This is about an elderly couple, both born in 1933, just a few months older than Peter is and I am. We’ve known them for ages. When we moved, we lost touch for a while. Then we found out they had moved too. It turned out they lived not far away from where we lived. Indeed, what a surprise this was! They had moved into a very beautiful new home in a village for the elderly. From then on we started seeing each other about once a month for coffee and cake and a few games of Rummy. They always enjoyed playing this game with us. We had some good times together. Both of them suffered some ill-health; we thought the husband more so than the wife. We couldn’t see them for quite some time because the husband apparently was in a bad way, so the wife said on the phone not to come and visit. Should we have made an effort to see them anyway? Instead, I always waited for them to tell us when we could see them again. I wrote them a Christmas card. They knew that we had gone overseas for a while and that one of our daughters had died shortly before we left. So I wrote in the card a bit about our overseas trip and that we were now back home again. When we didn’t hear from them, I should have made a phone-call finding out how they were. But I didn’t ring. Why do I tend to put off phone-calls like this?
Then, yesterday, we got a phone-call from one of their sons. “Mum died last Friday,” he said. I thought I hadn’t heard right. “Did you say your Mum died?” I asked. He confirmed it and explained the funeral service would be on Friday at 11 o’clock at the Catholic Church in Dapto with the funeral procession going to the Memorial Park in Dapto after the service. And he said all the details were in the Illawarra Mercury if we wanted to have a look. “How’s your Dad?” I asked. His response was that he’s very shocked. But the family is with him. They are of Dutch origin and have a large family in Australia and overseas.
catterelEditThat is very sad news – and must have been a shock. But you mustn’t blame yourself for not being in touch. My sympathy, Uta.Reply
auntyutaEditThanks very much, Cat, for your comforting words. Our thoughts are very much with their sons and families who are spread all over Australia, and especially with the husband who’s left behind and who’s very sick himself.Reply
Three Well BeingsEditI was thinking this week about the number of people I know who are in various stages of grief right now. When we know so many who have lost dear friends and family it is very hard. My best to you.Reply
auntyutaEditThanks, dear Debra, for your kind words. At my age there aren’t many people still alive who are older than I am. When we came on the boat to Australia Peter and I were just about the youngest couple on board with children. Now, where-ever we go we’re nearly always the oldest! I can’t believe that next year I’m going to turn 80. But this is how it is!Reply
berlioz1935EditI agree with everything you have to say in your blog, “Another Friend gone”. But don’t worry AuntyUta, they wanted their privacy and did not feel like entertaining or discussing the state of their health.What we have now is the good memory of being together with them often. Her passing reminded me of the German movie “Cherry Blossoms” where the husband was the one in bad health, but still his wife passed away before him.Life is like that, that it throws up new problems suddenly and all we really can do is hoping that we can cope. For me the prospected of being separated from each other after our long marriage is a horrible one.Reply
auntyutaEditThank you, Anne. This death notice was a bit of a shock for us.Reply
WordsFallFromMyEyesEditDeath. Shock. It’s always a shock: there/not there. And you had written and not heard from her. She was alive when you wrote, now not. It truly is such a shock.I hope you are coping okay. I did not realise one of your daughters had died just before you went overseas. I am sorry for that too, Aunty Uta. I have only had one death in my life that mattered – none of the others did. So I haven’t really experienced it much. It really would just – yes, simply, shock.Reply
auntyutaEditThanks, Noeleen, for commenting. We went to the funeral on Friday. This was the very hot day, 45 Degrees in the early afternoon! Still, a lot of people had come to the funeral. A lady, who used to be their neighbours and who’s well into her eighties now, had come too. She used to be a good friend of ours too. But we hadn’t seen her in more than twenty years! She talked to us after she had talked to the grieving husband. It was as though we had only seen her yesterday. Than we talked to the husband for a bit too. One of their sons who is our son’s age, came over to us for a little bit. He explained that his mum had been left for the past three years with one rather sick lung. There’s a big name for this sickness which I can’t remember. This was before the church service,which was a Catholic Mass. One section of the church was packed full. In the afternoon of that Friday Peter and I went to Wollongong for a scheduled Body.Cooperative meeting. Nearly all the home owner residents turned up for the meeting despite the heat. Since Saturday the temperature is back in the twenties. Peter and I had a very quiet weekend. From next Thursday on we’re going to be very busy again. Peter’s older sister, who lives in Austria, is back in hospital again. It looks like she’s not going to make it much longer. I think the family is prepared for this.Reply
berlioz1935EditIt looks we had a bad trot with funerals lately. But at our age we have to expect that. The previous generation is gone and now it is us, our friends and so on.My sister is in a bad shape, but she is still smiling and she thinks the medical profession is crazy to want to prolong her life. In fact they have with great skill since the mid-seventies. But now, she has enough.Reply
In the middle of the night, I woke up screaming.I had felt the pain. It had been very real. I was sure I had been falling out of bed and was lying in agony on the floor.
It turned out I was lying in my bed. It had been only a dream that had made me scream like this.
Soon I went back to sleep. But not for long. Waking up again I felt very unhappy for my friends had been so very silent. Why would they not talk to me? But then I realized that they had not been with me at all. It had been just a dream. In my dream, which seemed so very real, I saw the whole family: The parents Doris and Karl-Heinz, and the children Gudrun and Michael. Karl-Heinz had died years ago in an accident. Gudrun was dead too. She had died from cancer.
After all this I finally went to sleep quite well without another bad dream.
I’m a bit late with this post. More than three weeks have already gone into the New Year 2013. Here now I want to document what we did on the last day of 2012! Our day started with a trip to Bondi Junction, where we met our daughter. We had a cup of coffee with Caroline (sorry no photo). Then Caroline had to go shopping. We strolled back to the station. This time to a different entrance to the station, one that we weren’t familiar with yet. A beautiful large rest asrea opened up in front of us. Lots of different food and drinks were on offer at different outlets. In the middle of the plaza some delicious looking (homemade) ice-cream caught our eye. Peter and I each had a cup full of this very refreshing treat. It wasn’t expensive but tasted wonderful. There were plenty of seats everywhere to have a rest. We took the lift down to the platform. Only a few minutes and our train departed. We got off at Town Hall Station. Later on we looked at the displays of some cake-shops. We were hoping we would find some Berliners. It is our tradition to eat Berliners on New Year’s Eve. We had no luck. We couldn’t find any. We went back to Town Hall Station to catch our train to Dapto. While we were waiting for the train we took some photos. The trip to Dapto took nearly two hours. Some shops in Dapto Shopping Center were already about to close when we arrived there. We knew we had a bottle of Bubbly at home in the fridge for our end of year celebrations. But we were still without any Berliners. I felt a bit tired and was sitting down for a while. In the meantime Peter rushed into another shop that was still open. Surprise, surprise, he came out with some delicious looking Berliners in the form of stars! He got them at half price for they were the last ones that were left! At home we watched “Dinner for One”, which is a tradition with us to watch on New Year’s Eve. It is a sketch about Miss Sophie’s 90th Birthday. Very, very funny! We’ve seen it so often and every time we laugh our heads off again. Peter tried out to take a few pictures from the TV showing Sydney Harbour. At midnight he took also some pictures of the fireworks. Soon after we went to bed. But of course we did have our Bubbly and did eat the heated up little stars with it. They tasted delicious, just as good as the balls, called Berliners, do taste. Of course we did get messages and phone calls from our children before we went to bed, wishing us a HAPPY NEW YEAR.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
AuntyUta 