Life is a Journey: Live it (Part 41)

The other autobiography
At The Abbey in Sutton Courtenay….”

It was already past midnight and it was getting colder by the hour. Therefore Tobias Wittmann suggested:” Let's have a break and continue tomorrow. Actually what you are saying is very cool and we love to hear more. Our generation is not trained to stay focused for long on any subject. I honestly wish we were.”

As usual, we put sand on the fire to bring it out, collected the waste we had produced and headed back to our hostel. The next evening it was the eighteenth birthday of Franz Kleve. The kitchen of the hostel was turned into a bakery. Five friends were busy baking an impressive cake with whipped cream, decoration made from marzipan garnished with dark chocolate chips and bought chocolate figures to make the cake look beautiful. Franz Kleve was asked to go before the rest and start the campfire. With him he carried two packs of grilled sausages and in a basket three bottles of champagne and one bottle of champagne without alcohol. Twenty minutes after he had left us the group followed. A few gifts under their arms, beer, bread, ketchup and mayonnaise and blankets and anything imaginable needed for a birthday party at night under the stars is what they carried along.

When we arrived at the campfire the heat was already enough to keep us warm. The champagne got opened. We sang the classical birthday song wishing Franz Kleve only the best in life. He pretended to be surprised while he certainly knew what was about to happen. We all sat down sharing the cake and a piece for everyone.

“Weeks before Christmas," I was challenged to continue sharing my stories,” my mother used to hide the gifts for us for Christmas. Before wrapping them in typical Christmas papers with our names written on them we would know the places of hiding, sneak there, check the gifts out to put them back carefully so she would not discover what we had done. On Christmas Eve, the 24th. In December we would line up in the living room with the closed door behind us. Our mother after lunch had sent us into our children's room for a good afternoon rest. Meanwhile, she would wrap all our gifts, attached to each of our names, and lay them underneath the Christmas tree which we had mostly bought the same or the previous day. She took great pride in the decoration of the tree. Unlike my father's parents Irma and Heinrich Heerde, who chose a new colour each Christmas and kept the same colour all over their Christmas tree my mother used any colour possible. At first, she used real wax candles but as time went by and fire accidents killed some people she bought artificial candles.

Weeks before Christmas we had to learn Christmas carols and poems at school and in Kindergarten. Lined up against the closed living room door dressed up in our best clothes, we were waiting for our mother to listen to our songs or poems one by one. Whenever she was not happy with our performance we had to start all over again. Once she was satisfied we were allowed to look for our gifts under the tree, pretending we had no clue and kissed her as a sign of our appreciation. After that, we sat at the white dinner table and like in most German families on Christmas Eve, ate potato salad with Wiener. Later when we were older we decided enough is enough and used a fondue with meat and sausages instead.

We had a simple record player which we turned on to listen to fairy tales or Christmas music. Each of us got his paper plate filled with sweets and close to midnight we all went to bed. The next day we visited my father's parents in Mildestieg. This was even after the divorce of my parents and much longer after the passing of my grandfather. When my grandmother Irma Heerde bought an apartment around Bramfeld Lake we stopped seeing her and that side of my family. Irma Heerde insisted that only when I was ready to meet my father again would I be welcomed in her house. From the age of twelve, I never saw her again.

On Boxing Day, we took the train to Reinbek at the outskirts of Hamburg to see grandmother Willers in the home for old people. She sat in a wheelchair waiting for us to greet her. As a young adult, my mother shared her sentiments about her mother with me. She never had fond memories of her mother. She took care of her until she got buried at Reinbek cemetery, the same grave my mother found her last resting place. Love between my mother and her? No, I never saw it in both of them.”

Tobias Wittmann asked:” Where does your mother come from?” Around his mouth traces of whipped cream were visible. He smiled at me.

“Neu-Schönningstedt close to Reinbek,” I answered pointing to his mouth. He got the hint, got out his handkerchief and cleaned around his mouth.”There the grandparents of my mother had a nice old villa with plenty of fruit trees in the front and in the back garden. The house was divided into an apartment on the first floor used by the family of my mother and an apartment below on the ground floor for my great-grandparents. My great-grandparents were really nice and friendly. Especially he my great-grandfather was a true sweetheart. They adored us children and loved us. My mother had a brother Uncle Egon, who married first to a prostitute with her having had a baby girl but after the divorce married a woman who had expressed not wanting to know the rest of the family. Uncle Egon died in his late thirties because of a brain tumour.

Eva Weatherill, the oldest child, hated her mother all her life. When she left Germany aged eighteen at the end of WWII she never looked back and never saw her mother again. A few years later grandfather Willers left the Villa. He was a plasterer and lived around Bergedorf and Reinbek. Of him, I have no real memories. Occasionally, he and my mother would have short phone conversations but she would not share the content with us.