Why I Had No Eighteenth Birthday  − 3 January, 1984

Note: I have revised this story in several ways based on my parents' more accurate memories of this difficult time.

The day I turned eighteen, January 3, 1984, I came home from school imagining that we would celebrate my birthday that night.  Whatever the celebration was would be low-key, but there’d at least be a cake and some cards.  Maybe there’d be a couple of gifts.  I was not terribly happy on my eighteenth birthday.  I was angst-ridden and depressed.  But a little celebration was something to look forward to.  

But what had happened to my father that day changed everything.  He had lost his job, quite unexpectedly.

The atmosphere was tense.  At that time, I was too naïve and self-absorbed to grasp what it meant for a primary breadwinner to lose his job.  All I knew was that there was no birthday for me.  Eighteen was my biggest milestone ever.  I was on the cusp of womanhood.  I felt morose and forgotten.  My parents must have had plans, but whatever those plans were, they were forgotten.

Now, when I try to imagine how my dad must have felt, I cannot.  He had a daughter about to go to college.  It was not clear how my tuition would be paid.  He had a growing son in the second grade.  My mom worked, but her salary would not cover all of our living expenses.  We lived in a well-to-do suburb.  There were two cars, a mortgage, and many other expenses.

My father was an attorney at a large downtown firm.  I didn’t know what his salary was, but it must have been pretty respectable.  He was not a partner, and he’d only worked there for about four years.  But he was a hard worker.  He often brought work home, although he was very careful to make time to play with my brother.  Because he’d been in law school and working full time when I was a child, he’d been quite preoccupied during some critical years of my childhood.  I’d always had the feeling that he was making sure that he did not lose precious time with my brother.

The time while he looked for a job over next six months was very tense.  I was not allowed to tell anyone that he was jobless.  The firm allowed him to continue working for an additional three months while he looked for work, but it would be an additional three months before he would find a job.  The question of my college financing became more complicated.  My parents told me that they couldn’t fill out the financial aid forms because, on paper, it would look like they could afford to pay for my tuition.  But now they had no idea whether or not they could.  They needed me to win a scholarship.  

I had already been accepted at a very respectable women’s liberal arts college in the city.  The college was awarding two full scholarships and several partial scholarships.  I had already applied for a scholarship and taken the requisite exam.  The college had told me, informally, that it was likely that I would win a scholarship, but nothing was written in stone.  

My mom and I were talking in our upstairs loft one evening when the phone rang.  It was the college calling to say that I’d won a full scholarship, which included room and board.  My mom recalls bursting into tears of relief.  This is one of only two times I can remember my mom crying.

Meanwhile, I became my dad’s secretary, typing all of his cover letters.  I could touch-type and had had lots of practice because of the papers my A.P. (advanced placement) classes required.  I was glad that there was something I could do to help.  Without that, I would have felt helpless.

My dad was having trouble finding work in our city.  He started getting interviews in places like Atlanta and San Antonio.  I became frightened.  I didn’t want to move away from Pittsburgh.  We had a lot of family in town and nearby in Ohio.  I had a boyfriend whom I loved very much.

It was a very strange time.  Everything was so uncertain.  My mom had already been a tense person.  Her job was stressful. She often got bad sinus infections and had to retreat in misery to their bedroom.  She yelled at all of us far too often.  With my dad out of work and with prospects looking grim, she became even tenser and more snappish.

Because I worked so closely with my dad on his cover letters, I felt a new closeness to him.  We were spending much more time together than usual, although that time was spent silently while I typed and he scribbled new letters.  His handwriting was sometimes indecipherable.  I would have to ask him to clarify unintelligible squiggles.  I could see first hand how hard he was working to find a job.

One evening, my mom raised some hell with him, claiming that he was not pursuing a particular lead hard enough.  He protested that he was doing everything he could.  I became angry and protective of him.  How dare she harangue a man who could not have worked harder?  I didn’t say anything to her because it would only have brought fire down upon my head.  But later, in my dad’s study with the door closed, I told him that I thought he was doing a great job and that I was very proud of him.  He was grateful.

Eventually he found a job in the city.  The family was tremendously relieved.  Life began to resume normalcy.  Bills were paid.  We kept the house and rebuilt our lives.  My dad was able to support his family again.  Although we had eventually celebrated my eighteenth birthday, any tangible gifts I received were eclipsed by the more meaningful gift I received in the form of a strong dose of reality.  I got a glimpse into adulthood.  Not the dreamy adulthood of freedom, money, and power, but the adulthood of fighting for your survival.  

Another gift was that I had become closer to my dad, although true closeness between us wouldn’t come until I was considerably older.