Today is a date that would have made John groan, curl up in a blanket on the couch, and turn on the Broadway Musical streaming channel – his 60th birthday.
I wish he was here so I could tease him about it. But he is not. Typically, the dates of his birth and death make me quite sad. It is my greatest heartache and my greatest regret. He was one of my great loves, my best friend ever.
But now I have a new way to channel all that Dr. John P. Ruffing VMD energy – the pet food pantry that bears his name. Now I say his name all of the time, usually with good news: donations! new caretakers! more volunteers!
He would hate it. He did not like attention drawn to him, mostly due to the horrific bullying he endured in junior and senior high. He never really recovered from that. But he built a loving community around himself in his adult life, including a lot of animals.
My hope is that the more I get his name circulating, the more algorithms pick it up and drop it onto the social media pages of his former colleagues, clients, friends, and neighbors. So they know we have built a permanent memorial to him.
Read more about it here.
Happy Birthday, John.
I will love and miss you forever.
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