Part 6 -Mummy's Memoirs

I was very busy earlier today, typing up Mum's Memoirs.  It is really fascinating doing it and I am so pleased that she wrote them, they are a wonderful legacy for her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren.  Mum would be 81 now if she had survived.  It was so sad and shocking the way we lost her.  She was absolutely fine and was on her 3rd visit back to Poland since she had left when she was a child.  I got a phone call one Saturday morning to tell me that she was not well and had been taken to hospital, within an hour I had another call to tell me that she had gone.  To think of it now still takes the breath out of me.  She was vivacious and strong, I thought she would live forever.  I felt so helpless, she was so far away and it all seemed like a nightmare.  I had always envisaged her coming to live with me in her later life.  It was my stepdad who was the ill one,  not expected to live for that long.  Mum and I had talked and we were going to put an extension on our house if anything happened to him, so Mum wouldn't have to live alone.  In the end he outlived Mummy by almost 10 years.  Mummy died in the same hospital she had been born in, theres a saying and a song isn't there, "the circle of life".  Mum certainly completed the circle.

So, having completely depressed myself, I am now posting Part 6 - enjoy xx

 

Soon the children in my class were preparing for communion.

I saw a lovely pair of shoes in the shoe shop. They were patent leather with flaps coming together in the centre over a cut out and tied up with laces with knobbles on them. I would get mother to come shopping and drag her to the shoe shop. I would point them out, keep telling her about them but she bought me a dull leather shoe with a bar going across. I was very disappointed. I was broken hearted when I saw them on Gise. It spoiled all my communion.

I went to the altar rail knowing I was going to be pure, a different person. But all I could think of was those shoes.

After the service we were taken to the photographers. We would have a photo taken together - Gise and I to keep forever as a keepsake of our great and wonderful day. We would look back in years to come when we were both ladies and remember that we had even been friends when we were little.

My heart was not in it. She had my shoes on. She had a step-father but she still got those shoes.

Mother was quite cross with my sulks by that time. She pushed me to the centre with Gise who was happy and pleased. I tried to smile but then I thought I must try to make myself look good if I’m to look at this picture forever.

While the photographer was getting ready I had to decide quickly which of my faces I would have. I’d practised for hours in front of the mirror my faces. I would not do the smiling ones because I had no front teeth.

I had a whole collection I could go cross eyed and pull my lip under. If I squeezed my eyebrows over my eye lashes all my eyelids stuck up with the eye lashes curled in between the folds of my eyebrows.

I could do my side face, turn my whole face until my mouth was on the side and only the side teeth showing - and frighten myself my speaking in a hoarse voice. Even with full side teeth I don’t think my mother would have liked that one.

I would make a face mouth turned round in the corner like a frog, jutting my tongue out in flicks. [Oh, I do remember her doing this face for us]

After thinking over hastily my repertoire I decided to let my jaw hang loosely.

The photo came out with me with a lantern jaw and Gise with her shoes looking lovely.

I don’t really like to look at myself and her remembering our great day!

[Mum is on the left in the photo above]

After the photographs and dinner we  (the holy ones) all set off together with the priest and attending ladies for a picnic.

We were given a bag of goodies - rolls with garlic sausage, cakes, oranges and sweets. A nice time was had by one and all.

 

[Mum went back to Austria a few years before she died.  She made her way back to Berndorff to the see the old ‘block’ (house) where she had lived. Guess who was still living there in one of the flats … yes it was Gise. They had not seen each other for over 60 years. Gise had never forgotten Mum either. Mum was overjoyed to find her old friend and spent a day with her, it was lucky as had Mum been a day later she would have missed her friend as Gise was going away on holiday the next day - it is all fate. Anyway, Mum went back the next year and they had a few days together. The little photos at the beginning of my entry, show Mum and Gise together again and one of them outside the Block, the same place that Mum lived as a little girl when she was friends with Gise).  Mum took some pictures of Gise’s flat when she visited her and the walls were all covered with antler’s horns. Now I must really search those photos so I can put that one in too. ]

 

 

Mum and Gise outside the Block (Mum on left) - see the marks from shellfire sustained in the war on the walls

Ahh, heres Gise on the left and Mummy on the right, back on the streets of Berndorff.

 

Well, I have messed around with all sorts of things to get these photos on and the last two I have managed to do with photo bucket. 

Have a great day everyone.

Terry x