No such thing

What I have been craving for in the last few years is this: normality.

It seems that the whole world is spinning so fast, and even my little part of the world is rotating at a speed I can't seem to follow for very much longer.

Let me rant a bit...

Over one year ago, the company I work for moved to a bigger city (in the hope of more customers and orders). The move was costly, and the benefit was small. As a bigger customer had relocated a lot of their staff to places outside Germany, the company's proceeds decreased badly. One office employee had to leave. Things didn't get much better, and so the boss warned us that he might have to close down business effective end of the year, by word of mouth. In Germany, the law states that if you worked for a company for over 8 years, your dismissal shall be handed to you in written form three months in advance. Thus, I was surprised when the boss told me at the end of November, that I would have to leave. Just to ask me, three days later, if I might agree to work a few hours short. Now, my working time (and my salary) is two thirds of that in the last years. But the work is still the same. Or even more, because my remaining colleague is also on short hours, and therefore, both of us have to do whatever comes up (which is not a new thing, only that it's even more multitasking in less time - which is exhausting).

In the meantime, we had a new central-heating boiler installed (which went fast as lightning compared with all the investigation that we had to do beforehand to find out what was the best for us, including the consideration of having solar heating installed on the roof, which we decided against because that would have more than doubled the costs... So sorry that environmental protection is still so costly).

A hail storm damaged a plexiglass roof and we had to replace it. That was not a financial problem, because the insurance covered that, but it took some time because the storm had damaged quite a lot of roofs, shutters and (sic!) solar heating panels. And the workman was a dumbhead, too. I had the feeling that I had more of a clue according to that work than him. Not to talk about common sense.

In August, our cat tore almost any tendon in her right hind foot. The surgery was quite expensive, she had to stay inside for almost three months and she looked a sight... They had locked the tendons in position with metal pins, right through the foot; the pins were adjusted and fixed on the outside by some plastic material that made her knock at almost anything she went by. It was quite like a peg leg...
Surprisingly she learned to mount the stairs very quickly.
Fortunately, she's alive and kicking and the only thing one might notice is that her right hind foot is slightly broader than the left one.

Something in the car broke. The guarantee was accepted, but the garage thought they'd send us bills anyway. We had to employ a lawyer to stop them.

My best female friend got divorced.

My Granny died.

My stepfather-in-law died.

Somehow all of that involved a lot of telephone calls, organization and driving around.

And somehow, not even the vacations we took could make me relax.

And especially not the county fair which lasted for ten days, with pavillions nearby where they had a disco every night until three or four in the morning (I usually get up at 05:45 a. m.) (Yes, earplugs did work. They worked so well that I almost slept through on the first morning, so I gave in on those... I walked about like a Zombie. Thankfully, there was a public holiday in that week.)

There's no such thing as normal life. If there ever was.

A special day, somehow.

On the last day of May, I went to visit my Granny Emi (my Dad's mother), who was in hospital after a surgery of a thrombus in her leg.
I had been on the way alone, as my family had left home earlier that day, to watch a motorcycle race at the Nürburgring and meet me in Koblenz, where my Granny lived.

I went by train, providing me the chance to travel through the beautiful scenery of the Rheinaue wetlands, with fields of wheat, dotted by poppies, alternating with cherry trees in green and vermilion, and the banks of the river Rhine. The sun was shining, the sky was blue with just occasional white clouds. It was such a bright and shiny day, a one-in-a-million day, somehow. A special day.


When I walked from the station to the hospital, by chance I came across an inner courtyard in the city centre, I had seen from the street I was walking.


There was an intricate fountain which was dry then, unfortunately. It shows an ark, a rather roundish boat with several animals (or parts of animals) peeking out. I found it really funny. I had never known that this fountain was there. I felt lucky to have looked in that direction at that time...

Although her operation had only been about for days ago, my Granny was in a good temper and obviously glad to see me. She seemed a bit weak; she hadn't recovered her appetite by then.

We chatted, as usual, about all the world and his wife.

I had brought her some books as she had told me she didn't have too much to read there (and I know that she read almost any time, anywhere), and fruit which she refused because of her lack of appetite.

I stroke her forearm while sitting on the bed and I was somehow surprised at the softness of her skin, although wrinkled. (I remember myself telling her some time ago that I'd use some beauty cream now and considered myself vain. And her telling me "It's not vain to nurture yourself!")

She showed me the black and blue marks the syringes had left on her arms and legs.

I noticed how blue her eyes where, like the blue sky, like those of a young girl.

She described the symptoms that had led to her surgery; she said she had had pain in her thigh and no sensation of her foot - and I was amazed when she bent forward easily to touch her toe (I noticed that she had her toenails painted in a nice pink colour). My Dad (her son) would surely like to bend over like that but couldn't manage to for a couple of years now due to severe spinal and back disorders...

She swung her legs out of bed and asked me to get her walking frame, and then we went through the hospital hallway, slowly, but we went.

We returned to the hospital room and she sat down and later, laid down again.

We chatted again, about this and that, vacations and family.

As she had said before several times, she wondered at how old people could get. She had reached 98 years, and approximately 70 years of that without her husband, who had died early in WWII (she never married again).

She told me about how bad she had felt upon him leaving for the front again after a short vacation they had spent together, because you could never now then if you would see your loved one again. It would tear her apart because it might be the last time... and it had actually been the last time she had seen him alive.

And Emi quoted something about the length of a lifetime (like she had done before), but couldn't remember where she heard it: "The length of our days is seventy years - or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. " (It is Psalm 90-10, by the way.)

After several hours, Emi seemed a bit jaded, and after providing her telephone card with some cash, I said goodbye and left to be picked up by my family. I saw some Art Nouveau details on some buildings on the way I took delight in.

My family got stuck in a traffic jam, so I had some more time to spend at the banks of the Rhine, which was wonderful, too, and I felt tranquil and becalmed. I sat on the grass near the river, I watched people play and ships passing by. The sun was shining, the grass was green, the people where jolly, and everything seemed perfect.

Two days later my Mum called me in the morning to tell me that Emi had died that night.

Obviously her heart had surrendered eventually.

Emmy (Emi) Kaminski, née Korpjuhn

31.12.1910 - 02.06.2009

Farewell, dear Emi, I miss you.