“A TRIBUTE TO RUBY”
Ruby was my mother. She was born Robina Gray McCall in 1918 into the middle of a family of seven children. Her father died suddenly at the age of 45 when my mother was 7. She grew up surrounded by her sisters, left school at 14 and went to work in Saxone’s shoe shop in Kilmarnock. She married my father at the end of World War II when he came home safely after having been abroad as far as India with many adventures and a restlessness of spirit.
I was born 9 months after they married in 1945, the first of the post-war baby boom. I was the first of four. When I asked her in later years how she felt when I was born, she told me that she was overwhelmed with happiness because my father was safe and she had a wonderful baby, conceived at the beginning of their life together.
I have no knowledge of the whole picture that led my parents to emigrate to California in 1957, sponsored by my mother’s elder sister. Ruby left behind all that was familiar in her life, her own mother, sisters and friends in Kilmarnock where she had lived all her life. She adjusted to the new situation, not always easily, and stayed loyal to my father until his death in 1989.
I lived at home until I was seventeen but I never really knew my mother. As I grew up in a different culture, my goals and aspirations fit the new way of life, whereas my mother lived by her own rules in a new country. They did not always seem to fit, but she persevered. She never lost her Scottish accent which meant that she sometimes had a hard time making herself understood. People responded to her generosity and kindness, though, and she developed a circle of new lifelong friends who accepted her uniqueness and opened up to her about their lives and thoughts.
As mother and daughter we definitely clashed. We were both strong-willed and determined to go our own way, sometimes with very little tolerance for what the other was thinking, and sometimes with very little obvious respect.
I couldn’t be with her when she died, because by then I had made the decision for my own sake to come back to Scotland where I felt most safe and raise my family here. She dearly loved her grandchildren and it was a source of great regret to both of us that geography dictated that they did not have a close day to day relationship.
I spent many years thinking that Ruby disapproved of me, because she only ever expressed frustration and put up obstacles in the way of what I wanted to do in favour of what she thought I ought to be doing. Later with my own children I discovered it was possible to disapprove of what they wanted to do, but give the approval that they needed as human beings to fulfill their own destiny.
I spoke to her on the phone the day before she died, when we still thought there would be time for me to go and help with her recuperation. She told me then that she was proud of me and that was the last thing she said to me.
A wonderful memory and legacy for the rest of my life.
To find out more about my art and textile work see:
Scottish Island Mum – Day 40 – Come and Meet the Lovely Lynn
Pearls and Oysters 
I am quite sure she was proud of you. I am always sure she is still proud of you. A lovely dedication. Fxx