Rooted (eBook)

Chapter 1:

Reflections from All Sides

It was a cold January evening in southeastern Wisconsin. I sat in my living room, glass of wine in hand, surrounded by an explosion of moving boxes and scattered housewares. My husband and I were newlyweds who had decided it would be brilliant to move in the middle of winter. Everything was in complete and utter disarray. So, naturally, I decided it was the perfect time to write a book.

I flopped down on the couch after a night of bubble wrapping and boxing our belongings. Sipping my wine, I allowed myself to survey the work I had just accomplished. My attention lingered on three beautiful mirrors leaning against our walls, waiting to be carefully packaged for the move. Each one had either been gifted to us or inherited from a family member over the years.

One was given to my maternal grandparents on their wedding day in 1946. It hung on the walls of their various homes throughout their lives. They were married on a cold January day, like the one I’d just spent packing up our condo. As their only grandchild, I was happy to inherit their beautiful mirror. Ever since I was a child, I had always admired its ornate golden frame surrounding the rectangular panel of beveled glass. It looked like something you might see in an old English manor. When my grandfather passed away in 2016, my mother took on the monumental task of going through all of his belongings. Many black and white snapshots from her childhood included the beautiful mirror in the background. It’s a rich piece of family history that I will pass on to my own children one day.

My maternal grandparents, Jerry and Helen Gerg, were always a beacon of light and love in my life. Their relationship was like a romance plucked straight from the silver screen. Before they ever officially met, Helen used to sit on her porch on Sundays and watch Jerry drive past in his yellow sports car. Every week as she watched him go by, she would tell my great grandmother, “I’m going to marry that man.”

One day, as fate would have it, she and my grandfather were at the local roller skating rink at the same time. She witnessed him drop a penny near the edge of the rink and she skated over to pick it up. At this point, she and Jerry had still not yet been formally introduced. Instead of giving the coin back to him, she took that penny home, drilled a hole in it, and wore it around her ankle for good luck. A few weeks later, their paths crossed again and my grandfather asked her out on their first date, a stroll by the local lake. Soon, they made a habit of sitting by the lake eating Cracker Jack together. Several months went by, and the United States entered World War II. Grandpa Jerry enlisted with the air force and he and Helen agreed to stay in touch, but he told her not to wait for him if she found a beau she wanted to marry. He didn’t want her putting her life on hold for him. That’s just the kind of man he was, always putting others before himself. They wrote each other letters the entire time that my grandfather was away at war. My grandmother went on an occasional date here or there, but her heart was always with Jerry.

Grandpa Jerry’s time serving in World War II as a B-25 bomber pilot was not without struggles. One particular incident that he experienced could have cost him and his flight crew their lives. He was twenty-two years old on the day that he played a hand in saving his fellow crew members from what was intended to be a fatal event. The Allied forces were making substantial progress toward pushing the Nazis out of Naples, Italy. In order to stop the Allies from progressing further, the Nazis were planning to drag a large barge across a major shipping port. On June 22, 1944, the mission of the Allies was to sink the barge before it could be positioned across the entrance of the bay. When my mother spoke with my grandfather decades after the event, Jerry painfully recalled,

“The anti-aircraft flak was saturating the sky. All six planes in our group were taking heavy hits, but they did not abort. We were successful at sinking the barge, still tied up at the breakwater, leaving the entrance to the bay open and usable by our Allied shipping. It was a very costly mission. Out of my box of six planes, only two returned. I saw four planes go down behind us. Of those four planes, a total of twenty-four men, I only saw one man parachute out.”

Jerry’s plane was severely damaged, and the pilot was seriously injured. There was only one functional engine and the hydraulics and back-up hydraulics were completely shot out, leaving no flaps, no wheels, and a gaping hole where the hand crank used to be. Even though they were injured themselves, possessing only one usable arm and leg between the two of them, Jerry and his pilot maneuvered their crippled bomber back to safety, just feet above the Mediterranean Sea. The sea’s waves splashed up on the plane’s windshield as they struggled to maintain altitude. Just in the nick of time, the plane landed on solid ground on its belly, with gasoline spewing out and sparks flying. Miraculously, it didn’t go up in flames until every last man was safely out. The lives of all seven people on Jerry’s plane were saved that day. He received the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Air Medal, and his unit received a Presidential Unit Citation.

After the war, Helen was still waiting at home for Jerry. Following his life-altering brush with death, he returned ready to propose to her. One afternoon, he picked her up in his yellow car and they drove down to their spot at the lake to catch up and eat Cracker Jack. That day, however, he had hidden her engagement ring inside of the Cracker Jack box. When she found the ring instead of a chintzy prize, Jerry proposed. Of course, Helen said yes. Jerry and Helen were married for nearly sixty wonderful years. Their example of commitment to each other and their family is the reason I believe in true love.

In January of 2018, it was seventy-two years to the day of their wedding anniversary as I gazed at their mirror sitting in my living room. I thought of their legacy of love and thanked God for the memories I made with them over the years.

Across the room from Jerry and Helen’s mirror, another mirror hung on the wall of our condo. It was a large oval surrounded by a golden floral frame, ornately lovely. It always reminded me of the magic mirror in the fairy tale Snow White. I inherited it from my paternal grandparents in 2017, after my grandmother’s passing. When I was a child, I used to stand in front of it and pretend it was magic, playing a game of “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall…” My paternal grandparents, Al and Bette Engelmeier, both had a great sense of humor and they would always play along whenever they caught me in my pretend games. Their love story is a true wartime romance.

World War II had already begun, and like many women her age, Bette went to nursing school in hopes of using her skills to help soldiers in need. It was the night of her graduation, and her nursing school class went out on the town to celebrate their accomplishments. Al Engelmeier’s military regiment happened to be on leave at the same time, and the boys in uniform crowded the club where my grandmother and her classmates were celebrating. Bette wasn’t even of legal drinking age yet and had to fib her way into the place. Already uneasy about standing out as the baby of the bunch, she was even more unsettled when a tall, dark, and handsome man in uniform approached her group of friends, singling her out and asking her to dance. Al and Bette danced the night away and agreed to spend more time together in the following days of Al’s leave. The days flew by and their infatuation with each other grew. Al was set to ship out to Nova Scotia after his basic training and couldn’t bear the thought of living without Bette to come home to. After only three dates, in a fit of wartime romance, he proposed. Two weeks later, Bette found herself on a train to Fort Benning, Georgia, a beautiful bride to be! They were married on the base and Al left for Nova Scotia two days later. Their marriage lasted over sixty years. They never left each other’s side through thick and thin, just like my mother’s parents. My grandparents were shining role models of what a strong, committed, and loving marriage should look like.

As I gazed at both of the mirrors in my living room, my thoughts spiraled into the symbolism of the reflection staring back at me. I am a conglomeration of the people who have shaped my life, mixed with my own unique traits. A person’s identity is not primarily a question of nature or nurture. It is a consortium of both.

When we look in the mirror, we see who we are, but it’s an inverted image. We rely on what we know of ourselves to guide what we see in our reflection, all the while knowing that we are much, much more than meets the eye. Growing up as an adopted child is similar to looking into that mirror, like holding onto a Polaroid picture of your reflection, without ever having looked into the mirror itself.

In a way, these family heirloom mirrors not only represented my identity, but also the past, present, and future. As a child, my past was a beautiful mystery to me. I received photos and letters from the semi-open adoption arrangement that my parents had made, but I never met my birth parents. I looked at those photos of my biological parents and wanted so desperately to find a piece of myself staring back at me. As an adult, I went on to reconnect with both of my birth parents in different ways. I never dreamed that I would see my birth...