Growing Up Was Hard To Do!?

You know I had to do my growing up when the country was in the throws of a World War. Daily life was pretty par - Dad went to work, Mom ran the house along with joining in all the War effort things that women did to support the War effort, and Me, I went to school everyday and learned how to be an "only child". In normal circumstances that might have been a rather neat experience. With brothers away fighting the War, it only made being the only one in the house a rather difficult cituation. Dad was seldom home, and Mom rather found herself more envoloved with outside things than with me. Now that I think on it, I guess she felt I had a great enough life. After all, I had a Dad, and she had never had one. Strange looking back on it now. She was really rather lonely, even lonelier than I was. I remember one night when Dad came home early enough to do something with us, he decided to take us to a show. When he suggested it, Mom turned to him and said: "do we have to take her". I piped up with: "Oh, I could'nt go, I promised Lida and Howard I would come over to the plunge and help pass out towels tonight." Well, that was not really the truth, but I needed to help Dad with an awkward cituation. Turned out when I went to the plunge, Lida and Howard had meetings to attend, and they didn't need me that evening. I don't remember what I did, but it was a very lonely evening for me. I guess I was about 14 at the time. Believe this was the first time I leaned what growing up was all about. You
learn how to make difficult things for someone you love a little better.
I'm not sure if this was the begining of my thinking about what "growing up" ment or not. I do know that I soon learned I had to be independent, and stand on my own two feet. Maybe even face disappointment head on and not look for anyone to smooth things over for me. There really wasn't anyone there to do it.
Dad and I had a talk about it later. He told me Mom was having a hard time with both the boys
away, and the concern they might not come home, or if they did they might be hurt. I learned just how that makes a Mother feel when I had a son in similar circumstances. Men don't handle those things in the same way, and if a husband has served in a War, he is even less likely to feel the same concerns a Mother does. As Jay was quick to tell me: "hey I got through it". Being on a Ship in the middle of the ocean didn't seem to paint the picture I had in mind of my son dropping out of a helicopter on a rope over a jungle that could hide a sniper with a scope on the end of a rifle. Then I believe I was better prepared for such things because I had been raised in a wholesome family that loved each other (on occasion) and cared deeply about each others welfare.
I was 12 when Pearl Harbor happened - I was 17 when the War ended and my brothers came home. Those were some pretty difficult years for me. Growing up with all the outward pressures as well as all the ones that every young person goes through. Both Ron and Ralph complained I dressed like an "old woman". Which now I take to mean that I had grown up too fast. Then they had missed all the in between changes that had taken place. What was even more alarming to them was I was talking about joining the Lady Marines when I graduated. You would have thought I was offering to join a "house of ill repute" the way they both carried on.
I don't know I gave up the idea, rather I was too scared to follow through from all the horror stories they had to tell about women in the service. I am sure now that some of that was true, but I am just a sure there were others who served without all the ugliness. Well, I never found out so that is the end of that!
I guess my biggest concern was how I would ever find someone to marry. I didn't date much, in fact I had been going steady during my Sophomore thru early Senior years at High School. Same guy. In fact we even got engaged before he left for the Navy after his graduation. My Mom wasn't happy about it, but then I didn't seem to do much to make her happy back then. Dad didn't say much. It was long after that I learned the guy's (Bill) parents had come to the house while I was away and told my folks they wanted the engagement ended, and as much as told my parents it was their job to see it happened. I don't know why this was never discussed with me. Maybe because they had a similar incident with Willetta's parents after she and Ron ran away and eloped after he came back from the War. Of little consequence. His family did a great job of seeing things went their way - I am eternally greatful it work out that way.
I won't get into detail about all of this. Just a short overview. I was attending High School half a day and working half a day in my Senior year. There was still a shortage of workers, and I had a good paying job. I didn't need the credits two more classes would have given me, so I had a work permit. Bill would write he needed money, the Navy didn't pay enough. I was saving for a Wedding Dress, but would rob the fund to send him an extra $20.00 every once in awhile to help out. (Generous, Stupid and supposedly in Love). One afternoon I got a phone call from Bill's grandmother. She was a great lady and his grandfather a neat old man. They invited me over the next week-end for a visit. I was thrilled. When I got there they explained they had waited until Bill's parents were out of the house, they lived with them at the time. Grandma explained to me she felt I was being "used" and it was not "fair". She showed me a letter that had come to Bill's parents the week before and told me they had sat and laughed about what was in it. She wasn't usually a snope, but it got her interest, and concern up, so she looked for the letter. When she read it she was really upset. Needless to say, so was I when I read it. It seems the money I had so generously sent was used to take other girls out. He was having a blast! I didn't stay long after I read the letter. Grandma Huffman told me she thought I was too nice a girl and was being faithful to be treated so badly. You know, I thought so too.
By the time I had arrived back at my house, I was really boiling and had plenty of steam up to set down and write a hugh letter. Needless to say, I was not engaged when I finished. Oh, within a week I got a very "sweet" letter from Bill trying to explain away the whole thing, but it feel on very deaf ears. I spent the last part of my Senior Year attending everything "stag". Not a fun way to end your School Years. Not a good way to find out about how rotten some people are, or can be. The lesson was not wasted on me. When the dating started after I graduated and went to work full time, I was careful on whom I spent my time with.
I met Jay some months later, we were matched from that first date. I had found my
"Mr. Right" and lived if not happily ever after, as happy as I deserved to be. Bill? Well he came around when he got out of the Navy and tried to pick up where he thought he had left off. He knew I had married, but in the conversation he assured me that didn't make any difference (rather big of him I thought). I could get a divorce and we would get married. I don't know why he thought at the time I looked so pale, or was still in my robe and slippers. When I asked him: "what will we do with what is laying on the bed in Mom's bedroom?" He stolled in to see, came back a bit shocked but still had the brass to say: "I'll adopt the baby". Generous to a fault. Of course he was talking about Paul who was then just a few days old. Even more brassey when you think Jay was working on our car in the driveway with Ralph when he came to the house. You know he showed up at my door the morning after his Wedding to another girl and asked why I wasn't at his Wedding. I simply explained: "because I did not received an invitation". My parents and my brother and his wife went. They were all invited. His comment was: "Well, you knew I wanted you there." I said: "apparently Lucille didn't". He came around again when Paul was about 2 years old, I was polite, but just barely. I didn't see him again, fortunately.
Do I wish things would have been different? I am not sure. The constant theme in my life has been peppered with some hard times that made me stand up, take my whacks and move along. I believe the things that made me sensitive were the things I needed to learn to make me a rounded person. I know I am opinionated - that comes from having to stand my ground. I may be wrong, but I have never been so shy that I can't apologizing when I find my error. I believe what I learned the best was everyone has to live their own life. When they make a choice, it is theirs to deal with, bring on what it may. Today it seems people feel they need to be excused from things rather than make the best of them as they are. I don't believe you can change a person. If we take them to begin with, then you have to work through until you work out what ever comes.
Jay had once said he was amased at how envolved I had been in the kids lives when they were at home and how I had stepped aside when they left home. I guess membership in the Church had a lot to do with that. When I put Paul on the airplane to go to Salt Lake and the Mission Home when he was 19, I had a long talk with the Lord on the way back from Bakersfield. The Lord had loaned him to me for 19 years, now I was turning him back to have the Lord work with him for 2 years. What I sent away was a boy, what the Lord would deliver back would be a man. And so it was. He was a "free agent". Owner of his own stewardship. My influence was what it ever would be. The ground work done, I needed to be graceful and "let go". Yes, growing up is hard to do, but a necessary part of being a Mother or Father for that matter. Maybe that is why Father in Heaven allows us to be Grand Mothers and Grand Fathers. We can oversee the growth of another generation and learn we are no longer the leaders just merely interested by standers. The distance is even greater as Great Grand Parents. The love is there, but the responsibility even thinner than with the original models.
I think the change with daughters is they have a new man to take up the responsibilities a Dad had. Mothers are more romantic and look to all the things a daughter has in store. A Dad lets his "little girl" go. Hard not to be envolved, but the time to let go even for "dear old dad". You know I am not sure we ever finish growing up. Maybe that is what this life is all about. Taking each stage as it come in life and making the best of what we have. Maybe that is why as Latter-day-Saints we are blessed with an eternal plan, a plan of happiness. Growing in each stage as to who we are, what we will eventually be, and staying glued to the truth. I can only fail if I don't set my own goals and keep working toward those set of goals. "When I was a child, I thought as a child", you know I am in the last stage of this great adventure that started on the 7th day of February way back there in 1929. I needed to "grow up" I certainly have "grown old". What a shame if I have missed the one thing that will "lead me into life eternal" by not realizing how important "growing up" fit into the entire plan Father has laid out for us. There are those who have found wealth wasn't enough to give true happiness. Others who have learned "stuff" is not enough even the lack of it is not the cause of misery. Our misery comes from not making the most of what ever it is that we do have. I know I speak only for myself when I say Jay and I were just about as happy as we ever were when we were in that duplex that had a murphy bed that pulled down in the living room; as ever we have been in the nicest place we ever owned. It was a $12.50 a week small furnished (and not too well at that) apartment, but we had our own home, we were a family and we worked out the good and the bad along with the little purse we worked with. Were there better times? You bet! Were there hard times? Absolutely! Would I change any of it? NO! I still remember what it was like doing our first shopping for staples when we got married. Little money so some real sacrifices had to be made. What changes took place when we had our first child. Two kids trying to settle into being responsible for a little one. The loss of our first home and an auto accident that nearly cost me my life. Months of recovery, many surgeries resulted. There isn't a thing we "grew up doing" that I regret or would alter. We grew together in all that "growing up". You know when Jay got sick those last years, I did not want to let anyone else care for him. He had been my "care giver" my "supporter" my "friend" my "lover". His hands had earned a living, provided me with a home, food and clothing. I could never repay him for the things he had given or had done for me. It was my privilege to do what ever was necessary to make him comfortable. When his mind was no long clear. When he didn't know me and said some pretty hard things, I quickly apologized for not meeting his expectations, he had never failed to meet mine. I guess what I am trying to say is life is good. I have been blessed. I am not sure that I will have the blessing of a "forever family", not because I haven't tried to earn one, but because I do not have the final say in the matter. It is not what we desire that brings a desired result, no, it is what we have earned along our "growing up" years that will determine that. We don't make out the report cards here. We only do the lessons, hand in our examination papers along the way and receive the "grade" when we pass beyond the vail. I am so happy to have had the opportunities that have come my way. The hard knocks have raised a bump or two, here and there, I don't notice any of that now. I just know so far, I have enjoyed the journey - yes, every bit of it. I'm still not sure I am "grown up" however. Maybe I never will be. I'm not even sure if that matters. I do know however that it is important that we don't wait on the "other guy" to make the difference. "I will only pass this way but once" if I miss this opportunity, it will not knock again. I have a dear friend who never passed an opportunity to tell me that he loved me. He has alzheimers now and I may never be able to hear him say that again, but I will never stop knowing that he really does love me. He may be changed, but that one fact is "forever". A Mission friend who has a wonderful wife who shared her wonderful husband with me those many months we served together. You know he was noted in the Mission for making everyones day with his expressing his love to everyone he met. He ment it, and we all knew it.
I am content in knowing I have been diligent in trying to meet the challenges and overcoming the discomforts in my life. In this twilight time, my deepest wishes are that I may finish the journey with a smile on my face, a song in my heart and hope the future will find me in the company of those whom I love most dearly.

Written this 18th day of January 2010
by: Eileen Rosenberg