Saint Ruth

Saint Ruth was an orc cleric of Veyra who died at the Battle of Hope’s Return after restoring the dead of two armies.

She is remembered as the only person who remained dead when the miracle ended.

Ruth is one of Caerlon’s most widely recognized saints, but the devotion surrounding her remains intensely local in its origins. Her temple stands where she died. Her body remains there. Her order still works the roads, wards, and battlefields shaped by the obligations her death created.

The most common title used in Estenmark is Saint Ruth of Hope’s Return.

Other recognized titles include:

• Ruth of the Open Hand;
• the Only Unreturned;
• Veyra’s Daughter of the Field;
• Keeper of the Second Life.

The Temple avoids titles claiming that Ruth commands resurrection or possesses authority equal to Veyra.

Ruth Before the Saint

Ruth was born on a fortified farm outside Fallowshield in Estenmark.

Her mother served as a midwife and practical healer for surrounding farm households. Her father repaired wagons, mill fittings, gates, and agricultural tools.

Ruth grew up in a place where defense and ordinary work were difficult to separate.

A farm wall could become a fighting position. A grain wagon could become a patient cart. A kitchen could become a ward during fire, flood, or attack.

Her earliest surviving records describe her helping prepare water, cloth, food, and sleeping space for injured travelers long before she entered formal religious training.

Ruth was not remembered as solemn.

She laughed loudly, sang while working, and treated public dignity as less important than making frightened people comfortable. Witnesses repeatedly described the feeling that Ruth had seen them as an individual rather than another patient in a crowded room.

She learned names quickly.

When she could not learn a name, she asked what the person wanted to be called and used it until better evidence appeared.

This practice later influenced Hope’s Return patient and identity law.

Training in Estenhall

Ruth entered Veyran training at the Open Bowl Infirmary in Estenhall.

The Infirmary served workers, militia families, travelers, people injured on military roads, and patients transferred from fortified settlements unable to provide extended care.

Ruth studied:

• wound treatment;
• childbirth;
• illness care;
• sanitation;
• patient feeding;
• trauma;
• Veyran doctrine;
• public mercy;
• protection of patients from coercion.

Her divine calling became evident during training.

Records describe healings stronger than her instructors expected and an unusual ability to keep restorative magic moving through groups of patients rather than focusing only on the most visible injury.

Ruth was recognized as a Veyran cleric whose ministry centered on healing and restoration.

Older accounts call her a Cleric of Life. In current Pathfinder Second Edition terms, she was a cleric of Veyra whose divine service strongly expressed the healing font and the goddess’s concerns of mercy, healing, birth, restoration, and recovery.

Her Ministry

Ruth spent years working through Estenmark before the battle that made her famous.

She served at:

• fortified farm accidents;
• road collapses;
• militia training injuries;
• difficult births;
• winter illness shelters;
• fires;
• outbreaks of wound fever.

She did not establish a permanent personal following.

Ruth moved where Veyran institutions needed additional help and usually slept in staff rooms, kitchens, farmhouses, or patient wards rather than maintaining a private residence.

Several habits are consistently preserved in witness accounts.

Ruth ate only after the patient meal had been distributed.

She objected when officers attempted to move less powerful patients from beds.

She insisted that frightened children be told what a healer was about to do.

She asked soldiers which hand they used for work before deciding how to splint an injury.

She carried a dented brass bowl used for washing wounds, mixing simple remedies, and serving food when no other vessel was available.

The bowl later became one of her authenticated relics.

Entry into the War

Ruth did not enter the Caerlonian army as a commissioned officer.

She joined a Veyran field-healing company operating under a medical compact with Caerlonian forces.

The distinction mattered to her.

She accepted military route orders when they moved healers and supplies safely. She did not accept that military rank determined patient priority or gave officers unrestricted control of the wounded.

Ruth’s field company treated soldiers, laborers, camp followers, displaced civilians, captured enemies, and people injured while attempting to flee.

Her disagreements with officers were usually direct rather than doctrinal.

When challenged, Ruth asked whether the officer intended to remove a patient from the bed personally. Most did not.

The Battle of Hope’s Return

The battle lasted two days.

Caerlonian and Vorrakian forces fought across fields, road embankments, drainage ground, and the low rise that later became the center of Hope’s Return Sacred Field.

The first day produced casualties faster than field teams could move them.

General Cirspoin died during that day.

His body was identified and entered into the Caerlonian casualty record before the fighting resumed.

Ruth’s company established a treatment position near the central rise. As lines shifted, the place became increasingly exposed. Patients were moved, returned, and moved again as control of the surrounding ground changed.

By the second day, medical supplies were low.

Water routes had been interrupted. Litters were damaged. Some healers had been injured. Bodies lay among living patients because recovery workers could not remove them safely.

Ruth continued working until the number of dead and dying overwhelmed every ordinary means available to her.

Ruth’s Prayer

The surviving accounts agree on the central facts.

Ruth stopped attempting to heal one person at a time.

She moved into the open ground between the treatment position and the densest part of the battlefield. She called to Veyra and asked that the lives around her be spared instead of her own.

The prayer was not quiet.

Witnesses on both sides heard her.

Some remembered words. Others remembered only the sound of grief and command in her voice. The earliest accounts agree that Ruth understood she might die and continued.

Power gathered around her.

The effect spread outward rather than descending upon one chosen formation.

Living soldiers felt pain recede. Wounds closed. Broken breathing steadied. People believed dead drew breath.

The restoration crossed unit lines, insignia, ancestry, military rank, and allegiance.

What Witnesses Saw

No single visual account is accepted as the only correct description.

Some witnesses described white light with a red center.

Others saw the pale gold of dawn despite the hour.

Several reported that the blood-soaked ground brightened around Ruth’s feet.

Others remembered no light at all, only sudden warmth and the sound of hundreds of people taking breath.

Butterflies appear in later paintings because they are associated with Veyra. The earliest battlefield records do not agree that butterflies were physically present.

The Temple therefore treats them as a devotional symbol rather than a confirmed feature of the miracle.

The consistent observations are:

• Ruth remained at the center;
• healing moved outward;
• the living were restored;
• the dead returned;
• the fighting stopped;
• Ruth continued until her heart failed.

The Return of the Dead

All confirmed battlefield deaths from the two days of fighting returned to life except Ruth.

The returned awakened with their bodies restored.

They did not awaken without memory, fear, grief, confusion, or responsibility.

Some remembered dying.

Some remembered only the moments before death.

Some awoke near people they had killed or who had killed them.

Some resumed helping the wounded immediately.

Others fled, froze, attacked in confusion, or demanded answers no one could provide.

The miracle restored life. It did not create order.

That work fell to the survivors and became the origin of Hope’s Return’s institutions.

Ruth’s Death

Ruth’s tears stopped when her heart failed.

The healing ceased expanding, but the restoration already completed did not reverse.

People nearest her caught her before she struck the ground.

Veyran healers attempted ordinary emergency care. Ruth did not return.

Her body showed no battlefield wound sufficient to explain her death. The accepted medical account is that the strain of the miracle stopped her heart.

Religious descriptions call this a life freely spent.

The Temple preserves both accounts.

The Ceasefire

As the returned rose, fighting stopped unevenly across the field.

Some soldiers dropped weapons. Others stood in shock. Officers attempted to understand whether the restoration was an attack, illusion, or divine judgment.

The commanders eventually met.

Both sides agreed that continuing the battle after the impartial restoration would insult Veyra and profane Ruth’s death.

Grim Commander Gryoja of Vorrak saluted Ruth’s body.

General Cirspoin, restored after his death on the first day, left military service and organized the first continuous vigil around Ruth, the wounded, and the newly returned.

The battle ended without a conventional victor.

Its name came afterward.

People began calling the place Hope’s Return because hope had returned with the dead and because every returned person faced the question of what to do with the life restored to them.

Ruth as the Only Casualty

Ruth is commonly described as the only casualty of the Battle of Hope’s Return.

The statement means that she was the only confirmed person killed during the two-day battle who remained dead after the miracle.

It does not mean that no one suffered.

The returned carried trauma, legal disruption, broken families, military consequences, and memories of death. People injured before or after the miracle still required care. Some disappeared during the confusion. The surrounding communities paid the cost of the armies’ movement and supply.

The Temple teaches that calling the battle bloodless would be false.

The First Refusal

The first proposal to attempt Ruth’s resurrection came before the field had been fully cleared.

The Veyran healers present refused to begin while patients remained untreated, identities were uncertain, and the ceasefire was unstable.

This was initially a delay rather than a permanent judgment.

After the immediate crisis, a mixed body reviewed the question.

The first review included:

• Veyran healers;
• a Morvanic death attendant;
• an Olyrran witness keeper;
• General Cirspoin;
• returned soldiers from both armies;
• people who had worked beside Ruth.

The review concluded that no resurrection attempt should proceed without a stronger basis for believing that Ruth’s deliberate choice ought to be reversed.

Three considerations became central.

Ruth had knowingly offered her life.

She had left no instruction asking to be returned after such a sacrifice.

The institutions present feared turning her choice into proof that healers could be expected to die whenever resurrection might later restore them.

The refusal was maintained.

The Continuing Refusal

The Temple of Saint Ruth still prohibits an attempt to resurrect her.

The prohibition is custodial and institutional.

It is not a universal teaching that sacrifice must never be reversed or that resurrection is improper.

Changing the rule would require:

• approval from the Temple’s Council of Six Duties;
• public notice;
• Veyran review;
• Morvanic review;
• Olyrran witness review;
• Estenmark legal review;
• a lawful decision concerning access to Ruth’s remains.

No current authority can order the attempt alone.

The refusal remains one of the most important public disputes surrounding Ruth.

Arguments for the Refusal

Supporters argue that Ruth made a conscious choice and that respecting mercy includes respecting the person who gives it.

They believe immediate resurrection would have transformed her sacrifice into a temporary expenditure made by an institution that expected to recover its valuable cleric afterward.

Some also fear that resurrecting Ruth would encourage coercive teaching: sacrifice yourself now because powerful people can decide later whether you are worth bringing back.

Arguments Against the Refusal

Opponents argue that Veyra governs restoration and that refusing a possible return imposes an interpretation Ruth never stated.

Some believe Ruth would wish to continue healing.

Others argue that every returned soldier received a second life while the healer who saved them was denied the same opportunity.

A smaller group holds that the Temple’s authority and pilgrimage economy now depend upon Ruth remaining dead.

The Temple preserves these objections in the public record.

Early Devotion

The first devotion to Ruth took the form of service.

People kept watch beside her body.

They carried water.

They identified the returned.

They protected enemy wounded.

They repaired litters.

They gathered testimony before memory and military pressure altered it.

The earliest offerings were practical:

• clean cloth;
• food;
• water;
• lamp oil;
• writing materials;
• labor.

The Temple continues to prefer offerings that can be used for patient care, records, lodging, memorial maintenance, or public meals.

Recognition as a Saint

Local recognition began almost immediately.

Returned soldiers and field workers referred to Ruth as holy before any institution issued a ruling.

The Veyran houses that had trained and worked with her opened a formal life and miracle review after the battlefield records were stabilized.

The review examined:

• her training;
• years of service;
• conduct toward patients;
• military disagreements;
• witness testimony;
• the miracle;
• her death;
• the ceasefire;
• the first refusal;
• custody of her remains.

No credible evidence established that Ruth sought sainthood, political authority, or personal wealth.

The Veyran recognition named her Saint Ruth of Hope’s Return and approved public devotion centered on mercy, healing, protected care, and the obligations created by restored life.

Morvanic and Olyrran institutions later recognized narrower aspects of the devotion concerning the dead, the returned, remains, and memory.

Recognition spread through Caerlon without becoming a universal command upon every Veyran temple.

What Ruth Represents

Ruth represents mercy exercised when every institution around it is organized for conflict.

Her devotion is not built around kindness without consequence.

It is built around several difficult claims:

A wounded person must live before they can answer.

An enemy can become a patient without ceasing to be responsible for prior actions.

Restoration does not erase memory, debt, law, or grief automatically.

A healer’s life is not a disposable resource.

A divine miracle does not relieve mortals of the work required afterward.

These teachings shape the Temple of Saint Ruth and the Order of Hope’s Return.

Ruth’s Remains

Ruth’s body is preserved in the Still Heart Chamber beneath Open Hand Hall.

Her remains have never been divided.

No institution possesses an authorized bodily fragment.

Any tooth, bone, hair, blood, or other material sold or displayed elsewhere as a bodily relic of Ruth is considered false unless the Temple’s custody record changes through lawful public procedure.

The body is not continuously displayed.

Public pilgrims ordinarily visit the Still Place directly above the chamber.

Access to the remains requires the Keeper of the Still Heart, two custodians, an independent witness, and entry in the custody register.

The Dented Bowl

Ruth’s dented brass bowl is her best-known ordinary relic.

Contemporary witnesses identified it as the vessel she carried during field service.

The bowl was used to:

• wash wounds;
• mix simple remedies;
• carry water;
• serve food.

It is displayed during the annual Still Hour observance and during the recognition of senior Veyran healers at Hope’s Return.

The bowl is not used for treatment.

A fitted support carries its weight so the old metal is not stressed.

Devotional copies are common. Copies must be marked as copies.

The Field Satchel

Ruth’s field satchel contains repaired compartments for bandages, chalk, thread, simple tools, and patient notes.

The original contents were removed, recorded, and preserved separately when the leather began deteriorating.

The satchel is displayed less often than the bowl because its condition is fragile.

Members of the Order of Hope’s Return receive a functional field case inspired by its arrangement, not a ritual copy.

The Last Patient Page

The final surviving page written in Ruth’s hand contains patient names and brief care notes from the first day of the battle.

The page ends in the middle of an entry.

It does not contain a prophecy, final prayer, or command concerning her resurrection.

Later forged versions have added such statements.

The original is kept in the Archive of Two Armies and displayed only through a protected case during major observances.

The Bloodstone

The dark red stone marking the Still Place is not made from Ruth’s blood.

It was placed during the construction of Open Hand Hall to identify the location where she died.

Pilgrims sometimes mistake it for a transformed battlefield relic.

Temple attendants correct the claim because devotional importance does not require false provenance.

The Open Hand

Ruth’s recognized symbol is a red open hand with one dark drop beneath the palm, enclosed by an unbroken circle.

The open hand represents aid freely offered.

The drop represents Ruth’s one unrecovered life.

The circle represents the continuing obligations created by the miracle.

The symbol belongs to the Temple’s public tradition but is not restricted from ordinary devotional use.

Use of the symbol to falsely claim Temple or Order authority is prohibited.

Petitions to Ruth

People commonly petition Ruth when they face a decision involving mercy under pressure.

Healers ask for steadiness when patients are hostile, frightened, or numerous.

Soldiers ask for courage to stop violence when an order has become indefensible.

Returned people ask how to use a life they did not expect to possess.

Families ask for strength to accept a person changed by injury, death, or return.

Advocates ask for patience when protection and accountability appear to conflict.

The petition usually ends with the petitioner naming one action they will take.

Ruth’s intercession is not treated as a substitute for action.

The Open Bowl Offering

The most common public devotion to Ruth is the Open Bowl Offering.

The rite is performed in temples, homes, military kitchens, field hospitals, and pilgrim hostels.

A clean bowl is placed at the serving point before a meal.

The person responsible for the meal names the people expected to eat and then acknowledges those not yet known: a late traveler, an injured stranger, a refugee, a patient, or someone unable to pay.

A portion is reserved before senior people are served.

The food is used for an actual person or transferred promptly to a public kitchen, patient ward, or traveler’s house.

It is not left to spoil as a symbolic display.

The rite is considered violated when the reserved food is used to deny ordinary workers their share, displayed while hungry people are excluded, or reclaimed for private luxury.

The Still Hour

The principal observance of Saint Ruth takes place on the anniversary of her death.

The exact time is preserved in the Temple’s witness register.

At dawn, organized armed groups entering the sacred field declare their weapons and furl military banners.

Throughout the morning, names of the confirmed dead and returned are read in the Hall of Names and at the eastern memorial field.

The public meal begins before the central rite so hunger and crowding do not exclude poorer pilgrims.

At the recorded hour of Ruth’s death, the Temple bell sounds once and is allowed to fade completely.

For one hour:

• military training stops;
• formal hearings pause;
• public speeches cease;
• the Open Bowl is displayed;
• the Still Heart Chamber remains closed;
• healers continue necessary patient care.

The silence does not require wards to become unsafe or patients to go untreated.

At the end of the hour, the names of people who died while providing care during the previous year are read.

The observance ends with the opening of public food and medicine stores for the day’s assigned distribution.

The Lowered Weapon Rite

Military pilgrims may take part in the Lowered Weapon Rite at the Split Spear Grounds.

The participant declares their name, unit or former unit, and the purpose for which they carry arms.

They lower the weapon toward the Temple rather than raising it.

A witness asks whom the participant would treat as a patient.

The answer cannot be limited to allies.

The weapon is then peace-bonded for the remainder of the pilgrim’s visit unless duty requires otherwise.

The rite does not absolve war crimes, desertion, or unlawful violence. It creates a recorded commitment concerning future conduct.

Miracles After Hope’s Return

No later miracle attributed to Ruth has equaled the restoration at Hope’s Return.

The Temple rejects claims that the battlefield miracle can be repeated through sufficient sacrifice, relic access, or imitation of Ruth’s death.

Later reports include:

• unexpected stabilization of patients during mass-casualty events;
• people hearing their correct name while unidentified;
• healers finding needed supplies after a record error is corrected;
• hostile groups pausing long enough for wounded people to be removed;
• returned people dreaming of the Open Hand before choosing to seek help.

Some reports have been accepted as possible intercession.

Others remain devotional testimony.

None establishes a repeatable resurrection procedure.

Butterfly Signs

Butterflies are associated with Veyra and appear often in Ruth’s art.

A butterfly entering a ward, landing on a memorial, or appearing during a petition is commonly regarded as comforting.

The Temple does not classify an ordinary butterfly as proof of saintly presence.

The distinction matters because merchants have attempted to breed and release butterflies during paid pilgrimages to create the appearance of miracles.

Saint Ruth and the Returned

People restored at Hope’s Return do not belong to Ruth, the Temple, or the Order.

They were not required to become Veyran worshippers.

They did not acquire a religious debt collectible by the institution.

Many chose to support the Temple. Others returned to their homes, armies, faiths, crimes, families, and previous disputes.

The Temple’s position is that a restored life creates opportunity and responsibility, not ownership.

Saint Ruth and Military Law

Ruth’s legacy supports the recognized practice that immediate lifesaving treatment precedes interrogation when delay would threaten the patient.

It also supports protection of recognized treatment routes, medical personnel, and patient spaces.

These rules do not grant indefinite immunity.

Once a person can be transferred safely, competent authorities may pursue lawful claims through the procedures governing patient custody.

Military leaders cannot invoke Ruth to force healers into suicidal action.

The Order of Hope’s Return can refuse a mission that cannot reasonably reach or recover patients.

Saint Ruth and Resurrection Law

The miracle created disputes involving:

• resumed military service;
• inheritance;
• marriage;
• debt;
• criminal sentences;
• office;
• command;
• property transferred after death;
• funerary records;
• obligations sworn before death.

Ruth did not issue rulings on these matters.

The Temple preserves evidence and offers religious interpretation. Civil, military, funerary, and religious authorities determine the legal consequences according to their jurisdiction.

The next world foundation concerning death, burial, resurrection, and legal return governs the wider system.

Saint Ruth and Enemy Care

Ruth’s miracle restored Caerlonian and Vorrakian lives without distinction.

The Temple treats that fact as central rather than incidental.

Vorrakian pilgrims and descendants may seek access under the sacred field’s entry rules.

The Temple does not require Caerlonian victims to forgive, welcome, or forget what Vorrakian forces did.

It does require the institution bearing Ruth’s name to maintain the patient standard created by the miracle.

Saint Ruth in Estenmark

Estenmark interprets Ruth through disciplined readiness.

Her mercy is taught alongside road maintenance, casualty drills, protected stores, and clear authority.

Estenmark officials often describe Hope’s Return as proof that compassion must be organized before disaster.

Critics answer that Estenmark sometimes reduces Ruth’s challenge to another system of control.

The Temple’s continuing conflict with military authority grows from that tension.

Saint Ruth Across Caerlon

In the Scoured Marches, Ruth is invoked in ruined clinics, refugee settlements, battlefield recovery, and reconstruction camps.

In the Verdant Principalities, her name appears in debates about restored heirs and whether a second life resumes every previous obligation.

In Highharbor, healers and body-recovery workers invoke Ruth when a survivor and a corpse arrive from the same wreck.

In the Crownward Remnant, reformers use Ruth to challenge institutions that praise sacrifice while protecting wealth and authority.

No single regional interpretation controls her devotion.

Saint Ruth in Vorrakian Memory

Public Vorrakian accounts preserve Grim Commander Gryoja’s salute.

Some Vorrakian veterans honor Ruth as a healer whose power proved itself before both armies.

Others interpret the miracle through strength, worthy sacrifice, or the humiliation of commanders whose battle was ended by one cleric.

The Temple does not endorse every Vorrakian interpretation.

It preserves the fact that Ruth restored Vorrakian lives and that Gryoja recognized her body under ceasefire.

Wider Devotion

Suthrani Veyran mercy institutions invoke Ruth when water, healing, or shelter must be provided before legal status is settled.

Veyrskold lamp houses use her example in teachings about keeping refuge open even for people a community fears.

Maritheli rescue workers invoke Ruth when enemies, pirates, debtors, or accused people are recovered from the same sea.

Ilyrian healers often emphasize that restoration must include the person’s community and environment rather than the body alone.

These devotions do not place those institutions under the authority of the Temple of Saint Ruth.

Public Disputes

Should Ruth Be Resurrected?

This remains the central dispute.

The Temple’s refusal is established policy, not a proven statement of Ruth’s current desire.

Supporters and opponents both participate in public hearings and scholarship.

Attempts to enter the Still Heart Chamber for an unauthorized resurrection are crimes against custody and sacred property.

Did Ruth Intend the Exchange?

Witnesses agree that Ruth asked Veyra to spare others instead of her.

They do not possess a complete written formula or theological explanation of the exchange.

The Temple teaches that her choice was deliberate without claiming knowledge of every divine mechanism.

Was Everyone Restored?

The accepted battlefield register records every confirmed battle death except Ruth as returned.

Disputes continue over missing people, individuals removed from the field, incomplete enemy records, and later claimants.

The Temple distinguishes the miracle’s accepted scope from unresolved identity cases.

Has the Temple Profited from Her Death?

The Temple receives offerings, pilgrimage income, grants, and political influence.

Critics argue that these benefits create an interest in preserving the refusal.

The Temple responds through public accounts, external inspection, restricted relic authority, and shared governance.

The criticism remains legitimate to raise.

Can Ruth Require Sacrifice?

The Temple rejects teachings that Ruth authorizes forced exchange of one life for many.

Ruth chose for herself.

No official rite permits a leader, family, court, or temple to designate another person as the sacrifice.

Groups teaching otherwise are subject to investigation under the conduct standards governing dangerous cults.

Public Character

Ruth is remembered as joyful, direct, stubborn, and difficult to impress with rank.

Devotional art often makes her solemn because of the manner of her death.

The Temple’s public teaching restores the humor missing from such images.

Visitors are reminded that Ruth laughed, teased exhausted workers, argued with officers, served food, remembered names, and made people feel seen before she became a symbol.

Her sainthood does not begin with her death.

It begins with the way she treated people while no one expected history to remember her.

Pathfinder Second Edition Integration

Saint Ruth is not currently an independent selectable deity.

Clerics and champions connected to her devotion ordinarily receive divine power through Veyra or another approved divine relationship.

A character may honor Ruth regardless of class.

Relevant skills include:

• Religion;
• Medicine;
• Society;
• Diplomacy;
• Saint Ruth Lore;
• Hope’s Return Lore;
• Estenmark Lore;
• Warfare Lore;
• Legal Lore;
• Genealogy Lore;
• Funerary Lore.

The Battle of Hope’s Return is a unique setting miracle.

It is not a ritual characters can learn, a spell available for purchase, or an effect reproduced by sacrificing a high-level cleric.

Ruth’s authenticated objects are sacred relics in the ordinary setting sense. They receive PF2e relic gifts only if separate mechanical entries are approved under the adopted official relic rules.

A character connected to Ruth may have served in a mercy house, survived protected treatment, worked for the Order, disputed a return record, opposed the Temple’s refusal, escorted a Vorrakian pilgrim, or investigated a movement misusing Ruth’s name.

Such a connection creates relationships and obligations rather than an automatic mechanical benefit.

Ruth’s Continuing Place

Ruth is remembered because she restored an impossible number of lives.

She remains important because the miracle did not solve what came afterward.

The returned still had histories. Armies still had authority. Families still had claims. The wounded still needed protection. Institutions still had the power to misuse sacrifice.

Ruth’s life gave Thesalon a miracle.

Her death left the living with work.