The Inevitable Truth

By early 1966 mom had gotten extremely paranoid about my father repeatedly showing up unannounced. There were a lot of unanswered questions: Did he have a job? Where was he living? Who was he 'with'? (Still that 18 year old girl in Havertown?) How far would he go to get a divorce??

Mom had a very vivid imagination. Her worst fear was that dad was going to 'kidnap' me. So when I returned to Ako after Christmas break she left instructions with the school administration that dad not be allowed to see me under any circumstances.

Then one Sunday afternoon in February or March I was told to report to the rector's office. I was a bit apprehensive - I didn't recall having done anything that wrong...
But the rector told me that I wasn't in trouble - my father was there and wanted to talk to me. He told me that he sympathized with my mother's concerns but he was not going to prevent a father from seeing his son - we could meet in one of the conference rooms and under no circumstances would I be leaving the premises.

I was pretty freaked out. Mom had predicted that dad would show up at the school and she was absolutely right... I couldn't fathom what he wanted to talk about... I certainly didn't have anything to say to him - other than maybe asking him why he ruined my life :-) But I agreed to meet with him anyway. (I suppose it was inevitable.)

So - let's recap the events leading up to this moment:
Once upon a time we lived in Philadelphia - life was not perfect, but it was OK... Dad told us he had a job in Germany and sent us ahead to stay with my aunts. But he stayed in Philadelphia and asked for a divorce instead. We were stuck in Germany and I was stuck in that godforsaken boarding school. Dad kept showing up every few months acting like everything was all hunky-dory... Yeah - I wasn't buying it...

Now - ever since we got to Germany mom had been on a rant about how dad didn't care about us kids. She was the only one who cared... He didn't love anyone but himself and just wanted to use us to hurt her. He would do anything to get her to agree to a divorce... I could go on and on, but I think you get the drift...

And now I was in that conference room at Ako listening to my dad deliver the same rant:
Mom didn't really love us kids. He hadn't done anything wrong - everything was her fault... She had turned us against him for her own evil purposes - she would do anything to hurt him. And if she really loved us we wouldn't be stuck in those boarding schools ... OK - maybe that point was valid :-) ... I could go on and on, but I think you get the drift.

And I was hopelessly confused.

After that little chat I headed back up to the dorm room and watched from the front window as dad drove off. And I kept on staring out that window - trying to make sense of things...
Here was the dilemma: Each of my parents was asserting that the other was evil incarnate and they were the only one who really loved me and cared about me... So - which one of them was right??

Suddenly the answer hit me - and it literally made the hair stand up on the back of my neck:
Both of my parents were completely full of sh*t!!! They were so preoccupied with their anger toward each other and so busy playing the "blame game" that neither was giving any thought to the absolute hell they were putting my sister and me through.

Here was the inevitable truth: I could not rely on either of them... I was on my own - solely responsible for my own well being... When it came right down to it I could trust nobody but myself...

And that was the moment my childhood ended...