Im memoriam

Five years ago, today, my father died.  He, like all fathers, was the most handsome man who ever walked this earth.  I worshipped him when I was a little girl.  I woke up with him very early in the mornings and ate porridge with blood sausage and sipped cod fish oil from the bottle.  I was going to marry him when my mother died because I knew that he would need a wife to take care of him.  I collected plants and he taught me how to dry them and label them correctly.  He also taught me to play chess and appreciate both classical music and Faroe Islands folk songs although the latter was more of a: If you can't beat them, join them.

He loved to watch Opera and sports on TV.  He would watch the Olympics and World Cup soccer and practically every major sports event that was shown on TV.  And he was serious about it.  He would take vacation time and wake up in the middle of the night to watch if he had to.  He was also very interested in politics and loved a hearty debate.  And he had a great sense of humour.  He bought us Donald Duck magazines (in Danish back in those days) and always read them himself first.  He'd come home with some candy and tell us that it was from our dentist.  I believed that for years and thought we had the nicest dentist.

It is always amazing to me how much more difficult it is to loose a parent than I ever thought it would be.  I thought that old people (because I am now an old woman by my own definition as it was some years ago) didn't feel the loss of parents that much.  I mean, everyone is old, the parent and the child and old people die.  Everyone knows that. So it shouldn't come as a surprise and it shouldn't hurt.  But it did.

Tomorrow is his birthday.  He would have turned 78, an age that was once ancient to me, but is now not that old.  I will spend the day with my mother.  I always buy her flowers on this day and I probably will also do that tomorrow.  But even nicer, we will go for a coffee in Keflavik, a small fishing village since we are driving my 83 year young aunt to the airport which is right there.

I am very fortunate in that I like my mother very much.  She has been my best friend for many, many years.  She isn't perfect.  She is a lousy housewife and a horrible cook, but she is very intelligent and very funny.  And she is the best grandmother anyone could ever wish for.  Probably because she was a very good mother.  I look forward to tomorrow even if it will be tinged with sorrow and hope that we will have many, many more days together because I can't even begin to think what I'd do without her.