Remembering Harriet

I couldn't believe what came in the mail one day. It was a Christmas card for Al and Darlene. It was a card from Harriet. I don't know many women who would send a Christmas card to their ex-husband and his new wife, especially when they weren't the one who wanted the divorce, but that was the kind of person Harriet was. 

I grew up like an only child with two brothers who were 12 and 14 years older than me. As a child I longed for nothing more than to have a sister, but I knew it was never going to happen. Somehow that seemed to change when Harriet came along. 

Today I remember my sister-in-law, Harriet Reed Myers Footskulak. This tribute was started on the day of her birth - July 26th. Like me, Harriet was the baby of her family. She was the last of five girls who were born to Harry and Betty Reed. She grew up in Orwigsburg, PA. After graduating from high school she did a short stint in the Army, and sometime after, went to work at a place called Heir International. Al's friend said there wasn't much about that place that was good, except for being a meeting place for Al and Harriet. Harriet made it clear that she really liked Al, but she had to wait for a long time for him to ask her out. She finally got a call from him on New Year's Day in 1983 as she was taking the Christmas tree down. By that point in time they had both gotten other jobs. "Well, that son of a bitch finally called," she said when she got off the phone. 

Before long they were spending a lot of time at each other's houses. Both the Myers and the Reed families were happy to embrace and welcome each other into their individual circles. Al and I went swimming with the Reeds at their church's picnic and played horse shoes with Harry and Betty on Memorial Day. At our house, we took Harriet sledding after an 18 inch snowstorm. All of us got soaking wet during that adventure, and Harriet had to ask to borrow a pair of Al's jeans afterwards. She then came knocking on my bedroom door saying that she couldn't wear Al's underwear, so I loaned her a pair of mine, one that had the words "Diet tomorrow" written on it. Al and Harriet took me with them to the movies to see "Staying Alive". Looking at John Travolta's blue eyes and watching him tear across the screen, I discovered what everyone else had seen in him for years. We also did a vocal performance on tape, with Al singing, "I'm playing for keeps..." and Harriet and I providing background by singing, "Oh......". The problem was that neither one of us could stay in key.  

We took Harriet down to Norristown to meet all our relatives and Harriet showed that she was not used to being in an area that urban. At Aunt Bea's house, Harriet took a chair over to the window where she sat there just staring out into the alley. When people began to ask her what she was doing, she said, "I'm watching for a mugging." When we took Harriet to meet my other brother, Jos, and his family, somebody thought it would be funny to pull a prank on them by having Harriet walk in carrying a doll in a blanket, so it would look like she was walking in with a baby. The look on Jos's face when he saw that was absolutely priceless!

I never laughed so much or had so much fun as when Al was dating Harriet, but the funniest memory of all didn't involve Al. It took place on the night of Harriet's bachelorette party. It wasn't actually a party. There was just a bunch of partying that went on for Harriet and her sisters, Marie, Chrissy and Patti...and I was invited along. On that night, I officially became their newly adopted baby sister. We began the night at the Scrafford Inn in Tamaqua, where we all had Filet Mignon and Lobster Tail. Though I don't remember it, my journal reads, "We had wine" - both before and after the dinner. That wouldn't be such a noteworthy thing except for the fact that I was only 17 at the time. Harriet had asked the man at the bar to make her a "root beer" (Not the soda, but some kind of a mixed drink that she enjoyed). We waited a long time for a band that was supposed to play, but we quickly realized as it started to tune up that it wasn't a young person's band. It looked like something that belonged on the Lawrence Welk show. Unimpressed, we all headed off. We were joined then by Harriet's friend, Michelle, who suggested that we go to a more wild place known as the Plaza. On the way there, we listened to the words of a song called "Curley Shuffle", which made Harriet and Patti go into hysterics.  

In a crowd outside the door to the rowdy place, a man asked Harriet for her ID, as you had to be at least 21 to get in! Harriet then gave him a sob story about how this was her last night as a bachelorette and couldn't he just this once let her and her guests in without checking their IDs. He caved, and so we got in, me looking down so no one would notice my 17-year-old face! Inside, no one seemed to realize that I was only 17. Either that or they simply didn't care! We all began to dance when suddenly two men chug-a-lugged a glass of beer and got up quickly to make their moves. One of them grabbed Harriet and started to dance with her. The other one charged after me. It is written in my journal that while we were dancing, the man tried to kiss me. I don't remember that. What I do remember is that he was also trying to do a dance with me called "the doggie". Because my eyes were on his face, I didn't even see him do it, but Harriet did! At that moment, even though she had never yet given birth to a child, Harriet became a Mom! I still remember the look on her face as she stood there eyeballing me, shaking her head. "That one is bad news" was her unspoken message. I vaguely recall the other Reed sisters also hovering around close by, ready to swoop in and do some kind of rescue, if necessary, but Harriet was able to get me away from the man herself. 

The funniest part of this story is the life that it took on at Nativity BVM High School the following Monday. The fact that I was probably known as "the shy, quiet 'goodie two shoes' type" by most of my peers made this story especially interesting. My friend, Beth, couldn't wait to repeat it, and she made it even funnier when she couldn't remember Harriet's name, and started referring to her as Henrietta! "It was Henrietta's last night as a bachelorette" she told our Social Studies teacher, Mr. Kost. Mr. Kost then told the school receptionist, Mrs. Troy, "Wait until you hear what this one was up to over the weekend!" Mrs. Troy then exclaimed, "What did you say? She was dancing on the table?" Mr. Kost then explained that it was "Henrietta's" last night on earth. 

Harriet's wacky sense of humor made it's way to the marriage alter a few weeks later, when the priest said something about having children, and Harriet whispered to Al, "Puppies", as she had joked with him previously about having puppies instead of kids. The whole group of wedding guests later asked each other, "What did she say to him?" All joking aside, the couple was pretty serious about having children as soon as possible, and that's how Jeanie came to be. 

Harriet quickly left the world of drinking and dancing behind. She slipped on my "goodie two shoes" and never took them off. She became engrossed for the next eighteen years in the serious business of being a wife and a mother. She and Al shared the belief that kids do best when the mother stays at home, which is what Harriet did. She formed a close relationship with Mom, and the two of them went grocery shopping together every week. Harriet was a dog sitter for Mom when Mom and I were away, and she performed that role like no one else. She would frequently leave messages on the answering machine for the dogs, knowing that they would hear her voice and not feel alone.

When Jeanie was five, Al and Harriet started thinking about having another child. They really wanted to adopt a kid who was already here and needed a home, rather than creating a new one, but adoption was too expensive for them. That's how Scott came to be. As Jeanie and Scott grew up, Mom and I gradually switched from attending Thanksgiving at Aunt Bea's, to going over Harriet's. We wanted to help with the meal, but Harriet didn't want anybody messing around in her kitchen. She knew the way she wanted things and wanted to do it herself. Harriet invited Mom and I over every Friday night to have dinner with them, but as my career evolved, I was always working late on Fridays, trying to get caught up with the paperwork, so I was almost never there. Harriet never failed to fix a platter though, that she would send home with Mom for me. 

All that time, Harriet and I walked two entirely different paths. I was building a career, working on who I was an individual, while she neglected her individual identity altogether, introduced always as somebody's wife, or somebody's mother. She played a supporting role in everyone else's life, never getting to be the star of the show. She rarely got to do anything that she wanted to do for herself. The day she was invited to go to Atlantic City with Mom and I while the kids were in school and Al was at work was a very special day for her. She was so excited that she could barely contain herself. Harriet and I never realized or thought about the one thing we shared in common. We both had the feeling of being inadequate, worth less than all the other women who had both careers and children, because that's what was expected of a woman in the eighties and beyond. 

I can't imagine the intensity of the pain Harriet felt when she and Al split up, but she never let it show. She didn't stop for a single minute to feel sorry for herself. She continued to play a supporting role in everyone else's life. She almost acted as though nothing had happened, but when a man from Meadville became interested in her, her own needs finally took center stage, and she moved up there to be with him. That man didn't work out, but she ended up with another man - Donnie Footskulak - a really good man, who she eventually married. Harriet and Donnie took Scott with them for the last six months of his senior year in high school. Scott didn't want to go and Harriet and I got into shouting match about it on the night before she took him. I walked out of the house that night slamming the door so hard that it knocked all the kitchen utensils off the wall! The next day though, I hugged her when we said goodbye and she said, "You love my son, don't you?" I replied, "Yes, I do."  

Years later, I wondered if maybe it turned out the way it was supposed to. You see, it was not too many years after that that Harriet was diagnosed with cancer. Knowing that she wasn't going to have a long life, I can see why God might have thought it was important for her to have that time with Scott.  

Harriet taught me about the unbreakability of family bonds. We all came together for her father's funeral in 2009. When it came to the part in the ceremony where they say that only family are allowed near the casket, Harriet's eyes caught mine like they did back on the dance floor at the Plaza. I was utterly shocked when she motioned for me to come forward. It didn't matter that she was no longer married to my brother. It didn't matter that I was almost never there when she prepared supper for Mom and I on a Friday night. She still considered me to be a member of her family. The bonds of marriage can be broken, but the bonds of sisterhood cannot.