Unpack

I came back from Germany five weeks ago, and I have been unpacking ever since. First the very heavy suitcases, then the thoughts and feelings I came back with. 

Visiting my family in Germany was different this time. The good-byes for sure have changed over the years. The certainty that you will see each other again is gone. I try to choose my words better. I try to see only the important things and not to get lost in moments that won't matter in the long run. I try to make happy, and to be happy. I am grateful that I still have my parents, and I wished I could take away my mom's parkinson and my dad's age-related struggles.

Not only because being healthy and fit would make their lives easier but also because being ill and old has turned out to be a challenging job with lots of overtime hours. There is hardly a day without doctor visits, physio or speech therapy. Nurses go in and out. Cooking has become an exhausting chore but those home-cooked meals just taste better than delivered ones. And then the constant health insurance issues to keep up with, all that paperwork. It's a busy life, way too busy for old people. I want my parents to enjoy what's left, I'm glad I could give them a break, at least.

My son Jacob enjoyed being in Germany even though there was much less to do for him than in the previous years when we all would go on little field trips, visited museums, parks, festivals. Instead now, Jacob played word games with his grandmother and solved algebra problems with his grandfather. They watched TV together, discussed the news and consumer reports. He actually loved that.

I would get up very early in the morning to spend time with my dad while making breakfast, it was nice having this time with him alone. And afterwards, while we were waiting for the morning nurse to arrive, my mom and I had some coffee at her bedside and we talked about this and that.  And I cooked a lot, I mean, a lot. So they could take some out of the freezer, later.

Jacob and I had taken the train to travel from the city where we landed to my parents' home town. The city where we landed is also the city where my husband's family lives, and we spent a few days with Markus' mom and his brother's family. Jacob loved seeing his other grandmother and his cousins who are just a bit older than him. And we saw my sister-in-law who was about to lose her fight against cancer. She and I hadn't been very close but, I think, we understood each other anyway. This beautiful vibrant woman, now she was lying there, so fragile and still. Jacob gave her a gentle hug, I held her hand, it was so weak. We talked a little bit, and when I told her that we would come back soon she said, that would be nice.

We saw her again right after we had returned from my parents. She had been moved to a hospice meanwhile. I don't know if she recognized Jacob and me, I hope she sensed it somehow. She didn't say anything, and her eyes were closed. She died a week later.

My husband and my daughter picked us up from the airport, all of us - Jacob and me and those heavy suitcases. It took me a while to do the laundry, and to get organized again, and to find places for the things I brought home with me. Old and new German books for example, lots of chocolate to share, several table cloths that my mother-in-law had embroidered, Markus' portfolio with his wonderful old comic drawings, an outdated tour guide that my parents had used on one of their many travels through the States, a spicy-smelling wooden bowl from my sister-in-law's kitchen, a large and heavy ceramic vase that my mom's family carried when they fled from post-war East Berlin to the West.

Soon after, I unpacked the many boxes of our Christmas decorations. Lots of them are from my own childhood, some of them Markus and I bought before we had our children,  gifts from my students, Jacob's and Mona's paper stars, my grandmother's crocheted mushrooms. I unpacked the memories attached to each one of the hundreds of ornaments and hung them on our huge tree. It's a beautiful tree.