and this was a orthodox rabbi and his wife, and they wanted to write an article about it, because they were the early pioneers who were buying land through the Rothschilds, blah blah blah. And I had the picture, and the article from the newspaper in Alabama, and I knew exactly where it was, and I went to the box, I could not find it. So I told the person, Listen, I'll call you back.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I go back in the box and I take it apart, photo by photo, paper by paper, and nowhere to be seen. I call them back the next morning, I say, you know, I am so sorry, but I can't find that newspaper article. And like, I'm getting really angry.

Melissa Shere Beek:

No, know you called me furious. And I go back to the box that morning, and

Ruth Garber Shere:

in it, on a heart shaped paper, sometimes the best I can't read it. The the heart sees what is invisible to the eyes, and on top of it's a poster note, just right on top of the box, it says, Ruth, with much love thinking of you, love Steven.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Another passage. Another visit. I love it.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Top of a box that I had been in three times.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah. Are you happy you get these visits?

Ruth Garber Shere:

Oh, I love them now. Yeah. In the beginning, I did not. I've got a whole bunch more. Yeah.

Ruth Garber Shere:

But in the beginning, you know, you question, like, because I could have this strong belief that the soul exists, and maybe people have them in dreams, or maybe people smell something in the air, but this is tangible stuff. Right. And that is very frightening.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Do you still find it frightening? I know you found it frightening in the beginning, but do still find it?

Ruth Garber Shere:

Yeah. No, I don't find it frightening. Now I wish there'd be more. But in the beginning, I said, how does something pass through the ether Right. From twenty six years or twenty years?

Ruth Garber Shere:

Some of them go back, they all go back at least fifteen, sixteen years, letters. I mean, have

Melissa Shere Beek:

Do you think it goes back to what you said in the beginning, how his soul knew what he was signing up for, and he he planted these little these little seeds for you to find?

Ruth Garber Shere:

Yeah. I have an envelope that I opened that I found with a letter from him.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Wait. What's the return address there? Isn't that the first hotel you went to?

Ruth Garber Shere:

No. First hotel was Howard Johnson.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Oh, is the This

Ruth Garber Shere:

is the Holiday Inn. Okay. So this letter is because there was a hurricane that went to Fort Myers.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah.

Ruth Garber Shere:

And I was saying, oh my god, I hope the houses that daddy built in Naples and Fort Myers didn't get destroyed. That was that terrible Yeah. Hurricane. Lo and behold, in the drawer, there's an envelope written to me. I love it.

Ruth Garber Shere:

From the Holiday Inn, because sometimes he would stay overnight.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah.

Ruth Garber Shere:

And he would write me, and this was in 1988, he wrote this letter.

Melissa Shere Beek:

And you just found it? I just found it.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I sliced open the envelope and I sliced the letter.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Aw, you sliced the letter. But it was sitting there.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Dear, my love Ruth, most of the time I find it so hard for me to express my real feelings, but I must tell you Ruth, that so much, I have my glasses on, of a dimension to my you are so much of a dimension to my life that without it I would be lost. Every day I hope that we can continue to work together with love and looking into the future with deep love, kisses, hugs, Steven. Aw. But this was the day after the hurricane when I was saying, wow. What happened to his houses?

Ruth Garber Shere:

And here comes a letter from Fort Myers.

Melissa Shere Beek:

From all those years ago.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Uh-huh.

Melissa Shere Beek:

How he was talking about the future in that letter. How how do you think of the future? Like, how do you keep the legacy of daddy alive? I mean, you've you've said every day that it's in conversation of friend or family, but or even in talking out loud to him, because I know we talk out loud to him all the time, or maybe you're yelling at him.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I could yell at him out loud more than talk.

Melissa Shere Beek:

No, I know. You like to yell at him a lot because he's not here physically, but speaking of yelling, I I you and I have a very sick sense of humor, and we have found humor in a horrible, horrible situation.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Oh, and I fell with the phone in my pocket? Wait.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Wait. Daddy would appreciate our our lovely sense of humor. I know it sounds terrible, but I had to laugh when when he was comatose because you were so upset with him that you would stand over him, shake your finger again in his face, and you would, well, you'd yell at him, you better wake up, Steven, because I'm gonna kill you. Because he was so mad at him. Or even the other day when you told me, you said when we were talking about this podcast, you go, there's a side of widowhood that my listeners would not wanna hear, and it's because you fell into a garbage can.

Melissa Shere Beek:

You slipped. No.

Ruth Garber Shere:

The garbage can fell on top of me, and I

Melissa Shere Beek:

fell into it. Okay. The garbage can lifted up off the floor and fell on top of you. No. You slipped and you fell into a garbage can, and your slippers flying everywhere.

Melissa Shere Beek:

But I was laughing because I was thinking, yeah, you can't really be upset because daddy was probably still with you because you forgot to leave out on the first one of the first dates. You ended up in a garbage can.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Oh my god. You're right. I forgot about I'm to say

Melissa Shere Beek:

that you complaining about falling into this garbage can, and the worst part wasn't that you fell into the garbage can, it was daddy wasn't there to you out, and I thought, well, daddy was totally there. He probably pushed you into the garbage So

Ruth Garber Shere:

I didn't scrape myself all over the asphalt.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Right. So you didn't slide, but it was also reminiscent of one of your first dates. So I think

Ruth Garber Shere:

Well, that's true. I forgot about that. I know exactly I was wearing this fabulous white pantsuit and it got filthy. But the thing is, that's the tough part. I had my cell phone in my pocket of my robe,

Melissa Shere Beek:

and I'm going, who am I calling? The Great Dane? You called You the thing But called is me.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I wanted him there to pick

Melissa Shere Beek:

me No, I know.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I wanted him to pick me up, to write that garbage can, to get me in the house, to put a band aid on my boo boos, to hug and kiss me. Yeah.

Melissa Shere Beek:

That's That's the loneliness you

Ruth Garber Shere:

talk Yeah. About all the pain.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah.

Ruth Garber Shere:

The terrible pain is like, who the f am I calling?

Melissa Shere Beek:

You know? On your phone call. I know how my day's gonna go if you call me before 7AM or after 7AM, or just at 7AM.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Yeah. It's like with the falling iguanas.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah. Leave them alone. Does bringing him present feel like he's still here with you on some level? Like when we're talking No.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Think I'm too pragmatic. Okay. Alright. No. But I like to talk about him.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Now you But it doesn't bring him here.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Right. It's What's your fondest memory that you have with Daddy?

Ruth Garber Shere:

You know what my fondest memory is? It's not one, it's that smile of happiness that he had Yeah. Being with us. Yeah. That's all he wanted was to be with me and you three girls.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Yeah. And he had a smile on his face Yeah. That The best. That, yeah. That's

Melissa Shere Beek:

Fills your soul thinking

Ruth Garber Shere:

Fills about my soul. It's like that picture that Sam posted with the Chuck Mangione song. Yeah. That's the face I see. Yeah.

Ruth Garber Shere:

That's the face

Melissa Shere Beek:

Pure When

Ruth Garber Shere:

he would walk in the house from work, and you girls, I could have been dead in the hall, you would have run over me to greet him, and that, yeah.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah. That feels That his feeling is good. It feels our soul. Yeah. What legacy do you want to carry forward of him to the generations to come, or more specifically, what do you think his legacy is?

Ruth Garber Shere:

I don't know if it's I don't know if I'm answering you correctly. I really would like the kids to see what a lucky and blessed marriage partnership can be, and I would like them to strive for that in their relationships, that one has to be aligned. Right. One has to be vulnerable with each other.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Put your partner.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Yeah. They have, like we said before, have to get each other.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah.

Ruth Garber Shere:

And that's an emotional loving depth that I want my kids to find in someone. Yeah.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Good kids, yeah. Yeah.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Wish they had seen more

Melissa Shere Beek:

of it. I think that they if they haven't seen it, they hear it in stories, and they know it in in how we bring daddy present with everything.

Ruth Garber Shere:

You think so?

Melissa Shere Beek:

Oh, I know so. I mean, we still talk about things with our kids, and and you with your grandkids about, you know, daddy.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Yeah. But I don't think they knew how we were together.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Oh, I see what you're saying. Yeah. I I think my kids got the best of that, and maybe Sam's two older kids and Jess's older one.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Yeah. They how we were together, we were a force. There

Melissa Shere Beek:

Listen, you're still a force, but, yeah, together you're

Ruth Garber Shere:

a force. No. No. See, and I don't think I am any longer. I think, like, without that's one of the things I think that without him, I'm a fifth wheel.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Oh, I don't think people see that. That's how I feel. I think a lot of people think you were driving the whole time.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I might have been driving, but he was sitting next to me.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah. Okay.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Thank you.

Melissa Shere Beek:

I think you're amazingly courageous, and I thank you for your courage in coming in here today. You think you survived?

Ruth Garber Shere:

I don't know. I'm You're spitzing. And I'm usually frozen.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Well, I know we discuss daddy and loneliness and what it means to be a widow between the two of us all the time, and I also know this was not the easiest of conversations to have on a podcast platform especially. Yes. Exactly. So I really truly appreciate you coming in, shedding light on it. I thank you for your courage in doing all of this, and and hopefully, it helps those out there experiencing that deep kind of loss too.

Melissa Shere Beek:

So, I thank you very, very Yeah.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I think people, I love you more than anything in this world, Sissy. I think people have to, and they're never going to, but unfortunately it would be nice if people were more inclusive

Melissa Shere Beek:

Got it.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Of those that are alone.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Okay. Well said.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Yeah. Well said.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Alright, so at the end of my podcast, I like to do a little thing called Quickie Questions with You're my going to be fine.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Oh, I'm anymore.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah, don't schwitz anymore. What are your top three values?

Ruth Garber Shere:

My family, God, and my religion.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Mhmm. Do you wish you had do you want to give more? Is that what you want to do? No, those are them. Okay.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Do you wish you

Ruth Garber Shere:

had My family is my most important thing. It's constant. Yeah. Constant in my head. True.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah. I think we all know that. Do you wish you had a do over in a conversation with someone, or do you wish you had had a conversation with someone you never got the opportunity to?

Ruth Garber Shere:

In light of what we've talked about

Melissa Shere Beek:

Mhmm.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I wish I had visited my nanny, Rose Moore. Your grandmother? My grandmother, because she was a widow. For a

Melissa Shere Beek:

very long time, too.

Ruth Garber Shere:

For a very long time. And I wish that I had known, been smart enough, been intuitive enough, to A, have seen her all the time, or have had her move in with me.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Yeah, I hear that.

Ruth Garber Shere:

That's the one thing I would go back on. Okay.

Melissa Shere Beek:

And then having two more girls. What brings you comfort? You guys. Okay.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I'm happiest when I'm with all of you. I mean, you could all move into my house, and I'd be a pig and you know what.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Okay, last quickie question. What haven't you done yet that you want to?

Ruth Garber Shere:

There isn't much I haven't done in my life. I've been very blessed. I think I'm the luckiest person in the world. I do. Even though daddy passed, I still think I'm the luckiest person in the world because I had that, and I had you girls.

Ruth Garber Shere:

I only wish for two more girls. Okay. I would wish for a home in Israel. Okay. That would be it.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Okay. I I don't I I think I don't think I've missed on much.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Okay. Good. Alright. Well, thank you, mom. So proud of you for coming in and doing your first podcast.

Ruth Garber Shere:

You owe me big time.

Melissa Shere Beek:

To our listeners, thank you so much. I'm so grateful that you're here. Keep listening. Keep learning. Keep laughing.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Keep up with Beak on Being. Listen to Beak on Being wherever you get your podcasts. All episodes are automatically transcribed. Big shout out and a huge thank you to Steven Chan at Penthouse Studios.

Ruth Garber Shere:

Thank you.

Melissa Shere Beek:

Follow beacon being on Instagram for the latest. To share ideas, thoughts, suggestions, or nominate a guest, DM us. Want exclusive content, behind the scenes stories, and listener links? Subscribe. Beek on Being was recorded at Penthouse Studios and is a proud member of the Penthouse Podcast Network.