Frieda - Part Two
I’ve never heard your voice.
Never learned to recognise its tone and qualities.
To discern the good signs from the bad.
Did your thoughts keep you up at night, when the house was quiet, and the children were asleep, and all you could hear was the tick of the clock counting the seconds away?
The hum of the fridge?
What were the things that made you
Laugh?
Or disapprove?
Were there any traditions, or rituals you liked to uphold?
Inherited beliefs?
Old sayings, or ways of doing things?
Echoes of your mother and father …
Everyone has memories they cherish, and others they’d do anything to forget.
I know that you fed a staving soldier, that he was little more than a boy …
I know that you were bitten by an officer’s dog.
You had to pretend it didn’t hurt.
Dressing your husband’s wound.
Counting the days of that absence.
I understand.
Eagerly exchanging our Korunas for those scraps of meat in the hope of something good, something worthwhile in the mix.
Our lives bursting out from over-stuffed suitcases
Trampled under someone else’s hurried feet.
I realise it is not my place to possess you
To know your every thought and feeling, and motivation
Even in Death.
As much as I do seek to know and understand you.
As I sit here cursing fate that I did not.
But still, when I look for you, I see you … feel you close to us …
Through my mother, … in a thousand different ways and more, … in everything …
From her good sense, her experience and vitality.
To the shape of her mouth, the shine in her eyes.
Her judgments and frailties and joys.
You gave the best of yourself to her.
She gives the best of herself to me.
You are there in her, you are here in me.
The kitchen was closed after dinner.
Sometimes you went without meals.
Such things my mother has told me ….
That you loved fairground rides …
And always cut the fat from the meat …
That eventually you had a go at driving a car on a disused runway, and that this was a real dream come true.
You taught your children to be strong, to stand on their own two feet and they were dutiful and loving in return.
The first real frost is forming on the grass
That unmistakable icy wind, that bitter chill
Winter’s low and blinding sun
Marks the turning of the page, the passing of time.
Such is the diary of my days.
Until unexpected moments, when I think of you, and wonder
What you would have thought, what you would have said …
I have woken up disgusted with the news, the world …
Knowing the separation and loss
Our family endured.
The national prejudices.
Oppressions, and false divisions.
Left to wonder where it will end.
What cycles will repeat.
Which ripples will swell.
They are, of course, all of them
Unending,
Like
Our spirits bound.
Tightly
Entwined.
I carry us.
A thick binding rope.
Wrapped around the waist.
Crossed over the shoulders.
Knotted off.
We summoned you.
Called to you.
Grandmother …
Großmutter
Oma Frieda
Babička
Babi …
I tried all your names not knowing best what to call you.
You came back to us.
The unsung hero of our story.
No medals for you.
No deeds writ large
Reflecting the course of History.
Save your escape.
That took courage, inner strength from somewhere deep inside.
Much like your brother, you did not complain …
Your actions were solid and true.
You loved your children, and they loved you
Together you stood firm.
So simple really …
When so many other things had been abandoned when it counted.
Normality, Order, Decency, Hope, Peace, Duty, Sense, Honour …
You made it look so easy, so simple …
Your quiet deeds …
The thousand times
You closed the drawer.
Or sealed the oven,
And pressed the clothes …
Wrapped the dishcloth around the tap
All the things they tend not to write about in history books but are no less about struggle and survival and forbearance.
All those times you must have prayed for his return
When you finally understood he never would.
We summoned your spirit to us …
Now we are grown and have walked a little in your shoes.
Now we are joined, bound, knotted together tight.
So …
We must lay you down to rest again
Not goodbye, not ever
Oma … our Dear Dear Oma …
Bis wir uns wiedersehen …
By Robyn Hunt
In Honour of a Beloved Mother and Grandmother
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