Read the first couple pages of the book to get an idea of what Gerhard’s book is all about. You’ll even discover the story behind the book’s title!

Chapter 1: LIFE IN THE OLD COUNTRY

WHY CAN’T SOMEBODY JUST DIE AROUND HERE?

Mom, Dad, my brother, and I miraculously survived WWII. The war had separated the family for two and a half years. We were reunited in West Germany, after our separate escapes from Communist countries.

On a warm, sunny summer day in 1947, seven-year-old Günter, my brother, was sitting on the foot-wide, brown-stained, and lacquered first-floor windowsill with his feet dangling out of the open window. It was about an hour before lunchtime, and he was very hungry. For breakfast that day, he had eaten a small, thin slice of dark bread with a thin, barely visible layer of sorghum molasses on it. He was observing people walking on the dirt road in front of the old schoolhouse where we lived and where Dad worked as a teacher. As Günter was observing some older people walk by, he turned his head toward Mom and said in German the equivalent of “Why can’t somebody just die around here?” He doesn’t remember Mom’s response in detail, but she took it all in stride and understood what he meant. Maybe she even smiled. He didn’t know it at the time, but he had just given me the title of this book.

Why would my brother say such a thing? Why would Mom react in this way? The year 1947 was a year of extreme deprivation in West Germany. There was a severe shortage of food. The average caloric intake for adults was about 1,080 calories per day. According to the Mayo Clinic, a forty-year-old, five-foot, ten-inch, 150-pound active man requires 2,350 calories per day. Millions of people were starving. Some people, especially children, were dying. Since they produced their own food, the farmers in our village ate well. Refugees like my family, on the other hand, never had enough to eat.

The local Lutheran pastor in our village was old and sickly. He would occasionally ask my dad, who had studied at a Lutheran seminary, to officiate at funerals. After a death, the body was washed and placed in the coldest room of the house or a cold hallway. The funeral would usually take place about three days after death.

The local farmers in the village of Ohrenbach, where we lived, would provide food for those who traveled to the funeral, and there would be a big feast. Travelers often had long, slow journeys by farm wagon or on foot. During the winter those journeys were undertaken by horse-drawn sleighs.

For officiating at the funeral, Dad was paid in sacks of food that amounted to a substantial “carry-out order.” This was the only time we had enough to eat, so for us children, funerals had a special place in our hearts.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

On a nice, warm day in 1938, there was an outdoor festival in Bistritz, the Transylvanian part of Romania. Mom was eighteen years old, and some young men tricked her into walking across an elevated walkway to go see something on the other side.

Unbeknownst to Mom, this was the walkway for a beautiful legs contest. Much to her surprise, she was informed that she had won the contest she did not know she had entered. One person in the crowd of interested young observers was Dad. As he saw her walking, he commented to a friend, “I’m going to marry that girl!” My father was a very determined man, and my naïve mom was no match.

I have no idea how long the engagement was, but Dad spoke with her father and asked for her hand. In June 1939 Gustav and Helene (Mom and Dad) were married in the Bistritz Lutheran Church, the same church where Mom, Günter, and I were baptized. My poor mother had no idea what to expect on the wedding night because her own mother had never talked to her about this topic. We can assume things worked out since my brother was born nine months later.