Sorry for the fuzzy pic…it’s old. Mom was about 34 there.
We began our new life in Pennsylvania in the house my mom grew up in. I went to grade school where my mother had gone to school. We went back to the church my mother always went to. And we still lived near several cousins, aunts and uncles, so there were plenty of playmates around, as well as baby-sitters.
Our lives went along pretty smoothly. My mom worked in a factory making designer dresses. My dad was a forklift operator at the Coca-Cola factory and my ‘Baba’ watched my little brother in the day, and me when I returned from school.
We were only back in PA a few years when my Baba got sick, when to the hospital, and died. This was my mom’s first serious loss! I was a young teen and really don’t remember much of the details, or how my mom coped with her loss. I sure wish now that I had paid closer attention to that time in our lives. I could use her wisdom.
Mom doted on Steve and me. We had new outfits for the first day of school. She would make my dresses, of course. Steve always had a ‘little man’ sport coat and dapper hat when we went to church! He was so cute.
One evening when I was 12, mom and I were watching the ‘Miss America Pageant’ on tv. It was very late, but I was allowed to stay up to watch it because I was older. Soon we heard an ambulance siren above the joyous glee of the pageant participants. I had an eerie feeling come over me as my dad was not home from work yet. He should have been home long ago!
Soon the phone rang, and mom’s face turned gray! Now I knew my dad was in trouble, and the ambulance was for him! He was driving home from a stop at a bar after work. Since his senses were muddled from the alcohol, the lights coming toward him blinded him. He went off the road and hit a pole head on! I don’t know how my mom got to the hospital-she did not drive. Maybe our neighbor, or an uncle. Someone came to stay with us, and she ran to the hospital not knowing if her husband was alive or dead! He hit his head and had a severe gash. He lost an eye and had to have a metal plate put into his head to repair the damage. He was never the same again.
I watched as mom bravely went through the care-taker role for my father. Many days he was ornery and belligerent because his brain had been affected by the injury. Remember since this was over 55 years ago brain injuries were very illusive to the medical field. With the advancements of today, I have no doubts that dad’s success would have been much better! Mom would remind us that this was not how our dad wanted to behave toward us, but he could not control how his brain was working. We had to give dad a lot of grace for those days.
He suffered for 2 years in this very strange world. Sometimes fine, but mostly always on the brink of a grand mal seizure. When we found him on the floor in a seizure on day when we returned from church shortly after the accident, we never let him be alone again. Over a year later he was hospitalized for yet another seizure and passed away leaving all his anguish, and a 35-year-old wife and 2 young children behind.
I am sure that mom was in a state of confusion that night when she returned home to us, but she never showed it. When we asked if we could sleep with her that night, she said, ‘no, I don’t want to become dependent on me, or me on you.’ She was a tough Russian woman!
The next few years were difficult for her, but we didn’t know it. Our lives went back to some degree of normalcy, and we only knew things were different because people treated us differently. Certainly not in a bad or mean way, more of a sad pity that I, for one didn’t understand. Much later when I experienced the death of my sister-in-law who left behind 2 young girls, I began to understand that pity!
As a child I didn’t understand that my mom had lost her soulmate, her best friend, her protector and provider. As an adult, I began to realize what other people knew-Don was a huge loss to this little family, and that loss would last forever!
I didn’t understand the incredible sacrifice my mom would have to make to keep us afloat in our little world! I don’t think I will ever will now because the only person who still has those memories…is gone!
Come back for part 3 of mom’s story! TODAY MOM IS GONE TO HER NEW HOME A MONTH!
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