Ayesha Tariq ’24
- 2020s
Hazy memories: a cozy living room, toy-ridden floor, wrinkled hands. Her name was Ruth – our next-door neighbor. She gifted me a stuffed chickadee toy that could whistle the call.
Eventually, my family moved away. I never saw her again.
Years later, I read her name in the newspaper obituary. Ruth graduated from Wellesley College in 1932, it wrote.
I wish I could have connected with her about Wellesley. Because of her, my favorite bird has always been the black-capped chickadee. Whenever I heard it on campus – walking around Waban, outside my Lake House window – my heart would swell. I wonder if Ruth listened to the chickadees, and if it gave her the same peace it gave me.
Though I’ve learned to sit with the mysteries that connected us, I find it beautiful how a simple bird call could be the bridge between the stories of two Wellesley women, generations apart.
