Rubber and gasoline rationing were very difficult on most of the country. I regularly heard complaints on the streets, gripes from neighbors and even from Susan at times about the challenges. Living in New York City, and not driving as much in my later age, I found myself substantially less impacted by this call to action. The subway and surrounding trains took me where I needed to go, and I mostly stayed inside the city. Despite these hardships, it seemed that the entire nation managed to come together. People were upset, but they all seemed to understand that it was a national burden that we had to bear, that we were all in it together, and we had to support each other in order to pull through the war. It was astounding to watch.
There was an interesting irony with our entrance into World War II. For the first time since the Depression, people, our family included, really had money again to purchase things. However, Uncle Sam and his associates reminded us that only essential items should be purchased, and that all commodities must be rationed to continue to support the war effort. Though it was difficult, and sometimes frustrating, we all seemed to find a way to control our spending. We all had to suffer just a bit for the good of the nation. I too thought, in my guilt and my malaise, it was the least I could do.
And so we worked. I reconnected with the ladies from the reading group, and together we all started working in my little Victory Garden. Sam and I had purchased the plot on a little side street not far from our brownstone, where others in the neighborhood were growing their-own. They would come over, some of them clad in blue jeans and a Rosie the Riveter-like handkerchief wrapped around their heads, ready to dedicate their part to the war effort. Susan considered quitting her job to participate, but instead trained and became a switchboard operator on the weekends, working sometimes even late at night. I admired her spirit, and she bolstered me to participate even more than I had been.
I began assisting with the organization and gathering of goods for care packages to be sent to the troops overseas through the Red Cross. I felt that, had I been a younger woman, or more ambitious when I was young and not tumultuously tossed into another century, I would have trained as a nurse and volunteered with the military. Volunteering at the Red Cross brought me closer to the soldiers than I ever imagined. Part of the time, I helped distribute letters to them, when they returned home, wounded or worse. I would touch the soldiers’ hands, looking into their eyes, and tell them thank you. Distributing the little love letters, grieving letters, or simply stories from their families and friends was the least I could do. My heart sank, and I became dismayed and confused, and almost numb to everything. Nothing felt real anymore, only those soldiers, those boys, and their lives. I thought a lot about the soldiers overseas, in all of the nations involved, who must feel the same way too. They themselves are not responsible for the actions of others who brought this war to fruition, but have become a part of it nonetheless. Most nights, I cried myself to sleep.
It was this contact which taught me that soldiers were more than men in the propaganda posters, more than the stories that you heard on the radio. They were real, brave men giving their lives for their country, to something that was bigger than all of us. But they were still men, they were still people, and they deserved decency, solidarity, and humility from everyone they encountered.
Though I would have liked to spend more time with her, Susan fainted at the sight of blood, otherwise she surely would have come with me to volunteer with the Red Cross at the hospital. Sam still worked, though he was thinking about retiring. Whenever he came home, and I was not busy with the Red Cross, he would collect me and we would go work in our little garden plot together.
1945
I was overcome with a sick feeling that rooted down to the core of my being when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. Knowing what our nation did to those tens of thousands of civilians is something out of a hellish nightmare. As I had been learning through the decades, it is so different reading about something in a history book, and actually experiencing the horror first hand. These are events that no one should live through, things that should never have even been allowed to occur. It seemed that there is no changing to humanity, no matter how the technology grows, and the knowledge of our world. There is always a steadfast and unfounded draw to death and destruction. Thinking forward into history, as odd as that sounds, I knew that there would be even more suffering. I put a hand on my heart and sighed, looking out the window and away from the images in the newspaper. But the faces remained. The lives taken, and the unfounded and completely unjust suffering of the millions of persons during World War II would haunt the world for decades to come.
The Japanese had surrendered after the bombing on August 15th. I was sitting in front of our tiny, boxed television with Sam, Susan and Todd when it happened. We all knew it was coming this time, not just me. When President Truman announced the surrender of the Japanese, we could hear the cheering throughout the city. We were no longer at war. It had been won. There were national celebrations in the street, soldiers kissing their wives on the subways, radios broadcasted cheers of victory and solidarity.
We all stood up and cheered ourselves, on our new sofa to replace the old Victorian one with the little wooden molding. But I couldn’t help but feel that same sick feeling. We had won the war, but on the blood of so many innocent lives. I understood the history, as I had decades before I lived it. But seeing the suffering with my own eyes, living in the cities where the soldiers were coming home injured, or weren’t coming home at all. Seeing their wives going off to work in the factories or on the telegraph lines. Seeing the devastation across the world. That was something else entirely.
Susan herself felt similarly, overwhelmed by the dissonance of the triumph and the pain. After standing and cheering, she collapsed suddenly on the couch, covering her face as tears streamed out between her fingers. Her shoulders shook softly, and Todd bent down to console her.
“Baby, baby, it’s okay,” he soothed her, “the war’s over. We’re all okay.”
“But at what cost?” Susan challenged him. “How many people had to die to stop the suffering?” She shook her head, dismayed by the outcome, and frustrated by the reality of war. “I know we had to stop it, and I’m not sure what else we could have done but it’s not fair… it’s just not fair…”
Her weeping brought on my own, and we sat on the couch together, in a discombobulated heap wrought with sorrow and muddled by authenticity. Sam and Todd stood by in silence, bowing their heads as they themselves grappled with everything that had happened over the past five years. It was incredible in the most horrific way.
Just a few days after the surrender, and I don’t recall how many, we got our first piece of good news in what felt like forever. The Nuremberg trials were beginning, and would enact the first ethical standards for human experimentation to prevent harm to anyone in the future of the likes that the Nazis had done.
With the war ended and the long process of closure to those who suffered began, we were graced with news of joy in our own home. Susan was pregnant again, now at age thirty-five. And unlike my second pregnancy, she cast fear aside and welcomed it with open arms.
Susan had an uncanny intuition that I never seemed to have. One day, walking to the bakery, she stopped me on the street corner, grabbing my hand.
“Mother,” she said smiling, “I’m going to have a baby boy.”
I blinked, completely caught off guard.
She continued, “I know, you’ll say there’s no way I could possibly know that, but—well you know how sometimes you just know things…” She was referring to my own, unnatural intuition from my knowledge of the future. I smiled, humoring her, but cautious to open that door for discussion. “Well,” she said, “I just know it’s a boy. I have a feeling.”
I squeezed her hand, not doubting her own intuition for a second. “I’m sure you’re right; you’ve always been very instinctive. Adelle always said that herself, too.” I paused then, looking down at the ground. “Have yo
u and Todd discussed any names?”
She paused herself, adjusting her hat in the breeze, and pulling her top back down further over her stomach—the cotton kept riding up. “We have,” she said, “but there’s one name that I particularly like, that I wanted to ask for your permission for before mentioning it to Todd.”
I furrowed my brow, thinking, having no idea what name she was referring to.
She spoke up again before I could place the name. “Connor,” she said smiling, “After your father.” She took my hand again then, holding it in both of hers. “I know it’s a sensitive subject for you, but I also know that you loved your father so much. It would be my honor to name my son after him.”
My face flushed in surprise and love, and I felt my voice catch in my throat. Blinking away tears, I hugged her there in the middle of the sidewalk. It was a relatively busy afternoon, and people had to make their way around us, parting ways like two divergent paths.
“Susan, that’s the sweetest thing you could have done. I couldn’t be more honored, and I know your grandfather, wherever he is, would be so touched.” I squeezed her tight, wiping the tears from my eyes, and fanning my face. It was hot in the warm July sun, adding to the rouge of my face. I was more than touched; I was deeply moved. My father, someone who my daughter had never met, would be remembered in her son. It was a moment of great humility, a reflection of the love that my daughter and I shared. Though she never knew my entire story, she understood that the loss of my father was something that I never got over, and something that had torn through me, down to the fiber of my being. She also knew that he was a great man. In his honor, her son would take his name. I was overwhelmed with pride and meekness, feeling undeserving of such a distinction. My father, though, could not have been more worthy. As we continued our stroll to the bakery, I looked in the faces of every man on the sidewalk, searching again, for him. I had the faintest hope that he would suddenly materialize, in that moment bonded to my daughter and me through time. But it would never happen. His form would fade through the decades, and he would drift, somewhere, lost in time and the dimensions between past and present. But at least, for me, his memory would live on through the birth of my grandson.
Susan was scheduled to give birth in early September. We were all running ourselves ragged in preparation, elated over the thought of our new, youngest family member. I was still hesitant, burdened with the concern about losing the baby, particularly after my own experience and Susan’s too. But Sam reminded me that we had to be strong, especially for Susan, who needed strength in her last few weeks and in preparation for the birth. I knew he was right. He had the foresight to remove himself from the equation, and focus optimistically on what needed to be done.
Having just retired, Sam spent much time at home focusing on the preparations for the baby. He missed the force dearly, but the freedom it gave him, allowing him time with his family and his daughter during this wonderful time in her life made it all the better. He was overwhelmed with joy, and was eager almost as much as Susan was, for the baby to come. He began constructing a bassinette, by hand, for Susan and Todd. He asked me to help keep it a secret, which I did, hoping to surprise Susan on the day of the child’s birth with the special and thoughtful creation.
I became a frightful mess all through the month of August. Sam had to help calm me down, focusing his own energy into the bassinette, and other projects to prime for the birth. I had a terrible, recurring image of Susan in my mind, lying face down on the floor of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, bleeding and helpless, hoping by some bizarre stroke of luck that someone walked past. I now not only began to fear for the child’s life, but for hers. And in my fear, I found it increasingly hard to focus, and to think. My mind became clouded about everything else except the pregnancy, and I began forgetting to do small tasks, important tasks, like doing the dishes, or even once, turning off the stove. I didn’t tell Sam, and he didn’t see. I would hide my fear until I no longer could. I didn’t want Sam to think me weak or frail, and I certainly didn’t want Susan to find out.
This pregnancy had gone over incomprehensibly smoother than the previous. Susan had hardly been sick at all, not even a touch of morning sickness. I had been shocked to see how well she did, to see how healthy she looked, swollen with child, with rosy pink cheeks and a big, bright smile across her face. She worked almost the full duration of her pregnancy, too. The Met was so excited for her, for her second try, that they gave her a flexible leave, allowing her to come back whenever she wanted, after the birth of her baby. She was so grateful for that position, as she should have been. It was nearly unheard of to receive compensation, let alone any substantial period of ‘maternity leave’ in the late twentieth century, and would have been just as completely shocking in the current time period, living in the past. Susan had averted disaster, and fate, by working in an incredibly supportive and progressive environment, allowing her to retain her job, while reinforcing and growing her family and personal life. I was overjoyed.
On a quiet, crisp night in the middle of September, the news came. Sam and I received a hasty phone call from Todd, who was back at Mt. Sinai hospital with Susan, this time to deliver a child. I could hear the fear in Todd’s voice when he rang, his shakes echoing through the receiver. I know he couldn’t bear to lose another child. Going back to Mt. Sinai forced him relive the atrocious experience from nearly a decade ago.
But what he told us over the phone sounded very promising. Susan’s contractions were normal, and in increasingly short intervals. She was breathing well, and she wasn’t bleeding. I cried when I heard this, thanking the forces that be that my baby was safe, and hoping that the little life she was bringing into the world made it out alright.
With busier streets than ever, we no longer owned a car. Instead, we hailed a cab and headed up to the hospital. We came in just as Susan was getting ready to deliver. I was in the room, holding Susan’s hand when she brought the most beautiful baby boy I have ever seen into this world. Connor Russo. I couldn’t help but think of my father. It was a very strange moment, there, looking at Susan swaddle her newborn, wrapped in her arms, his little fingers wrapped around her single pointer finger. It was watching the birth of a new generation. I felt that little Connor was bringing a part of my father with him into the world. With his name, he was bridging the gap between realms, between times. I wished I could tell Susan, I wished I could confide my secret in her, sharing the incredible significance and honor of her choosing to name her son after my father. But I stayed quiet. I held her hand, rubbing little Connor’s soft head.
She and Todd and their new addition stayed overnight in the hospital, to monitor her and the baby to make sure there were no complications, because of what had happened previously. Sam and I went over to their home, finishing the preparations on the nursery. Sam placed his newly finished bassinette in the corner, rocking it back and forth, very proud of its structure and craftsmanship. I could see him beaming at the idea of their little boy, his grandson, sleeping peacefully in the small piece of furniture. I watched him, and beamed myself, from ear to ear.
1950
I couldn’t believe it. Even though I knew it I couldn’t believe it. In 1950, we started another war, this time with Korea. And everyone felt so tired. I was tired, our family was tired, the nation was tired. There were protests all across the country in major metropolitan areas. No one wanted to go back to war; there had been enough death. And as horrible as it was, it was a war that we had started, from the division of North and South Korea during World War II between the United States and Japan. I understood the tension there, and the danger to innocent citizens of Korea who were caught between two warring governments. The United Nations had made a decision, and we had to follow it. But another war was just too much.
The day that it happened, Sam came home with the newspaper, and tossed it angrily onto the table. He had a coffee in one hand from the new shop down the street—he frequented it in the mornings now that he was reti
red—and the coffee sloshed and spilled all over his shirt and his shoes as he flung the papers into the air.
“Goddammit!” he had said, shaking his fists angrily into the air, the newspapers coming to rest gently on the table and on the hardwood floor of the kitchen, like little feathers, drifting to the ground. “There’s been too many lives lost already, too many lives. We can’t afford to lose more, it’s not fair to our nation, it’s not fair to our boys…”
He stopped then, grabbing his face and rubbing his forehead. I came over to reach out to him, grabbing his shoulders and holding him. Sam was never an angry man. His temper was very mild, and he never yelled. This instance of raising his voice was the first time I had heard him do that since we lost Edward. Possibly the only time. The stress was getting to him. I could see it in his eyes, and feel it in his touch. And I didn’t know what to do. Our path down the road to war would continue for decades to come. And I couldn’t tell him that.
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