Do Not Look Backward When You Latch the Gate

Abstract

In 1976, Julia was hospitalized for a severe case of flu. Considering the plethora of ailments she suffered—ulcers, angina, asthma, arthritis—her doctor thought she wasn’t strong enough to go back to her little house alone. Under protest, she moved into Marshall Union Manor, a retirement high-rise built by the unions. At first she was angry to be there, turned her nose up at the women who “sit around crocheting, ” and thought she’d never adjust to a studio apartment. But after a few months she was drinking coffee with the others in the cafeteria and editing the Manorgram, the building’s monthly newsletter, slipping in a suggestion to write your congressman or a few paragraphs on the history of discrimination in Oregon for Black History Month.

Moving’s forever; you must say goodby

This house was home, and when the movers go

And you are living seven stories high

In one room that you are going to,

Half of a lifetime will be left behind …

Beds and dishes, pictures and debris.

Sweep the memories from your heart and mind,

Burn the letters, push the past away.

The very old can learn to live with grace

In a small and very narrow space.

Do not look backward when you latch the gate

At flower faces weeping as you pass,

Someone will run the hose when rains are late

Over the sparkle on the summer grass.

Do not look backward when you latch the gate.¹

—Julia Ruuttila, n.d.