Saturday, April 14, 2007

My Oma's birthday

A couple of weekends ago my family and I celebrated my Oma's 80th birthday with her, it was lovely. I have cousins my age that I don't see very often and I have a good time with them. We also ate lots of torte; German cakes galore!!!!
My life is entering another phase; my Opa was shaved by my family members at the dinner table. It was quite funny and sentimental but my Opa, the German pilot from World War 2, who went into a Russian battlefield with hundreds of men and came out as one of 9 with some metal prizes sent into his ass, prisoner of war survivor, up at 6am to do his exercises and shovel the driveway in a blizzard up until recently, is now frail and old. He recently had a stroke and is loosing much of his function and strength. He is still the sweet, strong Opa that I love, actually cuter now in his helplessness but it was strange seeing him in his helplessness. My tante Monica was cutting his crazy white hair, my dad shaving his face and my Unkle Jens holding the plug for the razor in the wall. Recently we have been looking at retirement homes because he is becoming too much for my Oma to care for. It is weird, a sign that life is moving on. People are born and people die, so simple but something we so rarely think about, even as a midwifery student surrounded by birth all the time.

1 comment:

AGEMAN said...

Ya, your Opa iz cute!! I remember when he tried to throw the last of his coffee off the deck, and just totaly missed and got it all over the wood, and when your Oma told him not to have another burger, he just went "Humph", shoed her away and dug into another big burger!! So funny!! Kinda like "Don't tell me what to do woman!" attitude, Awsome.