A Life of Words

Happy New Year, everyone! We wish you all a healthy, low-stress 2024 filled with memorable events shared with your families and friends.

My year is starting out in Louisville, Kentucky, where I’m near the culmination of a five-day journey that began when I flew into Columbus, Ohio last Thursday. This morning I will drive to Muncie, Indiana to visit my 91-year-old cousin Jeanne Rowe Arthur, who’s in a nursing home and will be the last of several people I’ll visit during this incredible trip that marks yet another chapter in my birth family journey that began in 2005. Jeanne’s father Lloyd was my great-uncle on my birth mother Betty’s side and worked for decades for the famed Ball Corporation in Muncie (think Mason jars).

The main purpose of my trip was to attend Thursday evening’s visitation in Proctorville, Ohio and Friday morning’s funeral in Huntington, West Virginia for Dr. Gilbert Ratcliff Jr., a beloved pediatrician in my birthplace of Huntington. Dr. Ratcliff brought an unmatched brand of compassion and dedication to his work during 49 years caring for children in the Tri-State area.

Seeing over 200 photos of Dr. Ratcliff in the slide show during his visitation was a tremendous treat. From his childhood through fatherhood with his daughters Lenore, Leah and Lynn to being a Papa to his six grandchildren to a photo of him getting on the floor and doing “the gator” to the “Shout” song at one of his daughters’ weddings (I didn’t even know that was a thing or that he loved to dance!), I couldn’t take my eyes off those photos.

I also heard a lot about his love of fried chicken and eating at Red Lobster, where we ate at least once when my birth sister Terry and I visited Huntington. The photo below was taken 10 or 11 years ago at Red Lobster with Gil, Terry and our cousin Roby, whom we found around that time and who passed away in 2017, two months before she would have turned 93.

As expected, there was a vast, beautiful outpouring of love, respect and admiration shown for Dr. Ratcliff during those two days, including the service at Johnson Memorial United Methodist Church, where he’d been a lifelong member. His brother, Dr. Bruce Ratcliff, gave a stirring, funny eulogy full of memories from their childhood in Huntington. Bob Tweel, husband of Lenore, Gil and his late wife Betsy’s oldest daughter, offered his own emotional tribute based on the concepts of grief, courage, memories and love.

I could live 300 years and never have the privilege of meeting and getting to know anyone as uniquely brilliant, warmhearted, full of life, multitalented, such a constant learner and an eager listener. As I told his youngest daughter Lynn, I never had a conversation with him that wasn’t entirely enjoyable. They were often deep and intellectual, because that’s the kind of person Gil was.

My only regret is that I knew him for only 18 years, from the time I first contacted him in the spring of 2005 to ask if he, the son of Dr. Gilbert Ratcliff Sr., who delivered me at birth and helped arrange my adoption, might be open to helping me find my birth family.

I’ve been reunited with my birth siblings since that June, so it’s obvious why the Ratcliff family means so much to us. And Dr. Ratcliff Sr. meant the world to my adoptive parents Clark and Olga Christlieb as well, since a second middle name, Gilbert, appears on my birth certificate in his honor for making it possible for them to adopt me.

After I get home to Arlington, I’ll share posts and photos from my numerous visits with folks I spent time with during this trip. But I wanted to pay tribute to Gil first.

Dr. Gilbert Alonzo Ratcliff Jr. was a priceless gem, and we’ll never see another like him. His legacy lives on in his family and in the countless babies and children he nurtured during a career of extraordinary service in health care. ❤️