The Letters

6

We all handle the loss of a parent in our own unique way. Twenty years ago when my father died from peripheral arterial disease, I considered it a blessing. Blood was no longer circulating to his legs, gangrene had set in, and the doctors were about to amputate. At seventy-four, his remaining years would have been difficult at best. But, as the weeks went by, I found myself dwelling on what a struggle his life had been. Money woes and chronic health problems took its toll on my parent's marriage, and he often felt inadequate. Never a demonstrative man, he was quiet and aloof, which eventually drove us apart emotionally. Although we reconnected somewhat during his later years, I regretted not being closer to him. For many months after his death, I felt a great sadness.

My mother's death would prove to be more traumatic - but not for the obvious reasons. During the last ten years of her life she had developed various ailments, from respiratory problems to chronic back pain. Along the way she got hooked on pain medication and began to supplement it with alcohol. Rehab and therapy were ineffective, and her condition worsened. Consumed with bitterness and resentments she had harbored for years, she simply gave up and welcomed death. As with my father's passing, I felt a sense of relief, and hoped that she had finally found some peace. But this period of acceptance did not last long. A large boxful of letters was about to change all that, and send me on a journey filled with conflicting emotions and startling discoveries.

The letters were found in her bedroom closet and dated back almost sixty years. I was immediately intrigued with the idea of reading old love letters and getting some insight into their early life together. What little knowledge I had of my parents' personal history was learned from my mother. They met in the small town of Weinsberg, Germany at the end of World War II. Nearby Heidelberg was the seat of American occupation and many soldiers lived outside the barracks in homes requisitioned from the surrounding German towns. My father and several of his fellow G.I. s were temporarily housed at number 44 Hallerstrasse, where he met a shy, nineteen-year-old Fraulein who was fifteen years his junior. They fell in love and became engaged on Christmas Day 1945. In March of 1947, he was discharged from the army and returned home. He spent the next nine months cutting through the necessary red tape that would bring his fiancto the States so they could marry. By 1952, they had two children and lived in a modest three-bedroom house in the suburbs of Long Island, New York.

Despite their romantic beginning, I was well aware that my parent's marriage was less than ideal. They rarely seemed happy together and frequently bickered, mostly about money. My father's limited education and chronic health issues made it difficult for him to find decent work. By the time I was 12, my mother was forced to work outside the home, something she clearly resented. It was hard to imagine they had once shared a passionate love.

Their correspondence began in March of 1946, shortly after my father's unit was transferred to Blaubeuren, a town approximately 50 miles southeast of Weinsberg. Distraught over their separation, my father's letters were full of passionate expressions of love. He obviously adored her and counted the days until they could be together once again. My mother was lonely as well, and became quite depressed. Although English was not her first language, she expressed herself with a simplicity that was extremely touching. The intensity of their emotions affected me so deeply that I often broke down and cried. More than once my husband suggested that I take an emotional break for a few days before continuing.

After initially arranging the letters chronologically, I noticed a five-month gap in my parents' correspondence. Between April and September of 1947, no letters had been exchanged. Did my father's unit returned to Weinsberg? Or did my mother, in desperation, follow him to Blaubeuren? I was beginning to suspect it was something else entirely, so I placed a call to my Uncle Robert. As the last surviving sibling of five, he was the only one who could provide some answers. Reluctantly, he confirmed my suspicions. Miserable without the woman he loved, my father had indeed my gone AWOL. Not just for a week or two, but for five months! At the urging of his mother, he finally returned to his unit to face his punishment. Because his military career up to that point had been exemplary, he got off fairly easy. He was demoted from Corporal to Private, spent two months in the stockade, paid a small fine, and learned his discharge would be honorable. Naturally, I was stunned by this news. Here was a man so completely in love that he would break military law to be with his sweetheart. This surely was not the father I remembered.

Seeing my parents from this new perspective allowed me to rediscover them as human beings, not simply Mom and Pop. And while it comforted me that they had once shared an intense love, it saddened me that they had somehow lost their passion over the years. With some trepidation, I moved on to the letters that were written from 1956-1957, hoping they would tell me why.

In December of 1956, my mother announced that she was taking my brother and me to visit our maternal grandmother in Germany. Though not happy at being separated from his family for three months, my father reluctantly agreed. Being only four years old at the time, I was unaware of my mother's emotional turmoil during our time abroad. It was not until many years later that she told me of her desire to stay in Germany and ultimately leave my father. It was understandable to a certain extent. Possessive over his younger, attractive wife, my father showed little interest in developing a circle of friends. Because of his chronic health issues, and the never-ending money woes, they rarely went out. This was not the life she had envisioned for herself in America. Several years into the marriage, she became restless and dissatisfied. In my father's defense, I should point out that he did not mislead her about their future together. A working-class man who enjoyed life's simple pleasures, his only aspirations were to someday buy a house and have a family. With the woman he loved by his side, he looked forward to many years of marital bliss. He did not know that his patience and strength of character would be so sorely tested.

Unlike today, telephoning abroad in 1956 was difficult and impossibly expensive. My parents had to rely on written correspondence as their only means of communication. In this age of instant messaging and e-mail, it is hard to imagine having to wait ten days or more before getting a response to a letter! It made an already tense situation even worse. My mother toyed with my father's emotions by repeatedly postponing her return to America. She constantly asked him to send money, knowing full well he was barely able to pay the bills at home. If a money order was not forthcoming, she would berate him or simply punish him by not writing. While my father was working all day and coming home to an empty house, she wrote of going to parties where she met other men who found her attractive. One week she would write that she no longer loved him and intended to stay in Germany with her children. The next week she would express remorse and promise to return so we could be a family once more.

My poor father was genuinely bewildered by her behavior and devastated that he may have lost her love. Outraged that he may never see his children again, he appealed to her sense of reason and compassion. He accused her of kidnapping, sought legal counsel, and threatened to inform the authorities. Either fearful of losing us or simply guilt-ridden, my mother finally relented and in December we returned home. It had been a year since I had seen my father.

My mother had always blamed me for her decision to return. She claimed that I was miserable the whole time we were away and begged her to take us back to our father. There may have been some truth to this, but a letter written two months before our return reveals another reason. It was love, guilt, and compassion that brought us back home.

"Many a time I made up my mind to be angry with you [and] to get away from that dull life we had been leading. Then Susie would come up to me, for one reason or another, and look at me out of those eyes of hers. They are just like yours, you know, and the expression about them too. And then I would see you instead and it was just as if you were looking at me and pleading with me, and I knew I couldn't go through with this whole "staying-over-here" business."

In the two year's since my mom's passing, I have been struggling to make peace with these conflicting emotions. The tremendous anger directed at my mother's selfishness and insensitivity has subsided. I now understand that the anxiety and depression she battled most of her life played a big role in her behavior. The resentment she felt towards my father never left her, even eighteen years after his death. True happiness and contentment always seemed just beyond her grasp.

For a long time, there was an ache in my heart reserved strictly for my father. I could not stop thinking about the lonely year he spent without his family, and the despondency he must have felt at the thought of losing his wife. But time has given me the chance to put it in perspective, to try and understand my mother's viewpoint. Like all of us, my father was not perfect. He liked his whiskey, smoked two packs of cigarettes a day, and had a weakness for betting on the ponies. Many of his health problems could be blamed on his lifestyle choices. But he was always a kind and decent person - a gentle soul. And he loved his children with an intensity that amazed me.

The letters gave me a better understanding of my parents as individuals. Considering how different they were from one another, it must have taken great effort on both their parts to keep the marriage intact. Perhaps the occasional happy moment made it a bit easier. I prefer to remember them sharing a good laugh, engaging in a spirited discussion about politics, or playfully ribbing one another. It comforts to me to think that they are together now as they once were - strolling the fields of Weinsberg, hand in hand, two young people very much in love.