What We Did to You

All you ever did was give.

(Rosemarie Carola Hilpert in Germany, circa 1941

You unfurled as a flaxen-haired blossom in the heart of your people: the tiny town of Weißenstadt in Bavaria, Germany.

But you were not able to enjoy its charming simplicity, because by the time you could ride a tricycle it was 1944, and World War II was in full swing.

You were not able to enjoy your tricycle, because the strafing Germany endured blasted you off of your tricycle altogether.

Dazed, and with scraped knees, you reached for your cat Peter for comfort, but the explosions sent him running. You could not enjoy his hugs and kisses, because Peter never returned.

(Childhood innocence: Rosiemarie, shown left, circa 1944)

You could not enjoy the crisp Bavarian air. Enemy pilots flew so close to the earth that you could see their faces in the cockpits. This distracted your innocent imagination.

You could not take solace in your mother and enjoy her soothing entreaties. She left you, your father, and your sisters so she could run away with a man from France.

(Rosemarie Carola [dark bow-tie], shown with mother Hildegarde and sisters Anneliese and Hannelore)

You could not even enjoy the simple pleasures of friendship. After approaching the home of a little girl you used to play with, you discovered the house boarded up. The girl and her family had disappeared overnight — likely to a place they were destined never to return from — and you did not see her again.

Thoroughly disgusted with Germany’s crimes, you fell in love with a colored American soldier.

But you could not enjoy your relationship, because many of your family members disowned you. Your father, soon to be the mayor of Weißenstadt, even offered you a brand new car for you to leave the man you loved (which you refused).

You had two beautiful daughters, but because they were brown, you could not enjoy your own motherhood. The caramel color of your daughters’ skin was an indictment against you. You could see it in the eyes of your German countrymen.

Those eyes stared at you and scrutinized your innocent babes.

You’ve gone and lain with the enemy, those eyes seemed to say.

You slept with the enemy. You had war-babies. You consorted with THEM.

(Rosemarie, circa 1969–70, with family members)

You could not enjoy the simple pleasures of child-rearing because you were too busy protecting your little girls from abuse. You could hardly find apartments to live in; Germany had no Jim Crow laws, but that didn’t stop others from discriminating.

Yet you forged ahead, steeled your heart, and traveled with your husband and children to the United States to live the once-coveted ‘American Dream’. And still you could not enjoy your own life, because you were busy trying to provide your family with the precious enjoyments you yourself never had.

You were graceful, demure, and infused with genuine good humor. You were the kind of wife, friend, and lover that men could only yearn for. You loved unconditionally, but you could not enjoy your later years.

He’s cheating on me, you would tell Mom.

Dad wouldn’t do that, Mom would say.

But you knew the truth. You knew it for years, knew what he was up to while constantly on that infernal computer. You gave up the only life you knew for this man, and this was how he repaid you: by cheating with her.

On and on this went, day after day, month after month, year after year.

After the stress of 9/11, you were more beaten down and miserable than ever before.

You felt so lost and abandoned by your own family that you decided to finally take matters into your own hands.

“The Man Upstairs would understand [if I did so],” you once told Mom, shortly before the Thing happened.

Still newly married, I was absorbed with my own husband, my own infant, my own life. I didn’t care to sit down and just talk to you. I didn’t check up on you. I took you for granted, assuming you would always be — well, there.

But your death hit like a nuclear missile. Mom was never the same and neither was I.

I feel both at fault because you chose to leave us, and angry that you didn’t just wait for a little while longer. You could have met your granddaughter. You could have decided to leave the bastard. You could have started a brand new life — one that you could finally enjoy — and Mom and I would have helped you.

Ich hab dich ignoriert, Omi, und es tut mir so, so, so leid.

If you are close to me, if you can hear me, if you hover near, then know this:

I am so, so sorry.

(Rosemarie in 1981, carrying author in a baby-carrier)