I had a terrible night's sleep. I was upset about my interaction with two people, and I heard the water running every 15 minutes. At first, I thought Yvette and Josh were going to the bathroom frequently. However, it went on and on and on. If they didn't have diarrhea, it must be a problem with their toilet. I finally realized it was my toilet. I was too tired even to figure out that I could turn off the water and have silence. I eventually fell asleep. Then I woke up around seven. I didn't get out of bed immediately. I tried to go back to sleep. That only worked for so long. I got up, and Elsa and I did our long walk.
I put more work into the blog. I have been editing the entries from last year to finally post them on the public blog. I am reading about Mike's collapse, transport to the Honolulu hospital, his five weeks in the hospital, and his death. Oh, yay! Boy, is this making me feel great? I have to live with the ups and downs of those five weeks.
It's worst now. When I was going through it, it was easier than rereading it. At the time, I was fueled with adrenaline, dealing with the situation at hand, and planning how to deal with his recovery. Despite all the warnings I had, I didn't grasp that he would die until the Monday before we took him off life support. I think I'm still having trouble understanding that he's gone.
I went to church with Judy and Paulette. During mass, I got to observe two elderly couples sharing affection. One white-haired couple is from Brazil, visiting here. At one point, the husband bent over and rested his forehead on his wife's head, closing his eyes. A little later, he was rubbing his hand across her shoulders while they were waiting to receive communion.
Another elderly couple was standing in front of us. They were holding hands. God, I miss Mike. He was affectionate and affirming with me. When I was at Jacquie's farewell party the last Tuesday, one of the guests told me that she didn't know who Mike's wife was until one day she saw him gently rest his hand on my rear-end. It's those take for granted moments of physical contact and affection that are sorely missed.
Dorothy called today. I talked to her about the way rereading the blog made me feel. When I contacted her to tell her that Mike had pancreatitis, she looked it up and knew it was serious, and he only had a slim chance of living.
I spent most of the day working on getting the blog ready. Let's see if I can get it out by January 24. I am hoping August, my grandson, can make this happen.
I did take a break and vinegared my weeds in the front yard. Yvette came home and asked if I was up for a massage. You bet! She said she would be up in half an hour. We talked about our lives and how we felt for about half an hour before we did the massage. Those moments are worth their weight in gold.
Shivani called. We went through the rest of the linens to see if she wanted any. No, she did not want the 4 by 2 monogrammed linen towels with zero absorption, which Dorothy thinks are actually bath towels. She did want a few of my mom's dish towels, which I remember from my childhood. Why she saved them is beyond me.
Among the dish towels were two that I had never seen before. When I unfolded them, I saw the initials MSD stamped on them. I imagined a background story for those towels.
My dad was in the USA a year and a half before my mom came over. They were married here. The deal was that he was going to go to America. If, if, if, he could make a living and support her, he would send for her. He had his law degree in Germany. He was doing his apprenticeship in the German courts the day the Nazis marched in and ordered all the Jews out.
That was the day he called my mom and asked her to meet him in the Tier Garten in Berlin, where they lived. That was the day he told her he had to go to America and proposed.
In preparation for her arrival, he decorated their apartment. He had cloth-covered hangers in the closet. Everything was in matching sets. He had come from a very wealthy Jewish family. His standards were high. She had come from a lower-middle-class Lutheran family. Her standards were probably not as high. She would have been delighted with much less, but she got him as a husband and had to take the consequences. Another woman might have been appalled that her husband decorated their home without consulting her, but not my mom.
Those monogrammed dish towels I found, I suspect they were part of the package he put together for her. I am sorting through linens from the old country. They are all monogrammed. I doubt my mother's parents would have ever thought of something like that. Not so fast. If my mother brought over monogrammed linens table napkins with MS (Marguerite Starick) on them, that she must have monogrammed herself. Maybe it was a standard across all the classes. Of course, my father's parents had their professionally monogrammed with such fancy curlicues that I can't make out the initials.
While on the phone with Shivani, I told her the story of my parents' separate arrivals to America and the problems they overcame to communicate with each other while separated. Because my father was Jewish and my mother Christian, it would have put her at risk for my father to write her directly. A good friend of my mother's, Lotte Levy, became the intermediary. My father sent his letters to her. Then my mom gave the replies for Lotte to put in an envelope and address to my father. This meant that for that period, he could never write her name. He could never say, Dear Marguerite.
Dorothy found a letter written in German and had a friend translate it. I sent it to Shivani and am including it here.
H. Ernst David
74 Wadsworth Terrace
Apt. B-41
New York, N.Y.
My eternally beloved Marguerite, for close to a year and a half, not once in my letters have I been able to call you by your own name. A year and a half, that, in spite of the not unsatisfactory business developments, has not been a very easy time. For me, the worst was the fear that I suffered for you from time to time, from the thought that, indeed, in spite of all my caution, I might have made some mistake that could result in giving you difficulties.
So the thought that when you receive this letter you will be ready to start your journey here, and that four weeks from today I will be able to see you again and kiss you as my dear bride makes me all that much happier.
I know, darling, that you have just made a very upsetting and painful farewell, which is surely still weighing on you. I understand this pain very well, and you may be sure that I wouldn't expect that you would love your parents even in the slightest less than before. Rather, I will really try my best to always be a good and loving son to them.
You are going to be coming into an alien country, darling, with a foreign language, and people who are strangers. Don't try to rediscover our Germany here, the one whose familiar beauties of home existed only once in the world and which, with the best will cannot be magically recreated here. Much is different from what we are used to, many things will seem strange to you, and some will seem ugly. Try, my darling, as a favor to me, to take things as they come, and if possible, without drawing comparisons at every step, recognizing the good, and at least overlooking the bad, for the first while that you are here. If you follow this advice, you'll soon find out that America and in particular, New York, has great attractions and outstanding beauties, which, if we discover and enjoy them together, can replace much which Fate has taken from us.
It may be, darling, that I too have changed in the last year and a half, and that you will find in me faults and weaknesses other than the ones you already know and for which you are not prepared. On no account let a feeling of disappointment or dissatisfaction arise in you. Tell me right away what you don't like or what is on your mind, just as I am planning to share all my thoughts and feelings with you. We two have always been able to understand each other, and will, as I confidently hope, continue to do so as husband and wife.
Neither of us is a child, dearest, and we are mature enough to know that marriage is no game, but a serious undertaking, that responsibilities, sacrifices and discomforts for both partners, and in critical moments, which will happen to us too, can only be overcome with an iron will. But on the other hand, our feeling of belonging together through thick and thin, which underpins such determination, contains the possibility for the greatest fulfillment of happiness that two people are capable of.
You, my dearest, by your actions in the last years, have shown that you are well and truly willing to do your part in the fulfillment of the task that is in front of us, and I promise you I will also do everything to make our marriage a true partnership.
So, my dearest, I am looking forward with joy to the future, in the confident hope, that from our shared joys and sufferings, that future will bring us mutual satisfaction and happiness.
This is a serious letter that I am writing to you, dearest, to lead you from the old Europe to a new continent and new future, but you should know how seriously I will take the vows that we will make to each other a few days after you receive this letter.
You should know, dearest, not only that I love you with all my heart, but also that I feel I carry a deep and heavy responsibility toward you, a responsibility that I can only discharge if I succeed in making you, and in that way, also myself, happy.
As a result of a new law in the state of New York, our wedding cannot take place until three days after your arrival, which should be December 21, and I am looking forward to that day, which will join us for life, with longing and joyous expectation.
On Wednesday, Erich's telegram arrived. So far, we don't have any further news. I am hoping that he will be with you on the ship. I wish you and everyone else a peaceful, pleasant, and smooth voyage. Best greetings and kisses. The next ones will be real.
In great love and longing,
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