Don't mention the war

Expat life in the UK is a funny old thing at times. Most of the time I honestly don't think about it. I feel at home here, having lived a considerable part of my adult life in this city. Sometimes I realise how many people in Glasgow aren't actually from Glasgow, but mostly, everyone is "just" a person to me, there's barely much thought spent on where people were born, how they got to live here and why. In fact, this is what I noted very early on just after arriving here in 1997. People would chat to me and the questions "where are you from" or "what brought you here" would sometimes not even come up in conversation, and if they did, it was much later than what I was used to in the other countries I've spent time in.

Things change mightily though when there's yet another football event on. I've found myself in pubs watching footie when England was playing Germany and it felt like I was surrounded by Germans, and initially I was sure that all these Scots around me must have a Germany granny. They didn't. Next match Germany v Albania and nobody turned up. Germany v Scotland - all those German grannies were forgotten big time (even I shouted for Scotland...). Personally, I feel offended if someone supports the German team just because they want England to lose. I'd like people to support a team because they like it, have an affiliation with it, and not because they happen to play the one team everyone hopes will lose.

On the other hand, having watched enough England v Germany fixes on TV, I'm sick to the bone of the references to 1966 and THE WAR. For eff's sake, it's just football and we're not at war right? And if you continue to use vocabulary as if we're fighting a war on the pitch, I'm starting to share those anti-English football team feelings of those around me. For eff's sake, it's just football and we're not at war right?

Or are we? The discourse around the war is actually interestingly different in the UK compared to Germany. Here, it's about winners and losers, about military strategy and remembrance day. In Germany, it's about liberation and the horror that was the Holocaust. I've never seen myself as a member of a country that lost the war. To my generation, and even my parents' generation, the UK, alongside with the US and France, liberated us from evil, suffering, destruction and hunger. If ever there was a war that had to be fought, it was the one against the Nazis. And to me, it was not a war against Germany, and never will be (the Marshall Plan speaks volumes that it wasn't a war against the people of Germany). In fact, I listened avidly to BFBS, my favourite radio station in Germany, my cousin worked for the US army and we all just loved having the Brits and Americans in the country. So much so we didn't actually want them to leave (they were good for the local economy). (note: things were probably a bit different in East Germany but that's not for me to discuss,) As to feeling responsibility for the Holocaust - the only responsibility I ever felt was to put extra effort in ensuring that this would never happen again, regardless of where.

So the discourse around football matches and any discussion of the war that sees England as the winner and Germany as the loser is more than alien to me. It worries me because it assumes that there is animosity still, revenge that is played out on the football pitch. From Germany's side of the fence, there isn't, and that's the big joke - England commentators making a big fuss about nothing, and I'm trapped in between explaining again and again how a match against England is nothing special to me, the German.  That above all, I'm not at war with anyone. Oh, and I find that Faulty Towers sketch probably funnier than any Brit, because it holds the mirror to the British about their obsession with the war, it is oh so clever and hilarious.

At times though I'm not sure if my interpretation of things comes with the mercy of the "Nachgeborenen" the generation born after the horrors. The generation that has the luxury of being able to claim not to have any responsibility for 7 million people murdered, and many more dead due to war, displacement and famine. My whole family was affected by the war and I never knew my grandfathers, my mother stopped her education to help in the home when her father died due to a war injury. It reduced her options in life and cut her education short when she must have been quite talented. Many friends of our family were displaced and suffered hardship after the war, while our neighbour lost her whole family to the gas chambers.

So I can relate to the people who tell me of their losses. The son who never knew his father because the Germans killed him. I know the same story from the other side. But while I blame Hitler and his madness (rather than the Allied Forces), the son, now the age of my own father, blames the Germans for his loss and his mother's suffering. And for all I try to explain, my argument remains shallow, and there's nothing I can offer to bridge this river. In the end, he who suffered a loss, I feel, has the right to explain that loss for himself and make his choice of blame or responsibility. It's not about whose discourse is right or wrong, better or worse, and it's most certainly not my place to change minds, but to respect his views. Even if it means that I'm the German to him.

Christmas 2010

We spent Christmas in snowy Clackmannanshire, trapped for a day or so until we got the shovels and grit out. Not that we were going anywhere. The kids took all day (in Cubling's cousin's case more than that) to unwrap their presents - they were actually more interested in playing than unwrapping. The magic of Santa worked, milk, carrots, home baked cookies and some reindeer dust made sure Santa came and left rather a lot of presents.

And you know what? I love toddlers. Why? Well, how creative can you get with a barbie doll (can I hasten to add that the doll was not my responsibility) and a crane? I was in stitches. What a fabulous idea!
Christmas for us was also a time of great sadness and loss. So, in a way I'm glad this Christmas is over and done with, and that we got through it in one piece, with the kids having bucketloads of fun. A candle was burning all day and in the evening, we lit paper lanterns and let them rise to the sky. There was a physicality of letting go which couldn't escape me, followed by the fading beauty of the light as it rose towards the moon in the ice cold winter night, before changing direction towards the north east and disappearing from our sight. The lanterns that will not return gave us a moment of beauty, togetherness and mindfulness.

Santa brought a toyshop for Cubling with all the gear, including a very popular ice cream stand and a chip and pin till. We are exposed to endless questions of "what do you want to eat?" before she proceeds to fill the basket with random stuff, as much as will go in, and charges £3 for it every single time, with lots of change handed back too. She takes her new job as shop owner very seriously, making sure all her customers are very happy indeed.
When the temperatures rose to come close to zero, not much time was wasted to make good use of good snow man building snow. Three generations were at it, Grampa, Daddy and Cubling herself. And I discovered the monochrome setting on my camera. Hurray! (I'm not one for reading instructions...).

Once we got up the driveway again, we went home, spending boxing day at home mostly, before setting off to the west coast to visit family and friends who I hadn't seen in a very long time. While on the road between Ayrshire, Renfrewshire, Glasgow and Clackmannanshire, much knitting was done, but oopsy daisy, I did got distracted and did the armhole shaping for a 6 year old, rather than the 4 year old version. So either I'm going to unravel and not have a summer dress ready for our holiday in a few day's time, or I'll pretend it didn't happen, try to fiddle about with it, adjust the back, make a second armhole for 4 year olds and pray it'll not look quite so bad. Haven't decided yet. I keep thinking that really there's not much in it between a 4 year old and a 6 year old armhole, is there? half an inch? Then I wonder how Cubling's 2 year old arm will look in a 6 year old armhole.... Decisions. Bottom line is I'm knitting ferociously to get the dress finished in time for our departure to sunny shores on New Year's Day. Time's running out and it doesn't help that I think I also found some errata in the pattern. Or maybe it's me?

It was lovely to finally have some time to visit family and friends we hadn't seen in a long long time. Some days, I feel very isolated, as if my friends are fading away because there is no time now to speak, meet and generally keep in touch. It's all the more reassuring when such opportunities to visit arise and the threads can be picked up where they were left dangling. Sometimes, time and distance don't matter. Of course, other times they do and it hurts when long standing friendships evaporate in front of my eyes and all my efforts are not enough to keep a good friend.

In between I kept admiring the winter wonderland that this Christmas had to offer. The Cart winding itself through a snowy suburban landscape, fog lingering over it in the sunset. Branches first weighing down heavy with snow, later turning white from frozen dew, a winterscape changing every day. The wide white expanse between Kilbirnie and Lochwinnoch, lochs that held trees prisoners in their frozen waters. The view across towards the majestic snow covered hills of Arran looking down on Cumbrae and Little Cumbrae.

Now then, I shall disappear for a few days in a pile of yarn trying to save that dress and get it ready for our holiday. I'm doubtful that I'll be able to blog on our holiday so it may be quiet on this site for a little while.

Timely

A sleepless night, constant thoughts about the 5 weeks ahead of us and still nowhere near to putting it into words. The looming question is this: How can we make Christmas special for our children, when it is filled with grief, loss, a massive hole. I waiver between trying to gather the strength to make the festive season as special as it should be, against all odds, until the energy to carry it through deserts me again.

Of course, it will not be easy, who ever said life would be easy? Yet for the sake of the children who do not know or understand death and loss, who only know what they have, not what they've lost, do we not owe them to let them partake in the magic of Christmas?

And can the day someone died be separated from the date? Does it matter which date the anniversary happens to fall, can we ignore that it is Christmas Day? (of all the frigging days of the year, did it have to be Christmas Day? And then again, is it not insignificant which day it was because what's really frigging bad is that he's gone?)

There are no easy answers, I've had almost a year to figure it all out and did not. Instead, there are ever more questions, the only constant being uncertainty. I simply don't know what is best - not for me, but for all those around me whom I love.

I'm only even posting this thanks to Linda at You've got your hands full. Her post on bereavement and children made me realise that at least, I should be trying to put my confused mind into some words, without flooding the keyboard yet again. Because, if you like it or not, we will all experience grief at some point in our life, as much as we try to ignore death. I feel I've had my share, with a friend dying when I was 15, another when I was 19, my mum when I was 32. But nothing has been as hard coming to terms with as the last year following the sudden and unexpected passing of my brother in law.

If you or you're children have been affected by bereavement, Linda has brought together an impressive range of online resources which I wish had been there 11 months ago. I can't thank Linda enough for this, and I'm sure it will be extremely helpful to lots of people. To be honest, there's nothing as comprehensive online as collated in her post. It's been a long time coming and I feel a little bit guilty that I never had the courage to do it myself. Well, I don't feel guilty now, because it's out there now, and that's all that matters. So thank you Linda.