Who is Ruth?

Please indulge me, as I take a few minutes to share about someone very near and dear to me. My sister, Ruth Muhammad.

If you have wanted a baby girl, Ruth was born that beautiful brown eyed, curly head, healthy baby girl. She was a dream of every mother at birth. Ruth was a big sister, a loving daughter, a kindhearted friend and a mother that loved her children in spite of her flaws, insecurities and troubles.

One of the things I admired most about my sister was her artistic abilities. She was so talented. We all ran to her as children to draw all of our art projects. Ruth was my first teacher in some places in my childhood.

I did not learn how to tie my shoe from her or my ABC's, but I learned how to choose my friends. I learned that doing drugs was not the answer to my problems. I learned the importance of finishing school. I learned that the streets would never be my friend. I learned to never trust in my natural beauty. I learned to value people every day because you never know when a loved one will be gone.

Some of our last moments were the most special to me. Ruth came to visit me and on this particular day, I was doing my homework and she bent down and kissed my hands, and told me how proud she was of me for finishing school. She was killed the semester before I graduated from college.

Another moment, I had before her passing, I saw her on the street on a cold night. I was going to the store. There I was 24 years old, she was 28, and the only thing she asked of me, was to hold my hand as we walked through the store. I did it without hesitation.

The last day, she came to visit before she was violently taken was 3 days before she was murdered. I had gotten a sore throat. She was sitting in the hallway on the stairs outside my apartment door. I asked her what made her come and I kept saying, I am not normally home at this time. I left school early that day.

She told me Jeremy, my three, soon to be four year old, had asked her for a Barney tape for his birthday. She insisted that she had to get him the money. She handed me a wad of change, running in and out the door several times to gather more, until it totaled $10 dollars. She was crying so hard. I asked her what was wrong. I'll never forget her last words to me, I'm tired now. I am tired of the streets and she knelt in the floor and just wept. She had a heaviness on her, I will never forget.

She let me know before she left that she was concerned about her children. Jeremy often asked for them, which would cause her to cry harder. See, Ruth had gotten on drugs as a very young teenager. This door was the slow demise of her life that was a constant struggle that lead to many other paths of destruction.

Ruth died a death that was every mother's nightmare. Ruth struggled with a lack of support. I believe proper support would have helped her end to be different. It is through these support systems that I am hoping to help other young single moms to overcome. I pray that through Ruth's Vineyard, my sister will find a place of honor on this side of heaven, through every woman that receives what she needed the most. Support.