AGREEMENTS: Lessons I Chose on My Journey toward the Light. Linda Stein-Luthke

So I stopped crying. Bobbie needed me to do that. It took me years to finally cry. I just couldn’t find the right time or place.

      The doctors asked to perform an autopsy to learn the cause of death. It was determined that even prior to my brother’s birth she had cancerous tumors on her pancreas that ultimately spread to her brain. She wasn’t crazy after all, just filled with cancer.

      Four hundred people came to the funeral in Akron. Everyone loved my Mother. I remember trying to be the perfect hostess and fixing breakfast for all our aunts and uncles who had come from Pittsburgh for the funeral. After the morning service a caravan drove to Pittsburgh for another service with family and then the burial. Mom was finally where she’d always wanted to be. She was home with family, albeit dead family, but still family.

      I was asked to see Mom in the coffin. She was now heavily made up and dressed in her favorite silk dress. She looked beautiful but surreal. I didn’t recognize the person in the coffin. That wasn’t my mother. That was a dead person. My mother wasn’t there. I turned away and blindly went into the bathroom to get away. I found my cousin there. We talked about the new love in my life.

      Barry had forsaken his other girlfriend and wrote to me constantly from the Navy. He tried to get leave for the funeral, but since we were not married, it was disallowed. He proclaimed his love for me over and over. And I wrote back with the same words to him. Now I had every reason to run to his arms.

      Daddy lost his job and sank into a deep depression. I later learned from my brother-in-law that Daddy’s brothers had locked him in a room at the funeral home in Pittsburgh to complain that he was not paying back his debt to them. Daddy came home from this terrible event and collapsed into a chair in the living room. He didn’t work and barely functioned. Bobbie took a job and family friends contributed money to help us survive.

      I was now on childcare and household duty full time when I wasn’t in school.

      I was embarrassed that anyone at school knew what had happened. My homeroom class had sent a huge basket of flowers and I felt I should stand before the class and thank them. I hated doing this. I now had a mother who had died. I was a motherless child. I remember judging other kids who had families that weren’t “normal.” Now, I was officially one of them. None of my friends wanted to talk much about it either. So, we all pretended nothing had happened and I went back to just being a teenager in high school. I put on a mask and pretended.

      But I couldn’t do that at home. From the moment I stepped through the door, I was a homemaker to my Dad and my sister, and a mom to my brother. I didn’t have the luxury of just worrying about me as most teens might do. That simply wasn’t possible.

      Chapter 6

      “All You Need is Love”

      Barry was on furlough from the Navy at Christmas. Since Bobbie was now living at home, I asked if I could have time away to stay with Barry’s family in Cleveland over the holidays. Daddy was sitting in his chair in the living room and barely responded. Mother had died a month before and his thoughts were elsewhere. I could go.

      Barry and I had only one thought in mind. We wanted time alone. His parents obliged by going to dinner one night, and we finally made love. This was a way I could feel alive even though the specter of death was all around me. I thought this would transport me, but instead I was stunned at how simple and uneventful the experience was. It was over in minutes and I had not really enjoyed myself at all. Of course, I didn’t let Barry know how disappointed I was. He seemed happy as could be. I didn’t know if it would ever be special for me too. That didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I felt our fate was sealed and now he would never leave me.

      Meeting Barry’s parents was another matter all together. He had warned me that his mother had many emotional difficulties and I might be surprised by her behavior. From what Barry told me she seemed to lack the basic maternal instincts. Barry’s dad was a traveling salesman, and although he made a very good living, Barry’s mother spent way beyond their means and complained that nothing was good enough for her. Having things seemed more important than caring about her family. She also enjoyed drinking, and when in this condition could become quite argumentative.

      One night we went to dinner at a very fine restaurant and after a few drinks, she began throwing food at Barry’s dad as she argued about the poor service we were receiving. I was mortified and very grateful when we left quickly.

      I had never seen adults behave in such a manner, but this only renewed my resolve. Now, I would save Barry from his family, and he would save me from mine.

      He would be done with the service in two years, and then the future was ours! After the holidays, Barry returned to the Navy and began his overseas duty in the Pacific aboard a troop transport. This all seemed very glamorous and exciting to me. The letters arrived daily telling of his adventures. He left out a lot of details that I only learned years later! I was a very naïve kid.

      He asked his best friend to keep an eye on me. This friend, along with Barry’s other pals from high school formed a group that liked to come for visits and meet my girl friends. They were all charming young men and my popularity increased with my friends who were eager for dates with these fellows. It was quite a lot of fun for all of us and a wonderful respite from life at home for me.

      Life at home was difficult and would become even more so in the spring. Dad had failed to change the furnace filter, causing a fire. Fortunately, we were all away from the house when it began. Neighbors called the fire department and most of our possessions were saved, but we now had to find another place to live. We moved into the second floor of a duplex nearby. All of this continued to prove very embarrassing to me. All of my friends lived in homes their parents owned. No one was renting part of a duplex!

      I graduated in the upper 6^th of my class. I had all “A’s” and one “D” for Geometry that should have been an “F.” My teacher felt he’d failed me. Geometry was the last period of the day and since I had cookies and milk for breakfast and an ice cream sandwich for lunch, I was ready for a nap by ninth period -- and I took it every day in Geometry. Besides, I had no study habits. I’d listen to what the teachers said to me in class (except in Geometry) and simply parroted back the material in papers and on tests. I did the minimal amount of work, but somehow that was enough.

      When my Geometry teacher tried to apologize to me for my poor grade, I explained that it really wasn’t his fault because I had no study habits and didn’t care. He wouldn’t agree with me and gave me a “D” instead of an “F.”

      I never liked math, so it simply didn’t matter to me. I was going to marry Barry, have babies and would never need an education. Little Women and the ideals I’d found there had receded to the back of my brain.

      My sister Bobbie, however, would have none of it. She refused to let me get off so easily. She insisted that I go to college and she took the initiative to get me a scholarship to the University of Akron. I couldn’t see the sense in this at all. But when the school gave me a full scholarship, I had no excuses left. I’d have to go. -- Bobbie was there for me when I couldn’t be there for myself.

      Over the summer, Barry surprised me with another visit home and my love for him only grew stronger. I couldn’t wait for us to be together forever. It was 1963 and such were the plans all my friends had. I’d go to school to bide my time, but once he was back home, we’d get married and begin our life together.

      Chapter 7

      More Change

      Bobbie and I were on a campaign. Daddy was now an eligible bachelor. Mom had not been dead more than a few months when the invitations began to