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
I have better bowel movements since I started taking MOVICOL I take it first thing every morning. My morning routine includes a cup of tea, a banana and some other fruit. After a wash or shower with nice warm water I get dressed and hopefully can go for a little walk. Later on I usually cook myself a nice breakfast. Often this nice breakfast is enough to have with it a second breakfast (Brunch) as well.
What do I do over one week? A normal week goes like this:
Mondays I get three hours home help, that is the home help comes at 9,30 AM and leaves at 12,30 PM. Tuesdays I do in the morning whatever I feel like doing. Wednesdays I join a STABILITY EXERCISE class at CITOS Bowling Club, with coffee and talking after the class and sometimes lunch at the Club as well. Thursdays my daughter Monika usually picks me up to take me out for lunch with her grandkids. Fridays I go to the CITOS CLUB again early in the morning. Sometimes I have have a lunch special again at the Club. From 2PM on I play SCRABBLE and Rummy with some of my friends.
What happens on the weekend? Saturday/Sunday I usually have totally to myself unless a family outing has been planned.
To have to be ready at a certain time, I find demanding, since it takes me up to two hours to get ready! I do everything so very slowly and often keep running out of time. But I am very happy that I can stilll live on my own.
Tomorrow, Monday, the 12th of February, is the funeral of my neighbour Barbara, who passed away on the first of February.
My home help stays with me until 12,30PM. This is the time when I’ll be ready to be taken to the funeral which starts at 1,30PM in Kiama. Two of my very kind neighbours are going to take me to the funeral.
We are close to the end of August 2014. A lot has happened the past few weeks. The best thing that happened was our family reunion at Sussex Inlet. It was only for a weekend, but it was a great success. I already published several blogs about this beautiful weekend.
The weeks after, right up to today, we had much, much rain. There was hardly any sunshine. When the sun came out a bit, it felt rather warm. But the rest of the time we had to cope with rather cold temperatures. From 1st of September on we are supposed to have spring. I hope it is going to be much sunnier and warmer then. Yes, I am looking forward to September.
It is only about three more weeks till my 80th birthday. This is really a milestone, isn’t it? Maybe it is about time for me to learn to slow down at all times. I find it is so much better for my health if I do everything slowly. This includes the way I eat my food. I usually take a lot of care these days to chew my food slowly. And this includes very soft food too! I feel it is very good for me when I take the time to do this.
On Sunday, September 7th, it is Fathers’ Day in Australia. We expect some family visit on that day. Of course, we are looking forward to this. We are also looking forward to some addition to the family.
Last Monday we went to a funeral. Our granddaughters’ paternal grandmother had died after a long sickness. May she rest in peace. We knew her quite well. She always was a very friendly and very brave woman.
I am still thinking back a lot to that day when we had this lovely walk first through the bush and then along Bherwerre Beach. We were very lucky with the weather on that Saturday morning for we did have quite a bit of sunshine. The following morning some very wet kangaroos appeared at our camp. It was raining!
Here again some pictures from our holiday weekend in August.
On Sunday he did get to see some kangaroos.
Little Lucas, soon you are going to have a little brother or sister!
This is a passport photo of my mother Charlotte before she got sick. We do not know for sure, but she may have suffered a certain kind of memory loss later on.
A few Years later another Passport-Photo was taken of her.
We did fly BRITISH AIRWAYS in 1994. We departed London/Heathrow Airport on Saturday, 19th of November at 12.45 and arrived at Tegel Airport/Berlin less than an hour later.
We moved in with my brother Peter Uwe who lived at the time with our mother in a spacious apartment in Berlin-Charlottenburg. For about ten days we stayed there and of course saw Charlotte every day. Once every day a woman would arrive to see after Charlotte’s personal needs. Peter Uwe was still a teacher and had to leave his mother on her own during the day.
Towards the end of November we left Berlin in a rental car. We had planned on going again to Windischgarsten, Austria, where Peter’s sister Eva lives with her husband Harald.
Our tour down south led us first of all to Wittenberg for a break at lunchtime. There was a Christmas Fair (Weihnachtsmarkt).I remember we were able to buy there delicious freshly baked potato pancakes (Kartoffelpuffer). A bit further on we noticed to our delight at some building our Australian flag! There happened to be an exhibition in that building about Australian aborigines.
From Wittenberg we went on to Radebeul near Dresden. This is were famous author Karl May had lived. We knew that they had a Karl May Museum in this town. So we went there for a visit. It brought back to me old memories about the noble Winnetou and his friend Old Shatterhand. Soon it was nighttime and we booked into a small hotel at Radebeul.
The following day we spent visiting Dresden. The Frauenkirche was still in ruins. Money was raised for its restoration. This is where I got my Swiss watch. The proceeds of this purchase helped towards the restoration of the church! There was a lovely Weihnachtsmarkt in Dresden too where we bought some food at lunchtime.
Our next overnight stay was in a hotel in Bad Schandau, a pleasant little spa town at the Elbe River near the Czech border. We took a walk through a wooded area and actually reached the Czech border!
I took this picture of Peter and Caroline where it said that this is the Czech border!
Well, we had not planned to take a direct tour to Austria. We first wanted to see on the way a bit of Germany . During the 1990s we did not have mobile phones. I guess we could have stayed in touch with Berlin or sister Eva via a hotel telephone. But we only rang Eva when we reached Trockau in Bavaria. It was 2 pm on the 2nd of December (I made a note of it!) Peter talked to his sister Eva, wanting to give her an indication when we might arrive at her place. “Did you ring Berlin yet?” she asked. “No, why?” And then Eva said to ring straight away. “Yesterday Uta’s mother has had a stroke and is in hospital!”
(My brother Peter Uwe had been ringing Peter’s sister Ilse who had been ringing her sister Eva.)
We did ring Berlin then of course and said to my brother we would straight away come to Berlin. We reached Berlin late at night. Peter Uwe was waiting for us and went with us to the hospital. My mother did not recover and died during the night from the 21st to the 22nd of December.
On the 13th of January 1995 we were back in Australia. My mother was to be cremated. Only there was a severe backlog at the time. The cremation could only be done well into February. And the funeral service could only be held after the cremation. Well, this was the German way of doing it. It upset me terribly. Yes, this was very difficult for me.
Peter Uwe, my brother, had been living separated from Klaudia, his wife, for some time. Peter Uwe had a new partner already. Her name is Astrid. At the time Klaudia and Astrid did not like each other, not at all. But over the years this has changed. I think they are at ease with each other now whenever they happen to meet. Peter Uwe and Klaudia have a daughter, Corinna, who was at my mum’s funeral, also Klaudia and of course Peter Uwe. Astrid was not there. Just two more people were there: Our cousin Wolfgang and his wife Gisela.
These are the five people who were at my mum’s funeral.
This building is at the entrance to the cemetary (Städtischer Friedhof Schöneberg)
I guess the funeral service would have been held in there. We took the above picture in 2010 when Klaudia had the idea to show us the spot where Mum’s urn is buried anonymously amongst other urns on a beautiful lawn. The following pictures are the ones Peter Uwe sent us from the day of the funeral.
This stone we recognised in 2010 when Klaudia showed us the cemetery. Where these flowers are from the day of the funeral is presumably where Mum’s urn was buried.
This is one of last year’s pictures when we tried to establish a bit of a herb section. Sadly it turned out that all the herbs eventually died on us. We are just not very good gardeners.
The first month of this year, where has it gone? And where has the whole of last year gone? One thing is for sure: Each month I took quite a few pictures. Looking at the pictures that I collected over all these months, I cannot but remember what I did in every of these months.
Last Friday we played Scrabble again at my place. There are usually four of us. When one person cannot make it on a Friday, just three of us play. I happen to have a picture that I took nearly two months ago when we also played at my place.
Irene, in the right of the picture, is at present very upset because her husband died recently of a heart attack. She says during the day she keeps herself pretty busy. But then in the evening, when she is sitting down and Les does not sit in the easy chair opposite hers, then she always becomes very, very sad.
This is where a funeral service was held for Les, our neighbour. We all miss him very much.
This picture was taken soon after we arrived. After a while a lot more people turned up, probably about eighty. Les had come from Hungary in the 1950s and he and Irene had been very popular with people from the Hungarian Club.
The temperature in our house is at present only about 30 degrees Celsius. But it feels rather sticky (humid) I to me. I do sweat quite a lot. This is why I keep drinking more and more water. The other day I mentioned to my friends that I believe that one should drink about two litres of water per day. One lady objected. She insisted that if you drink that much all the good stuff, that the body needs, gets flushed out! I then asked her whether it was not like this, that the poison needed to be flushed out. She still insisted that one should not drink that much water.
There was a Prayer Service this morning at Mary Mother of Mercy Chapel, at Sydney’s Rookwood Cemetery, a Service of Thanksgiving for the Life of David.
David’s four brothers (two from Sydney, one from Tasmania and one from Melbourne) as well as his three sisters (the sister all from the Sydney area) had come. So we were able to meet all of them. David had been the eldest in the family. The youngest one, Anthony, had been looking after David’s affairs while David was in nursing home care during the last months of his life. He probably saw to most of the funeral arrangements too.
Our two daughters, Monika and Caroline, came with us to the service at Rookwood Cemetery. These funeral services get people together. A lot of these people we would otherwise never have met. Extended family members, neighbours and friends had come too. David had such a great family. Now that David is gone, it feels to us that maybe we won’t meet any of his family again.
Both Gaby and David were of course always part of our family life. However, as David’s health suffered more and more, he often did not come to our family gatherings any more. Gaby had known David for more than 30 years! Their lives were often quite turbulent. Now, I am sure, they are at peace.
We are never going to forget how David made it possible for Gaby to live an independent life in her own home. It takes a strong character to take on the responsibility to look after a severely disabled person as our daughter Gaby was. The strange thing is, that towards the end when David frequently had to stay in hospital because of disabling sicknesses, it was Gaby who more or less looked after him! She would visit him every day in hospital, taking her companion dog along too for the hospital visits. David loved this dog.
How did she do it, you may ask. Well, she was just a very resourceful person. Despite all her disabilities she was always full of life and did whatever was possible for her to do. She was a great talker. whereas David never talked much about his feelings. He would sometimes scream and shout when people tried telling him what to do. When I would say: David, you should go and see a doctor. He would just say: Mama, you worry too much!
From the car I watch Peter and Caroline how they try to find out the right way to the chapel.
It’s such a huge cemetery, you can really get lost.
Now Monika joins them in trying to find out the right way
In the end we made it to the desired chapel right on time.
David died on the 5th of August 2013. Tomorrow, 19th of August, is to be his funeral at the Catholic Chapel, Rookwood Cemetery in Sydney.
I just reblogged some pictures of David and Gaby. David survived Gaby only by one year and a bit. Gaby’s funeral was on the 24th of July 2012, also at Roodkwood Cemetery.
Sometimes we need just a bit of encouragement to do something good for ourselves. When the doctor quite casually said to me the other day my health would improve if I did a bit of walking, I took this really to heart. I saw him some ten days ago and have been walking for about half an hour nearly every day since then. Last Saturday I didn’t walk because of some tremendous pain in my mouth. I did get some antibiotics prescribed for the infection in the mouth. So on Sunday (Palm Sunday) it had been much better already.
Just arrived back from my early morning walk. Peter came along with me. I appreciate this so much when he does this. Peter will be going for his little run towards the evening when it’s a bit cooler. Peter is happy to run every second day. Sometimes his knee plays up. Then he has to miss out on a run.
After my walk I’ve again been sweating a lot. Tried to get rid of most of the sweat with a towel (the way the tennis players do!). I think my body is more or less back to normal now. So I’ll soon take a shower and get ready to go out for some shopping.
Day after tomorrow (Saturday at ten o’clock) we have to be at another funeral. One of our neighbours, a dear old man age 86, died on Tuesday.
I hope I can make it to the Stations of the Cross tomorrow, Good Friday.
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.
It is a large Cemetery with lots and lots of grave sitesThe Entrance to the Cemetery
Inside the Chapel where the Funeral Service for my Cousin took place.
My Cousin’s Urn was buried right next to where her Husband’s Urn was
Frau Pastor gave a beautiful speech about my cousin’s life near the urn-grave.
My Cousin’s Family invited neighbors and friends to this lovely Restaurant where we had a well cooked meal and could talk to everyone after the Funeral. Close to twenty People were present.The Entrance to the RestaurantSome of the Decorations of this Bavarian Restaurant
AuntyUta 