Remembering My Oma

The obituary I wrote two years ago after my grandma (Oma) had passed

Photo by the Author.

There is a painting by Latvian artist Janis Rozentāls entitled “Nāve”, which translates to “Death”.

It sounds macabre, because when you think of paintings that depict death as a person, you certainly have something in mind, but not necessarily what the artist has chosen to show.

The painting personifies death in the form of a woman of slender stature with delicate, almost affectionate features, wrapped in a white robe. This figure bends down gently and her face floats warmly and comfortingly next to the dying person.

This picture touched me deeply and made me think of you, liebe Oma (dear granny). Because in this painting, death appears to me as a liberator, as a messenger of redemption and as something you don’t have to be afraid of.

Years ago, when it was still possible, you said to me that you don’t want to anymore. You never said live but it was implied.

Maybe one doesn’t like to say or think that now, because the thought hurts and at first it seems like the last few years of your life weren’t worth it — but that’s not the truth.

For me, your passing now rather means that you were finally able to let go of what your soul was already ready for when your body still bound you to this world and carried on.

I don’t want to promise that I’ll remember you only how you used to be and not like you’ve been the past five years. Because that wouldn’t be entirely true or fair.

I will remember who you were before stroke and dementia slowly took you away and I will remember how strongly you fought to be you in the last couple of years and how you kept some of you through-out it all.

And I would like to share with you and the people here how I remember you. Maybe they will also find you in it or want to be part of my remembrance of our shared lives.

There are so many different things that pop into my head about you.

Love and memories work through all the senses: seeing, hearing, tasting, feeling, smelling.

One of the things I will always associate you with is food. Chicken fricassee, farmer’s breakfast, Dany cream chocolate pudding, raw vegetables with extra tomato plates and grapes just for me.

I can see you standing in our kitchen flipping the omelette in the pan. And only you can make it taste like home.

I see us eating lunch together and chatting. Like we did at least twice a week after school.

I see you come in the door and an excited Jule or Maya [our dogs] jump up at you, you have your wicker basket clutched in your arms and of course a dog treat with you. You say “In a minute, in a minute, wait, wait” and laugh happily to yourself.

I see you, me and my brother at the kitchen table playing cards, you’re looking at us and saying “No, I can’t go, no”, shaking your head — but you can put the next card down and you just don’t want to. I can remember your smile, which you try to stifle.

I see us eating cake and drinking coffee at the bakery in town and you only say “yummy, yummy” and I hope I never forget how you emphasized those two words. Because even when you were lost for words you were still able to transfer the feelings.

I hear you say lass das nach* and only you can say it in a way that sounds like home.

I see little figurines and knick-knacks and I can’t help but think how much you appreciated little things like that and put them in your home on your shelves.

I listen to Elvis or the Beatles and know that you would love this song right now and maybe even dance a little. You were cheeky and the life of the party.

I’d like to go to Gran Canaria one day because you liked to go on vacation there. I still have the postcards you sent me in the nineties when I was just a toddler.

I drink Amaretto punch at the Christmas markets because you liked Amaretto so much and it reminds me of you.

And I probably unconsciously do a lot of things the way you did. I like that thought.

Liebe Oma (dear granny), you were always just my Oma and I am grateful for that.

You were also so many other things in your life, mother, mother-in-law, confidante, friend, comforter and there is not much more to say now than that I and we will miss you.

But I am also grateful that we were able to accompany each other on life’s journey together for 26 years.

I am relieved for you that you have gone with the lady in the white robe.

You will live on in my heart as the person you have been (for me) all these years.

The original obituary was written in German as it is my native language. I translated it for this Medium story.

If you looked up the painting by Rozentāls and stumbled across death bending down to a child, I was disturbed at first too.

However, this was not what I focused on, but rather the depiction and possible interpretation of Death through the woman in white.

I read a post on Pinterest about it and liked the interpretation of Death being a liberator because it helps my grief for my grandmother and I believe she felt like she was being liberated from her body on Earth.

*very typical northern German expression, meaning let it go/stop it but spoken with a little pinch of humour