The Long, Long Goodbye

The surgeons, after a series of stomachoscopies and computer tomographies, attempted the removal of the gall bladder ( micro-invasive style), but switched to a mere laparoscopy after a close look at the inoperable tumorous condition of the liver and gall bladder tissues.
And I, as everybody, assumed my mom to be immortal.

It all started after a beautiful weekend in Bremen with Ulli, my former wife - we're divorced since 1991, but still hold close contact... It was a first attempt to the "senior citizen" scene, a "Greek evening" in a Greek restaurant run by Iranians, with a cute mixture of Kazantsakis, Theodorakis, Retsina and vacation pictures presented by a small publishing house and other interested parties, including a teacher of Greek (my Ex attends his lessons, hence the connection). Nobody under 60 except the Greek teacher's boyfriend. The event's level was surprisingly high, with a Theodorakis acquaintance reciting poems, unusual live takes of the artist himself... and the strange spell of the country of the most human gods ever got us all.
Didn't sleep too well that night - we had gone a long way by bicycle, and I'm a little off-training. So when I returned to my Harburg home, I had a little nap, and overslept until 10 p.m. When I gunned my comp then, I found my sister's eMail. Mom is at hospital, looks like her gall bladder will be removed, and would I join her and her husband early next morning on their way down to Central Germany where mom lives? Of course I did.

Mom - Lotte, as we call her now, was all yellow as a result of a blocked gall duct. The stately and powerful figure in my memory (dating from the late 50s)had shrunk to a little old, frail and ill-looking woman. Whenever I saw her in the past 15 years I experienced that ever increasing bias of imagination and reality as she grew visibly older and smaller. But never as small as this. Anyway, everybody was oozing optimism, the operation will be tomorrow or so, easy thing, micro-invasive. I had my gall bladder removed five years ago, and, look, practically no scars.
I stayed in Lotte's house, with my younger sister and her husband, my Hamburg sister returned home the same evening. No operation on Monday, stomachoscopy on Tuesday, with no decisive results, CT on Thursday, with no decisive results. Another weekend goes by. We're all contemplating worst case scenarios without talking about them. But mostly we're concentrating on surgical or anesthetical risks. We're at the hospital every day, with Lotte getting less yellow all the time. Optimism. Monday there's another stomachoscopy, and the decision to remove the gall bladder on Tuesday. Lotte was a little weak after the operation, but it was clear that they had undertaken the less risky micro-invasive op. Great relief, and SMS in all directions...
Next day brother in law Peter, one of the medics in the family, with flawless accuracy, reported the results of the operation that didn't take place: inoperable cancer, and an insecure timeline ranging from six weeks to maybe years, depending on next week's histology results.
We went to Lotte and told her - she had overheard some remarks about "histology results" and suspected something like that. Very, very cool, calm and collected, Lotte. And just a little too fast in declaring that she'd had a good life of 88 years anyway, with four children and five grandchildren. And we were all nodding for pedagogic reasons and biting away our tears and our untimely grief.
She was released from hospital last Thursday - weak on arrival, lulled by hospital infantilisation, she went to bed, but after a while visibly composed herself, started inspecting her flowers, and ended up on the balcony as long as the sun permitted to stay there... I left in the evening, had to.

And now I'm here, trying to cope with a loss of security. Life will never be the same.

Bill's Farewell

Just read the news, David Carradine (73) was found dead at his room at the Hotel on Wireless Road, near Sukhumvit entertainment area in central Bangkok, Thailand. First reports were he took his own life.

An article in today's Bangkok Post indicates he overdid auto-erotic asphyxiation. I googled the term and was astonished to learn it really works... And - maybe important for his widow - insurance companies regard such deaths as accidental, not suicide.

As usual in C.'s bio, the good, the bad and the ugly seem to mix in generous portions. He, a vaguely Asian looking Caucasian, was the front Kung Fu Fighting figure for a US public that was "not yet ready for an Asian leading actor" in the 1970s ("Kung Fu"), acted with world-class directors M.Scorcese ("Boxcar Bertha"), I. Bergman ("The Serpent's Egg"), and, unforgettably, Q. Taranino ("Kill Bill" Vol 1 + 2). I loved his appearance in H. Ashby's "Bound for Glory". But, as he acted in 200 something movies, he did a lot of visual trash as well ("Lone Wulf McQuade")...
But I'll always remember him as a tough, controlled guy, a Western adaption of Oriental wisdom and martial arts. Ah, those five final steps in "Kill Bill 2".

Beaufort Five

From my flat I'm overlooking the ancient Jewish Cemetery. It's more of a park these days, nazi government removed both the Hebrew language tombstones and the registers in the 1930s so it's not sure where which tomb is situated. Some decidedly Christian tombstones remained, but most of the time one walks over unmarked graves. And people seem to appreciate this - nobody plays soccer on the lanes. A big population of rabbits triumphantly survives the feeble attempts of the local dog population to decimate them. Cunning little fellows, wide-eyed and superior. And then one stumbles over that little badge upon a rock, " Meyer Herschel, 1898 - 1927". Requiescas in pace, brother.
Right now the rhododendron bushes - some of them almost a century old - are in full bloom. Those delicate colors... and at the center of many a bush there is an abandoned grave, cast-iron railing , headstone and all. Reminds me of "Dornröschen", the sleeping beauty by the Grimm brothers. Strange, the mind likes to compare death with sleep, tries to wave the finality of death away - so many religions take advantage of our problem with the ultimate.

I love living up here in the moderate North of Germany - it's because we have all these different kinds of winds from breeze to raging

Felix Valloton "Blossoming Fields", 1912

storm. In Central Germany - where I grew up - the rare storms are catastrophes. The landscape, the plants, the houses aren't designed for them, so every strong wind seems to be a hurricane, with cars lop sizing, trees falling and roof tiles flying. Not so up here. The fostered, sane trees of the cemetery gently bow to the gusts, with all their leaves shrieking in delight. Now and then the appartment block seems to shudder under the passionate caress of the winds. And the air is like nothing else. It does not smell maritime - the North Sea is 50 miles away - but incredibly fresh and clean. All the dust, the pollens and other allergic stuff is blown away. A Histamine wind.

Due to a banking problem I had to pay this month's rent in cash to my landlord's account. He lives in the region around Hamburg that we call "fat man's belly". In the German fiscal system one's place of residence raises the taxes. Many who are a bit better off earn their wages in Hamburg and pay their taxes to what used to be small dreamy villages in the vicinity. These days these communities are a lot better off (per capita) than the cities. It shows - they look almost Swiss, with roads you could eat from, and more off-road incapable SUV than cars... Anyway, I had to visit a branch of his regional bank which is not allowed to entertain an office in Hamburg. So I boarded a bus and drove to the closest city border. And landed amidst Lower Saxony at its best. Green lanes, obscure cattle sporting thick brown fur, bison-like, horses, and sheep... and a small storm (Beaufort 5) cleaning and brushing all the landscape - beautiful. Decided to walk all the way back, which, as usual, turned out to be a two and a half hours affair due to poor navigation on my part. Loved every minute of it.