84. Widowed. Frail of body. Four-point-five weeks healed from a fall that broke her pelvis. Strong of mind. Full of stories to tell.
"I have a harder time with your families birthdays," she says. "You were always the farthest away." A hint of regret.
That was a fact. I didn't spend much time with this Oma growing up. Which made the three hours we spent talking tonight even more special.
Just us. And the pets.
Pets. Children. Family. Society. Faith. We covered them all.
And then the stories came. Stories of her married years, when my dad was growing up. Stories of rescuing raccoons, and a pigeon, and piglets, and a goose. Stories of overprotective dogs and the men that secretly loved them (apparently my Opa and my dad are alike that way). Stories made sweeter by their newness to me. My Opa died when I was three; I have one treasured memory.
Then we went back a bit further. Growing up in the war. Stories she told me, heroic I. Nature, yet told as though that was just life. The way it was. My ancestors hiding Jews, being arrested, being liberated; stories of curfew and disobedient trips to the doctor in the middle of the night to get medication for an ailing mother; stories of (my personal favourite) my Oma, a twelve year old girl, and her brother, stealing supplies from a German outpost to make... a toboggan!
What a glorious gift this was, this connecting just the two of us. To learn from her, to gain anothers' perspective, to see the wisdom of her years.
I talk to a lot of people, have many conversations, but this one... this one I will hold especially dear.
