"Just You Wait"

"Just You Wait!" This was shared by a 90 year old woman with her then 60-something daughter, along with a wry smile, in an attempt to bring levity to a trying moment completing life's daily ablutions.

At other times, "Just You Wait!" was thrown at her daughter with a trace of malice, tempered by exhaustion, when selecting compartmentalized medications needed to battle conditions for that 90 year old woman's daily survival.

I was the daughter of that mother in her 9th decade: I am Carla Wilson-Neil born to Ingrid Bunde Wilson. At 65 years old, I have now been without that 90 year old some two years. And it has taken me two years to fully comprehend the influence of my mother on who I am, and to translate the meaning of those three words: "Just you Wait!"

My mother entered this life in a time of waiting from the moment she was born in 1928 in Berlin, Germany. The entire country was waiting to see how life would be resurrected in Germany after World War I.

Later, when the Second World War began in 1939, she was waiting to see if her papa would be sent away to fight; he was drafted and sent to Poland on horseback. As the War years progressed, she waited with her mother and grand mother in bread lines; the frostbite gave her a permanent red nose.

She waited to see if they and the neighbors in their apartment building would be able to keep the Jewish family hidden and safe; they were not and the family disappeared in the middle of the night. When the air raids began and bombs fell daily, she waited to see if their building would protect them and her dog Teddy; it did. My mother waited to see if her sickly younger brother would survive; he did not. In the last two months of the war, in 1945, he died from Typhoid fever.

My mother and her family waited to see what life would be like after the war when their city became occupied and the Russians advanced first; it was brutal and they were displaced. Daily they were loaded into trucks and picked up rubble from their damaged city. Evenings they picked lice from their hair. Her best friend was raped and another committed suicide.

In June of 1948 when post-war Allied Forces began to argue over who would control the economic future of Germany, the Soviet Blockade of West Berlin began. My mother and her family waited to see if any nation would help them, or whether they had survived the war only to die from starvation. American planes then began the Berlin Airlift dropping massive amounts of food, water and medicine that sustained 2 million people for nearly a year.

On a snowy winter's night in 1950, my mother waited beneath a lamp post after work for the street car. An American GI stationed in Berlin asked the young Fraulein if, given the weather, she might accept a ride home; she did and they were married in 1952. She immigrated to America, eventually becoming a citizen and bringing her mother, father, grand mother, and her dog Teddy via Ellis Island.

In 1954, my mother waited to see if her second birth would be blessed since she had lost her first born son in 1953 after 10 days; it was and I arrived in October.

As the years passed, my mother continued to wait to see what life in America would bring; it brought gifts and losses. It brought two more daughters, work at home and outside the home, and losses. Over the years she lost her grand mother, father, mother, husband, beloved President who proclaimed "Ich Bin ein Berliner" and yes, her dog Teddy. But the loss of these family members drove her to create other family groups; some were her faith family, some were other immigrants with common memories and tribulations. She simply often just waited for the next day.

Now, at age 65, I realize that when my mother waited, she was opening herself to what life might bring. Her admonition to "Just you Wait" was not a mean-spirited curse on me. It was her secret to achieving wisdom, grace, and understanding.

I have prided myself on being "self-actualized" both personally and professionally; a wife and mother, retired Chief Operating Officer of a hospital, a Veteran. Thus, it is disappointing and unfortunate that it took the loss of my mother to recognize: she was the most influential woman in my life.

And so.....I will wait. I will wait to see what tomorrow brings. But I will also wait to forgive myself for the delay in telling her how much I admired her and appreciated her influence and inspiration in my life.