The time I wrote about lemon rubber balls, was the time when Omama was in hospital, dying.
Yesterday, she died.

She was the woman the house at the sea belonged to. I was sitting at her side on the bench, my feet not reaching the floor, when she tought me how to peel potatoes.
It was her dog that was the lion, and her cat that was the tiger, in the circus tent in her garden.
It was her door, were the plastik dog poo was. The grown ups had to laugh about it every morning.
We went eeww, every morning, hours before they finally stood up too.
It was her table, around which we all sat, eating barbecue in the late evening, playing poker (including the kids), and eating sandwiches in the middle of the day, supper for us, breakfast for the grownups.

It was her beach-chair, behind that my dad build our appartement in the sand, and her attic, were the surfboard rested through autumn, winter and spring, until the next summer break started, and we all came back to build such precious memories.
I owe her the lime rubber ball summers.
I loved her dearly, she was my Omama. Edith Holstein.

Damn, I lost my chance to ask her about her precious memories! That thought just came to me.
That really hurts.

Her death doesn't, not anymore. My Omama died a long time ago, when Edith told her daughter, my mother, that she lost me to dad and should fight for Henni now.
From then on she was dead to me.
And I couldn't cry, because she still was alive.
Now she really died, but the hurt is so old, that I cannot cry either.

Sad, isn't it?

I have to talk to the elder people of my clan next spring, this really is important now. They will all die in the next few years, and I have to write down our family history.

Edith was the young who rode on her horse through the village, in trousers. The one with the short hair who went into the big city to see the hectic life of it.
She was the sad woman who gave up about the famous singer who couldn't stay by only one woman but would have taken her around the world and would have loved her forever, for raising two girls in the small village of her birth instead.
The beautyful sad woman who drank too much and wore expensive clothes.
The friendly, wise grandmother, who tought me how to pick cherries in that gigantic cherry tree in her garden, and told me stories of my family that made me shiver and my eyes grow huge.
The bitter old lady who smoke too much and tried to hold on her younger daughter, tried to own her, and succeded, because she lost everything else, including me.

I think I'll cry at her burial. I will be there, holding Henny in my arms and try to gain my mother back.
And think about childhood summers and lost lifes.

( deutsche Version )