“With Ruth, I always thought that there would be a next time. For more than twenty years, she had defied not one but three bouts of cancer, not to mention other medical complications. Her endurance, her will to live even her plain old-fashioned grit, were unmatched. After one surgery, when most of us would be pushing the nursing station call button, she drafted a major speech. She even participated in Supreme Court oral arguments from her hospital bed.”