Before I ever crossed over from the rainbow world of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland, or BRD
(Bundes should have been Buntes, that is, colorful)
Better known as West Germany
To the black-and-white world of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik, or DDR
(Which was neither democratic nor representative)
Better known as East Germany
I heard the stories of my great-uncle Ernst, Oma’s brother,
Who lived in a city behind the Iron Curtain whose name I have forgotten
Having passed the age of 65, Onkel Ernst could travel to West Germany
Once a year for a month
To visit his sisters in Kiel
Twice I was visiting my Oma when Onkel Ernst arrived
He spoke openly of life in the DDR
Where stealth was a quickly learned asset
Where measuring one’s words was an essential skill
And where the innocence of children was regularly used against their families
It was against the backdrop of his stories that I traveled twice
With my parents from the land of color to the land of black and white
My mother had two dear friends who found themselves on the wrong side of the wall
Back in 1949 – one in East Berlin that necessitated trips through Checkpoint Charlie
And one in Dresden
Even on sunny days, everything in the DDR was drab and uninspired
Buildings only a few years old looked as though they had weathered a world war
They sat sadly without pride or spirit
Older buildings like the magnificent Zwinger in Dresden
Were left unattended in their bombed states
Unlike my mother’s friends, my parents and I were able to leave after our DDR visits
And return to a land of color
Thankfully today the walls are gone and Germany is one again
But the tyrannical impulse
Remains alive and well
Her bags had already been packed and taken away some months before
When her legs gave out
And she found herself in a hospital bed
What was left was a yearning to go home
To what little she still had
Before long, her memory was stripped bare
Save the occasional “I love you”
But in the end
Even “I love you”
Disappeared in a jumble of incoherent sounds
During our last visit, I chose not to massage her hands
With the rose lotion she previously enjoyed
Her hands were under the covers
And I was reluctant to pull them out
Instead, I massaged her scalp and spoke in a low voice
A gentle voice
About how much she had meant to us over the years
I will happily crawl into a den of lions
Or a cave of bears
Or perhaps a trapdoor spider’s tunnel
To breathe deeply the air of salvation
The unrelenting bomb raids
The othering of everyone to justify cruelty
The endless cycle of revenge
That is not the world I was ushered into
In which courage and kindness guided action
In which we still spoke of a moral compass
The lions will minister to me
The bears will comfort me
And the trapdoor spider will celebrate the living light
In all of us
Every dawn, when hope seems lost
And the days are littered with bad news
The sky envelops me in its endless beauty
As the sun and the clouds distract me with their lovely paintings
In shades of gray, white, blue, and orange
Slowly lifting the weights of sorrow
And replacing them with soft pillows of joy
Her mother was fond of saying
We are all victims of life
When another friend or relative
Succumbed to disease or injury
She chuckled to herself
When she read in the obituaries
That a 90+ year old had died
But no cause of death was given
Of course not, she would say
She was old
She took in all in stride
The death and the dying
Until death went one step too far
And invited her on a fateful journey
In the guise of a vacation