In September my parents planned to come over to celebrate my Mom's birthday together. They ended up only staying for a day, as an old friend in the north suddenly passed away. It was the first time I ever attended a funeral, but I knew it wasn't going to remain the only one. We stayed at my Grandpa Martin's place during those days in the north and visited my Grandma Johanna at a care home. She didn't recognize any of us.
When we moved to Europe many years ago, we used to be completely on our own. We had no relatives, not many friends, not much money. It was just us and a possible ph.D. degree for my father. This elderly couple basically had been in our lives from Day 1. Martin and Johanna became my grandparents, when I was 3 years old. They were there for us, when my maternal grandparents couldn't and my paternal grandparents didn't care about us. As long as they didn't have a grandchild of their own, they treated me like their grandchild. Even after they had six real grandchildren and we rarely saw each other any more, I knew that I was the very first one. How do you beat that.
This week my Mom tells me that Grandpa Martin got diagnosed with liver cancer and rejected further treatment. He'll soon leave the hospital and go home, Mom will head over there for a few days. I probably won't see him again. I can look back at lots of amazing memories from over two decades, I learned so much from the both of them. I regret that we all didn't make more of an effort in recent years, but we did have a wonderful time last September. I'll always cherish that.
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