During World War II, I was the youngest of four girls being raised by a single parent.
My mother and father had separated when I was a baby. My father was a World War I veteran who had been severely wounded while fighting in France. He returned to this country not only injured in body, but devastated in mind and spirit. Eventually, the flashbacks became so disruptive that my parents separated.
As a young child at home, this separation did not have an impact on me. However, when I started school, I became aware of the fact that my friends had two parents, a Mom and a Dad. It was the 1940s and the norm then was two-parent families. I was the one who was different, and as time passed I felt the difference deeply and quietly. Quietly, because I told no one how I felt; deeply, because it became a lonely ache in my heart.
In those days, we walked to school. Since I lived the farthest, I would stop at the home of a friend and would wait as she finished breakfast. I could hear the early morning conversation and laughter and sometimes there would be discussions about plans for the weekend. What I really enjoyed was sitting in their living room and pretending that I actually lived in this house. The room was filled with what to my eyes was the most wonderful furniture; a big soft sofa and comfortable chairs; tables which sported glass dishes filled with candy and other treats; colorful magazines; and hugging the wall, one of the first TV sets. I would look at all this and try to imagine what it would be like to live in such a home. Mostly it seemed that I hungered for the warmth, security and happiness that it seemed to provide.
As time went by, I was also aware of the difference in how my friends spent their vacations and holidays. They would come back with wonderful stories of where they had been. My holidays and summers were spent quietly at home — mostly reading or roller skating on the side streets by myself. My sisters were older and working and there were no children my age who lived nearby. I still remember one summer when I read everything I could find on a certain vacation spot and then regaled my classmates with a fabricated story of my summer vacation. If the nun saw through my deception, she never said anything.
But the following year, a change happened that would affect my life forever. A new religious sister was assigned to the school and, most important, she was assigned to teach my class.
She seemed very young in comparison to the other nuns. But it was her attitude that made an impression on me. It was this feeling that she cared about us not just as a teacher but as a friend. And so I was happy to stay after school — cleaning the blackboard and erasers and tidying the room. And on one of the occasions as we talked, I told her about not knowing my father. Why I told her all that was bothering me I’ll never know for sure since I never discussed it with anyone. Perhaps I was especially vulnerable at that time because my mother had tuberculosis and was in a sanatorium. I now felt my loss had doubled. Even though my older sisters were there to take care of me, they still were not “Mom.”
As I finished talking, she said to me, “Romalda, you have the most wonderful Father possible — you have God the Father. He is your heavenly Father, better than any earthly father because he will never leave you. You can tell him everything and he will listen and take care of you. He knows how much you miss your father and he wants to comfort and help you. You just have to ask.”
I’m not sure what she said to me, as a 9-year old at that time, made a great impact. I really wanted my father on earth in my life — I wanted to have two parents. But even as I did not fully accept what she said, a seed had been planted that day in my heart and in my mind. In God’s time, it would mature. And how he chose this process was beautifully simple. It started with what was already present in my life — my devotion to his son, Jesus.
The years went by — graduation from elementary school and what seemed as a quick step in time, graduation from high school. There was no thought of college as it was necessary for me to start working to contribute to the household finances. By this time my older sisters were married, and so it was just my mom and me at home. Several years later, I married and my husband, Ron, with his own spiritual strength helped to add to my reliance on God. We began to read the Bible and it was then I came across two Bible verses that in a sense validated what Sister told me all those years ago. In Matthew 23:9, the words “Do not call anyone on earth your father. Only one is your father, the One in heaven.” And then, John 14:6 “No one comes to the Father but through me.”
But God was not finished in dealing with my long ago hurt that still lingered at times in my heart.
When I retired, I had more time to visit with my sisters. I began to hear stories about my father since he had been in their lives before I was born. Mixed with remembrances of hard times were also memories of a man who had been a master carpenter, enjoyed music and played the violin, and could be gentle and understanding. However, the physical pain of his injuries and the memories of experiences he had endured on the battlefields made life unbearable for him. It was then he would turn to drink as a form of escape.
These stories and looking at pictures of him as a young man and then a husband and father sitting with my mother and two of my sisters started to bring him as a presence in my life.
My sister had his war record and I took the file and began to read for the first time about his time in the service. It was now that I learned how severely he was wounded in a battle on the Meuse-Argonne front in October 1918, that he spent three months in the hospital and arrived back in the United States on April 2, 1919, and was honorably discharged on April 10, 1919. I looked at the picture of his headstone in Arlington Cemetery.
All this information increased my desire to know if he had been honored for his service. I wrote to my Congressman, Rob Andrews, and several letters passed between my home and his office. One day I received a letter stating that after reviewing records, my father was a highly decorated veteran of World War I. Steps were being taken to obtain the Purple Heart, the WWI Victory Medal w/Aisne-Marne and Meuse-Argonne Battle Clasp, and the WWI Silver Victory Button.
When I received the medals, I sat for a long time thinking of my father and what these medals represented — loss and honor. Turning over the Purple Heart, I read the inscription “For Military Merit Wladyslaw Skowronski.” But it was the words “They came on the Wings of Eagles” which were inscribed on the medal commemorating the 75th anniversary of the war which finally let me weep for this man, my father, for what he had suffered in all aspects of his life.
At the same time, it brought healing to my heart and mind. I realized with the passing days the love that God the Father had for me as his child. I had put my faith and trust in him all those years as my heavenly Father, and in his perfect timing he had now brought me knowledge, understanding, and compassion for my earthly father.
The author, Roni Kosek DiSipio, currently lives in Pennsauken.