Dedicated to our Beloved Oma

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Under a desk lamp placed on the floor, I would read him the Little House on the Prairie every night. He would be half awake but listening intently, he never falls asleep during the reading, imagining the story in his mind. It reminds me of my young self. My mother never read me a bedtime story, but if she had I would have reacted just like him. In a way that is what I am doing, I am reading to my son as if I am reading to my younger self. The younger self that is still inside me. He even looks like me, even though he is a boy, but his hair has grown out and it is hard to tell if he is still my boy. If I am dreaming. 

*** ​

“This is how you peel an apple.” My mother said to me with a soft voice. “Start at the top, lead with your thumb. Keep your hand away from the direction of the knife.” I tried, and my mother laughed at my attempt with a slight hint of mockery. “Hold the apple like this, and the knife like so, so that you don't cut yourself.” I tried again.“That's better. But you are taking off too much of the apple with its skin, it's wasteful. ” She continued. " Of course a peeler would make it easier to peel the apple.” “But you might not always have a peeler with you, and if you learn how to do things the hard way first, then the easier way would come to you without any issues.” ​

*** ​

My mother used to always cut my hair in the same way. I hate the haircut and I hate the classroom too, where you are told to be quiet, told to be little, told to be collective. The confusion of youth and the journey to become independent clashes with the classroom. But I learned there that compliance can be comforting as well. An escape from the confusion. Like floating in the sea, you can let go if you accept it by giving up yourself.

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He would go outside every day, no matter rain or snow. We would go to the playground and he would play alone. If there were other kids, he would watch them play from afar, observing their tendencies, their logic, then finally joining them. He is certainly more sensitive and more artistic than me. That is for sure. But perhaps I simply did not have a chance as he has.

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She was going to become a Physicist. Her professor made a speech on the disappointment in her leaving his lab at her wedding. That was the end of her academic career. Yet I see contentment in her today, and how is that different from what I have? ​

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I received the news at a museum in Vienna. My father told me about her diagnosis on the phone. Immediately I felt empty, there was only a lack of emotion in me. Then I thought about how she would have reacted to this news. ​

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She was sick and I was envious of her. I have grown so emotional in the past few weeks. We talked about our parents, the books that we were reading and the news, while she was getting her treatment. She asked me why I didn’t call her, when just a moment ago her name was called in her absence, in the waiting room. I told her that there was no need to get this treatment a mere five minutes earlier than she would have otherwise. But she was hinting at a different problem. And she was right. There was a lack of urgency to our actions. I didn’t want to leave her. We both knew what was to come. Yet we reacted and prepared differently towards it. Perhaps to prove to each other that we are not the same.