Word Soup: A Letter to Ruth

She showed me what a mother can be.

Rage | November 16, 2024

I’m in my reading chair, staring at your daughter. I wish you could see her, looking sort of ridiculous: her feet soaking in Epsom salt inside one of my expensive sauté pans. Her eyes closed. She’s listening to “bilateral stimulation” in her AirPods, a treatment she’s undergoing to heal from the trauma of helping you die. Phantom has joined her and there’s a little grin on her face. It’s the first time I’ve seen her at peace in months.

I, on the other hand, am furious. I want to rip out the cushions of my chair. Throw my laptop against the wall. I know you’d tell me to calm down and that it’s going to be all right, but I can’t listen to you at the moment.

An email from my mother reads:

Ruth really did not service Allison well cause Allison relies on her mother so much. Your dad said who call their mother 3 x a day? Allison has lots of anxiety and mental disorders. It is very obvious that she requires a lot of attention. She is very needy and when you started dating I could see this needy disability in her mentally and physically… she is getting your ready to take Ruth’s place once she loses her mom. I never could see you as the man we brought you up to be , to now become someone’s care taker.

You always gave my mother the benefit of the doubt, always listened and tried to relate to her. But I cannot abide this a moment longer. I’m cutting them off forever.

“Word Soup” by Ruth Raskin

Word Soup | September 7, 2024

Word Soup. That’s what you called the photograph. I came across it at your final solo show. No one bought it. It isn’t the crowd favorite. But it’s mine.

Horizontal blinds slice the image into bands of light and dark; through the window, foliage grows; a human figure—you—sits in the center-right as a soft silhouette, the least defined object in the frame. Your image is dissolving. Are the blinds shelter or bars?

The visual language of the photograph is fragmented, much like your own words these last few weeks. The grid holds your image, even as your identity blurs. I want to reach out to you. I long for your maternal love. But your shadow feels unreachable.

You are still with us, seated in your wheelchair at the other end of the gallery. Greeting friends, family, and admirers of your work; it is a living funeral. I excuse myself from the gallery, go around the corner, and sob.

Proof | August 3, 2021

I am visiting your home in Scarsdale for the first time tonight. I swung by Grand Central Terminal earlier and bought Ken some candy and you a bottle of Jay Z’s cognac. You have some cheap cognac and some expensive cognac and we are going to pour them out, line them up in a row, and see if we can tell which is which from a blind taste. Ken is nervously joking that I’m turning you into an alcoholic.

You could’ve been wary of me. Allison’s last fiancé just up and left. It would have been well within your rights to hold me at arms-length. To protect your daughter from hurt, the way my own mother tries to protect her children from hurt by immediately rejecting our partners. But you and I keep laughing, sipping whiskey, and teasing Ken.

Velocity | December 19, 2021

We are all on vacation together in Mexico. At breakfast yesterday, Allison told you and Ken that we plan to move in together in the new year. Within an hour, Ken was already floating that he buy us a house and be our landlord. This feels like a windfall I haven’t earned.

After pickleball I looked Ken in the eye and said I was in love with Allison and serious about her. I wasn’t angling for a house. He shook my hand appreciatively, said he liked our relationship and that, “Ruth really likes you two together…”

Now, Ken and Allison are hovered over a laptop, debating which neighborhoods would be best to start our family. You stop them. “I just want to make sure John is okay with all of this. Raskins move fast. And this might be overwhelming.”

You always pause to consider me.

An Interesting Case | August 10, 2024

No one knows what is happening to you. The doctors have brought in other doctors to film and study you because whatever is going on is so rare that it is instructive to them. The doctors told you that you have “alien-arm syndrome” which is why you’ve lost control of your left arm.

You looked at Ken and asked, “Will I be able to hold Allison and John’s baby?”

We haven’t even started trying. If there is a baby, I hope you will be around to meet it.

Cinema | November 26 2023

Tonight we went to the movies together. A shabby little joint in Beverly Hills where we saw Anatomy of a Fall. You’ve told me how when you met Ken, you had to accept that you loved French films and he loved blockbusters. Allison and I are the same. You and I indulge our shared snobbery.

After the movie you get back in my car and say, perfectly serious: “I think the dog was the murderer.” I think this is ridiculous, but you are insistent, and we laugh, arguing back and forth.

Over the past few months, I sometimes receive texts from you asking how a meeting of mine went, sharing something funny, or a typo in the New York Times that we could both overreact to.

Economy Plus | September 21, 2025

Allison dragged me to the airport hours early; she’s her mother’s daughter. We are on the plane, heading to New York for your tombstone’s unveiling. Allison is carrying your grandson in her belly, due in just a few months.

You wanted him so badly. You got us on a Zoom and promised to help us financially if we started trying. At the hospital, you feared you would never hold him. You won’t.

Allison spots what I’m writing. Uncanny how much she looks like you. She asks me to stop, and finish writing in private. It’s too upsetting.

Notes from the Underground | September 22, 2025

I’m at your desk. Not the one upstairs in the office but your real desk. The subterranean one where you used to make your art, where you designed our wedding invitations. The hardwood is cold on my feet and a bird has got itself stuck in the window well and is trying but failing to take flight. I think of Word Soup—another creature trapped by a window, trying to get through.

I am surrounded by your things. Four of your black and white photos are displayed behind me. On your desk is your membership card to The Rye Arts Center: “Ruth Raskin, Exhibiting Artist.” Your pens and paint brushes are all here, the golden toy animals that served as name holders at our wedding. A pile of your yarn. On your desk, a picture of your shadow.

So much of the house has moved on. It is full of life. I could work up there but I don’t want to. I want to be down here surrounded by your things, untouched and unmoved. You know that I don’t believe in an afterlife, but down here typing these very words I feel your presence and am grateful for it.

The New Year | September 23, 2025

Shana Tova. It’s been one year since you died. I’m on the living room sofa, where we had our last real conversation. We were briefly alone; you had just found out your diagnosis was fatal. You smiled at me and shrugged as if to say, oh well.

I was nervous. I didn’t know how to start. Then it all rushed out.

I told you that you’ve been a second mother to me. You showed me what a mother could be when you didn’t have to tiptoe around what was said or get locked into power struggles. I may have only had you in my life briefly, but I had it, and that’s more than most people get.

You were struggling to speak but there was resolve in your eyes. You said you saw me as your son; you’d wanted to tell me for a long time. You had hoped that eventually I would view you as my mom.

Then you made me promise not to let Ken or Allison drag me to Marvel movies. We laughed.

You talked about Allison: the little girl with OCD, lying in the street at four years old, your best friend, and your charge. You said it was time to pass that mantle to me. You wished us a long, happy marriage.

I do not care what my mother says or what anyone thinks a man should be. Allison will forever be in my care.

I will keep that promise to you because she is my wife and I love her; and, because I love you, my friend and (I wish I’d said this sooner)—my mom.