Not a Good Week... not at all a good week...

Last week I slipped on a patch of ice, fell backwards and landed on my left hand. Xrays showed, fortunately, no break, but a severe contusion. And the outside bone of my left wrist was pushed out of alignment.
When the doctor at the hospital pushed it back into place, I almost murdered him..  the pain was severe.

Then I lost the key to the front door.

On Wednesday, Herwig, my nephew called me with the sad news, that his mother, my sister, not unexpectedly,  had passed away. She was in her 91st year and had not been well for the last few month or so. During the last few weeks of her life, she was almost constantly in a stage of semi consciousness. During the last seven days she ate or drank nothing. Last Wednesday, my sister, Inge, closed her eyes for the last time. She died peacefully and without pain at age 90+....  

The Church Service was short and without "pomp and circumstance". The priest spoke without the usual Catholic Pathos. He spoke quietly and to the point. Herwig gave a very lovely laudatio, describing her life in short outline with a lot of love. The burial service too was conducted by the priest in lovely and short language. Then we all left and, as is the custom here, all assembled in a nearby "Gasthaus" for a meal in Inge's honour.

My mother used to tell me that I, the youngest of her four children was, for her, the easiest and least troublesome to raise. Why ? I asked. "Well", she said, "I had a full time mother's assistant."

When I was borne, my sister Inge was 10 years old and simply took over the job of 'mother'.
She would prepare the milk bottle, test the temperature on her wrist and feed me. She changed my diapers, she took me for walks in the baby carriage, she cuddled me when, for some reason, I cried. She got me dressed in the morning before she went to school...  and so on... and so on...
She was, in other words, my surrogate mother, to the extent that her own life, like school, allowed this.

Now Inge is gone and I will have to fend for myself. Test the milk on my own wrist and cuddle myself when I cry.

I will show you some pictures of Inge and the funeral.

That's the way time goes by...
so says Bertstravels.