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I was afraid of him

I was four, may be five years old. As was often the case I was at my grandmother’s house, playing outside. Opposite her house stood a wooden barracks; there was one of them at least in every village, and it was named the BHG (Bäuerliche Handelsgenossenschaft).

I wasn’t remotely interested in what went on inside that building; however I knew that a man sat behind the first window, whom I had great respect – to be more exact, I was afraid of him if I was to be really honest with myself. He was tall, had a loud voice, and never smiled. Nevertheless, I was drawn to this window like a magnet.

Not only his window but all the other windows in this building had a fascination all to themselves. They were attractive in that they reflected the blue sky and the white clouds on the outside. It was impossible to tear myself away from them. No, on the other hand, I mused, there was the badminton racket, and there were all these pebbles lying around …

Not a moment to lose – I tried to hit the windows again and again with the pebbles. However, practice makes perfect, and suddenly there was a resounding crash! I feared the worst, and crouched on the ground, drawing patterns of flowers with the handle of my racket, trying to give the impression of having not noticed at all what had just happened.

The door burst open, and a man charged out of it, exactly the one I was most afraid of. By now I realized that my impression of him was accurate. He was roaring away wildly outside. It was so funny that I had to suppress my laughter when I saw him stonking around like a half-mad man; he would have done Rumpelstiltken proud!

Then he charged up to me: “Was that you? Have you broken that window pane?” My response came like a bullet out of a gun: “No”. He looked at me completely nonplussed, simply not knowing what to say. I stood up and looked hard at him. It was not easy for me to retain this posture, especially now I realised that I had told him a blatant lie, but there was no going back.

He began addressing me, making it plain to all and sundry that I must have been the culprit; there had been no one else around at all. Again and again I told him that it wasn’t me who’d done it, I was emboldened by my own feelings of one-upmanship, but at the same time I felt guilt, knowing that I’d told a lie.

Eventually he gave up. He probably didn’t believe a word of what I had said but was unable to prove I was the one. In any case he left me alone, and went back to my grandmother’s house, in order to tell her what had happened – so much for the man I was afraid of!

Years later he never managed to put this whole incident behind him; even once I was an adult, he was convinced that I was the culprit. This incident might well have happened to me yesterday, although it is now over fifty years ago.

“Do it”

My mother had a strange, hurtful way of going about things. One day, I was about ten or eleven at the time, things came to a head.

Up to now my mother had blackmailed me regularly in the same manner. Every time I was to ‘do things her way’; although I was loathed to, she issued me with the same old tantrum every time: “I’ll kill myself, I’ll hang myself, no-one listens to me, no-one loves me …..”.

There came a point in time when I really couldn’t take it anymore. I was being subjected to such emotional blackmail that no-one could have stood up to on an ongoing basis. One day I was being issued with the same old speech yet again. Without even thinking about it at all, I stood up, fetched a footstool and a washing line, laid them both at her feet, and told her “well then get on with it”.

This scene haunted me for years to come, and even now I look back to this situation, seeing the footstool right by me, the one my uncle had cobbled together himself, painted light blue, with a dark blue hue at the sides. In the middle he’d painted some sort of funny scene between husband and wife; I probably hadn’t ever understood what this scene was about, and thus only had vague memories of it.

It was a long time before I really grasped why my mother and I had such a dysfunctional relationship; it was only years after my accident that the Lord enabled me to put things right with her, and from my point of view at the very least, to bring things back to normal.

I wondered over and over again just why I’d bent over backwards to fulfil her every request (although it’s true that I’d learnt over a period of time to bridle my own rebelliousness nature); then the Lord gave me a dream during my time in Schmalkalden. The following morning, I could remember every detail that I’d seen, and there was a great deal to ponder over. So I phoned up Friede-Renate, who I’d got to know in the meantime – and asked whether I could pop round, so that we could both listen to what the Lord was trying to say through this dream.

Friede-Renate, our former pastor, was a very warm-hearted lady with a great deal of empathy – one really felt she was listening when one spoke, and one was able to relax in her presence. I had the privilege of dwelling in the same house as she did for a while. When people needed help with spiritual matters, she was invariably their first point of call. She was the one behind my inspiration to prepare and offer a retreat on the subject of “inner healing”. I told her of my dream; we took time to pray to the Lord about it, and then meditate over it. This was the first time that I laid claim to properly listening to the Lord’s response. Believe me, two minutes like this felt like half an hour!

However, this day was like no other I’d experienced. I leaned back and closed my eyes, and suddenly I saw something like a strip of film being played out before my eyes: a room, in the dark area, there were people in it. I recognized my grandmother and grandfather, but they looked young then.

Then there was my mother: young, pretty, with her quite long dark hair making her look absolutely stunning and the whole time she was laughing with a man who I didn’t know, but nevertheless didn’t seem to be a complete stranger to me. A while after that they were alone in this room, resulting in them drawing closer together. They parted company only after having slept together.

Then there appeared some sort of board with the date “2 August 1958, 19 years old” displayed on it. It took a while for me to grasp that this was my mother’s 19th birthday, the day on which I was conceived – by this stranger.

Furthermore, I saw that it was well into the summer before she noticed that she was pregnant. She wasn’t happy at this to say the least. Whatever she felt about me, I knew the Lord already loved me and wanted me, even as a tiny little being in the womb of my mother.

The dream went on further: not only did my grandmother and grandfather as well as my mother live in this house, but also an old couple. The husband, named Paul, was tall and thin, whereas his wife was named Pauline, small and round – all rather sweet!

It was Pauline who gave my mother the courage to bear this child in her womb, as opposed to despairing. This came over graphically in this so-called film strip, and it brought me to tears.

I never got to know either Paul or Pauline; they died soon after one another while I was supposedly still in my nappies; however, I am extremely grateful that they were there at the right point in time. On asking her, my mother confirmed all of this; today I am also a ‘Paul’, albeit just my surname.

Of course, I told Friede-Renate everything I had seen, and we prayed once again together. We put this whole messy situation at the foot of the cross of Jesus, and it was at this point that I felt an enormous emotional weight being lifted from my shoulders.

Then it suddenly clicked in my mind. I understood why my mother went along with this man, why she was so horrified at noticing the resulting pregnancy, and why she wanted to have me aborted. Jesus took this all on himself, my inner pain, my sadness at how things had been between my mother and myself, it was all over in just one second. The question was what to do now. I couldn’t conceivably imagine talking this all through with my mother. However, that wasn’t the way of the Lord, he knew much better how to handle things; it was a matter of his timing anyway.

Although this revelation all happened in the space of just one afternoon, I needed around half a year more in order to process this and work things out inwardly for myself. My mother knew that something was up with me, but simply didn’t dare ask me. That half year was very important for me. I needed this time span to really work things out in a positive manner for myself.

Gradually grew the desire within me to talk things through with her. The Lord impressed upon me that it would be the right time to phone her up with the aim of inviting her over for several days. Without this inner conviction nothing would have happened, and I would never have believed that my mother would accept my offer; however as is often the case with the Lord once he takes charge of the situation, things work out completely differently and so much for the better in a way that one dares not hope for.

I phoned my mother up, and without even thinking about it she said “yes”! I was positively taken by surprise at this; however, it was clear that Jesus was taking charge of things now. Once there, she declared her wish for me to stay two weeks. Wow, I thought! In such a short space of time we were able to get onto the same wavelength as each other.

At the start of the second week I made the most of our time to really discuss in detail our relationship, and what I’d seen in this filmstrip, in order to put this all behind me, burying it for once and for all. Our discussions were tough going, both of us having to dig up uncomfortable facts from the past, for her part my mother offering a great deal more than token resistance, expressing her fury, regret, and as time wore on, utter helplessness coupled with tears of resignation.

However God’s presence really was perceivable during this time in a way I’ve seldom experienced before; for my part I had been able to tackle this problem head on, and likewise my mother really began to repent. Sadly, it has turned out to be only a half-way house with her, but she has to really see that for herself. She knows what steps she has to take, she knows the way forward, she knows who she can turn to for help and counselling; only she has to do that for herself, no-one can do this for her.

I sincerely recommend that when you know that there are ruptured relationships between you and someone else, don’t just put things off. Every relationship you restore in this lifetime remains restored in the afterlife and will serve as a source of inner joy, starting from now.

Priceless memories

My grandfather was the most loving person I have ever known. Whatever I wanted to know or learn, I knew I could turn to him for help – “Granddad knew everything”. He taught me everything about nature, everything one needed to know about biology.

Thus I got to know every type of fungus and mushroom there were in the woods, and where to find them. My grandfather explained to me which soil supports which type of mushroom and why. The best times of my life were spent in his company.

My grandfather was the cleverest person in the entire world because he would know about everything. He knew everything about animals, plants, and the universe, not to mention everything about the people themselves. It fascinated me to see just how observant he was, and how his analysis would turn out to be correct. I frequently applied his logical way of thinking in my own life. My teachers at school became so impressed with me that it even merited mention in my school reports.

On a wonderfully bright day in summer around harvest time my granddad took me out in the horse coach to gather in the hay. I tried hard to tie the hay in bundles although being just four or five years old at the time, I was not remotely successfully.

Once these sheaves lay in rows, these were gathered into piles, which my granddad pitched onto the cart with his fork. My part to play was to jump up and down on them in order to flatten these sheaves.

At some point in time the cart was full, and I sat on the top of the huge mound of fragrant hay gathered in. My grandpa passed the fork to me – but a snake had wound itself around its prongs. What a fright it gave me! My granddad climbed up to me and explained that it was a simple grass snake, which he declared to be quite harmless – but that its relative, the adder, was much more dangerous. Years later I also encountered one of these face to face, so remembering this description of his I knew right away what I was up against.

I don’t remember granddad ever losing patience with me trying to explain something to me. His black-rimmed eyes would grow rounder when he really was excited about something he was explaining. I inherited these dark eyes from him, these seemingly being the only thing feature of his I had; however, his way of approaching things left a lasting impression on me.

I remember especially how he explained to me just what sunspots were. This was simply too advanced for me; I just couldn’t grasp this concept at all. However, my granddad wasn’t to be defeated. He took me to an old, but very interesting looking man – he was small in stature, virtually bald, had a long, bent nose, a awake look in his eyes, and was virtually hunched backed. I’d certainly heard about him before, but this was the first time I actually saw him in the flesh.

This old man had a telescope through which one could look directly at the sun. As I actually saw that there were spots on the surface of the sun, and that around the edges of the sun there leapt out great walls of flame akin to the sun having wings I was simply unable to contain my excitement. This old man was an artist. Later on, I went to him alone just to see him at work painting pictures.

At that time I wasn’t yet at school; however I learnt such a lot from my granddad and this old man about the sun and other aspects of life than I ever did at school. Now I realize that my granddad really enjoyed teaching me all and sundry, and no wonder that we had such a close relationship to one another. Sometimes I feel that I can even hear what he is thinking.

I have also to thank my granddad for having all the horses, cows, pigs and poultry as he introduced me to another important adult in my life. All his livestock and poultry required the presence of a vet from time to time. This happened to be a lady, called Doctor Elenore Rau – she was young, with dark hair, self-confident, and warm-hearted. She formed a deep impression on me, well before I started school. There was no kindergarten in our village, and thus I spent many a happy hour with “Mrs Doctor”, who took me along when animals had to be ‘got well again’. We were very alike in our thinking. Mrs Doctor would pick me up with her Wartburg 311 and drive me to the respective cow shed. These could be the huge ‘modern’ ones run by the LPG, or the small old ones like that of my granddad, these would be the remaining private ones.

That the LPG farms effectively were appropriated from the small farmers compulsorily at that time; many were the tears shed by the farmers at the loss of their private property. The Farms had all been declared “state property”, there being “no private ownership in the communist system”, something that I didn’t appreciate at my age. I was only interested in the welfare of the animals there, seeing them get better, whether they were the property of the state or in private hands.

I got a wonderful feeling when livestock was visibly ‘made well’ by my Mrs Doctor. Already as a child I was allowed to fetch everything from the car that the vet needed – I already knew what everything was: the stethoscope, the syringes, and of course the drops and ointments that the cows, the sheep, and the pigs needed. Looking back, I’m convinced that everything was already laid out for me to fetch from the car, enabling me to rapidly learn just what the bits and pieces were, and when they would be needed.

The first piece of equipment I became familiar with was the stethoscope – that was the easy one. Mrs Doctor explained to me just what she was going to do, what a stethoscope was, and why it would be needed. It was always to be found in the same place in the car earning me a “well done” from her once I’d fetched it from there. Then there were all the bandages. These were more complicated, being of various sizes and material; some of them were elastic, and these we had to be economical with. Then there were the syringes for taking blood samples, and the smaller ones for injecting against pain and fever. For cows one needed a thicker cannula than for lambs. Even as a five-year-old girl this presented me no problems at all as I was in a position to differentiate between all these pieces of veterinary equipment, and I cannot ever remember bringing her the wrong item. For the times when I had to bring a lot of things at the same time out of the car there was a little basket to help me out.

One day there was an emergency, with a calf about to be born prematurely. It was touch and go when we arrived; things had to be dealt with right away, with Mrs Doctor grabbing everything out the car herself to assist her with this birth. I had the privilege of watching it all happen. ‘Watching’ is maybe the wrong word – I was simply spellbound witnessing the calf move around in the cow’s womb and how it was eased out into the real world. I was little and very young, but even then, I was able to appreciate that something quite amazing had happened; this almost brought tears of joy to my face. What about the mother of the calf? She was far too weak to stand up on her own, nevertheless she would not let go of her little newborn, turning her gently over licking her dry with a soft “moo”. This just seemed the perfect end to this emergency, and I was overjoyed at the fact that we had saved the mother of this calf.

Due to what I had learned on that day I was able to help my father-in-law some twenty five years later save a sheep giving birth to her two lambs. The first lamb was so wedged against the coccyx that it had to be turned right away otherwise the lambs’ mother would have died, taking the two lambs with her. It was fortunate that we had a telephone (not every household had one by any means in the DDR times). I phoned Frau Rau needing to know whether sheep did the same sort of things in this respect as cows did. “Good question, next one please!?” ”No more, Mrs Doctor”, and she subsequently proceeded to instruct me precisely what I was to do and not to do. Above all she was able to give me the confidence to assist with this birth with her clear instructions. I did exactly what she told me to do, and, lo and behold, all three survived the ordeal. These lambs were large ones, and it goes without saying that they were my absolute favourites from then on.

Back in the car again en-route to our next patient, with Mrs Doctor praising me for my actions, it was as if I had just grown three inches taller. Her praise really boosted my confidence, giving me courage to try out more complicated things, and to admit my mistakes, taking responsibility for my actions.

It became a matter of course that the farmers, whose livestock we treated, became used to Mrs Doctor never coming alone, but being accompanied by her ‘assistant’. Without having to ask, it was obvious to all of them just what I would do as an adult. This was likewise a matter of fact as far as I was concerned – I would grow up to become a vet; nobody questioned the logic of that.

Once I started school, I was unable to accompany Frau Rau on her rounds so much; to make up for that I loved visiting her at home. It was superbly furnished, and Mrs Doctor seemed to have rows and rows of books, more than one could possibly read in a lifetime; perhaps if one started early enough in life one would be able to get through them all ? Anyway, I started right away to plough into her collection. Looking back over the years I did not really appreciate just how much I took after this dear lady, not really being aware just how much I had learned from her over time.

Even today I feel this great respect for this lady, there really being a strong bond of friendship between the two of us. Fifty years on things haven’t changed much in thisrespect, although we’ve long since gone our own separate ways.

The finest memories I have of my granddad were when he cooked apples in the oven. In my grandma’s kitchen there was a tiled stove with a hatch for the flames, and a warming plate accessible via a grille. When I think of this oven it reminds me of the chilly weather then, the burning wood which crackled away and finally the apple peel with the wonderful aroma of baked apple.

My grandmother filled the apples for baking and pushed them into the warming plate; my grandad sat next to the oven peeling the apples one after the other with infinite patience. I can remember the apple trees outside, and how they blossomed in the spring, the apples growing in summer, ripening in the autumn; and when the time was right my granddad brought them all in a basket into the house.

I was fascinated just how granddad was able to peel the apples into one long strand of apple peel. The best part came when I was allowed to eat all these strands of apple peel, one after the other, followed by eating the baked apples, laced with custard. This taste and aroma I still carry around in my mouth and nostrils even today.

I can really appreciate just how valuable it was that both my grandma and granddad really gave me quality time then that I really needed. Now being a grandmother myself I know just how to savour that, with my granddaughter living nearly two hundred miles away – just how many times I have yearned for my dear little sweetie.

When I was six years old, I had to go to school for the first time; at that time there was also school in Saturdays. On a particular Saturday in the winter, the 12th December 1965 to be precise, I suddenly got up from my chair, and started to cry, declaring that “I had to get back home”, my granddad had just died ! Poor teacher, what was she supposed to do? She asked one of the boys who lived in the neighbourhood to accompany me back home.

He brought me to the front door, and I went upstairs. We were living at that time in a quite large old farmhouse in the middle of Löbau, a small town in Saxony. Once in our flat there, I saw my mother crying, declaring that “granddad had died”.

I said, “I know”, and retreated to my room. Even to this day, fifty years later I can sense the pain of this loss.

I don’t know whether my granddad was a born-again Christian with Jesus in his life. However, I do know that he suffered more after the war under the communist dictatorship than he did in the war itself. He had no education and had never killed anyone in the war. He started off as a farmhand, then a stable lad, progressing to be a farmer, responsible for all livestock on the farm, and on top of that he trained young men as farmers. This was conditional on him being a member of the Nazi party; likewise, in the Communist era, he would also have been deemed to be a member of the communist party too.

After the war someone had sullied his name due to his former membership of the Nazi party, resulting in him being sent to the coal mines in Aue; years later he returned home very ill. All this I got to hear about years after his death from my grandmother. My granddad never gave me any indication that this was the case, nor expressed his sentiments about this.

From my days at school

Those days at school were challenging for me as a child. Looking back, I can see the funny side of things, but I also harboured bad memories too. I had a particularly acute sense of right and wrong, which made me unpopular. I can’t recall all the bad things that went on, but one incident comes back to mind.

There was a boy in my class with thick round spectacles, and one day my woman teacher was simply teasing him about them. Being just eight at the time I couldn’t understand how adults could be so cruel to treat children like this, so when this teacher started up I strongly felt the injustice. I shouted at the teacher in front of the class.

This escalated pretty fast when the lady shrieked back at me that I should keep quiet! In the process I made it quite plain that it was no business of hers to tease people, let alone children.

I was determined to make myself heard loud and clear with my voice echoing round the class, till the teacher hit me in the jaw. I reacted to this quite uncontrollably due to the pain, slapping her in the face without giving it a moment’s thought, simultaneously kicking her in the shins, resulting in her collapsing in a heap on the floor. She had to take three weeks off work as a result. However, I was never punished!

I had another experience with this woman teacher which I remember well. I was now in the second year at school and was generally an ‘intelligent’ girl. Every morning at the start of school we would pass through a large glass swing door. Every time this teacher would greet each one of the pupils in turn, some kindly and others indifferently – it seemed to me that even teachers had their favourites.

Whenever it was my turn I was told to stop and remain there, and glibly recite “good morning Mrs Teacher” looking her in the eye, which I did obediently, although well aware of what was going to ensue. Every time the teacher looked at me, she complained that “I hadn’t washed my eyes yet again, otherwise they would be reflected in the glass door and dazzle her”.

I had no idea what was really going on, but my resentment of this grew uncontrollably from day to day. Of course, my eyes were naturally as dark as ever, but I obediently trudged straight along to the washroom and furtively washed them there.

However, on this particular day I didn’t do this. I slipped through the glass door in front of her nose, grabbed a medium sized marble, and hurled it into the glass door, which promptly shattered into a thousand pieces. I then issued the teacher with the pert remark “now you can’t be dazzled anymore”! This time my audacity had surprisingly pleasant results. My teacher didn’t pick on me at all after that and became very careful in her dealings with me.

A year later when I was perhaps nine years old, I experienced something else that gave me cause for reflection. My stepfather already had been telling me about his time in the war. He had been posted to Stalingrad and gave me a graphic account of all that he’d experienced there during that time.

However what he told me face to face and the account we were taught at school seemed at odds with each other – at school the Germans were always portrayed as the “baddies”, and the Russian soldiers were, of course the “heroes”. I grasped quite quickly from this nothing was sacred in war, and people just behaved how they wanted towards their enemies. There were evil men on both sides.

My stepfather had survived only because he appeared to be dead. For days on end they had nothing to eat, and there was virtually no drinking water to be had. During the house to house fighting he stumbled across a crate of wine in one of the cellars. They drank all the contents of this being so desperately thirsty – when he woke up from it all they were being transported for dead in a lorry made for prisoners of war. In this way, he survived the war, but he always impressed upon me that war is the worst thing that can befall mankind, especially when it came to the children caught up in it all.

One day I was walking home with one of my schoolmates, and he took it upon himself to paint swastikas on the walls of the houses as we went by. I explained to my friend Peter what I was told about the war from my stepfather, and what I had learnt from it.

However, the inevitable happed: the boy was seen in the process of painting swastikas, and the police were duly informed. They appeared at the door of the boy that evening. They arrested him on the spot, his mother being unmarried, and he was packed off straight off to a reformatory.

At that time I wasn’t able to appreciate what had happened, but years later it is quite obvious now: the Communists had treated him in exactly the same way they would have done to those Nazi party members during the war. Years later Peter committed suicide; it’s perfectly plain that the way he was treated at this institution was at the bottom of it all, resulting in his death like this.

German was always my favourite subject at school. I had no problems with the language at all and loved writing essays. In the 4th form we were to write an essay on the subject “my pen”.

I really looked forward to getting down to this, but I had no idea what was about to happen. So I got started and described my pen with a flourish, making it plain in the conclusion that “no other pen writes better than this one”: so lightly flowed the words onto the paper that one literally didn’t have to press the pen down at all; it was completely subservient to the movements of my hand.

I was exuberant as I could be with myself seeing just how easily the words transported themselves from pen onto paper. I submitted the essay and relished the grade one which I believed I would receive.

The time came for the marked essays to be handed out: What did I see before my eyes? A grade one for the grammar, yes, but a grade four for expression! Furthermore the teacher wrote as commentary on my script “long and meaningless”. The only mistake I’d made was that my pen was made by ‘Pelican’ (a stationery firm from West Germany). Why was I being punished just for using a pen from the west, I asked myself?

There was also another teacher who I remember well, called Mrs Herrschel. I did not make life easy for her, hardly ever doing what was required of me, let alone behaving as one ought to in the school. Nowadays one would just dismiss this as being ‘typical teenage behaviour’. Mrs Herschel was generally pleased with my Russian language as this was not a difficult subject for me to get to grips with. Mrs Herschel was my form teacher, and apart from several minor incidents we had got on with each other.

I consider that the trouble came due to my acute sense of right and wrong – once I had voiced an opinion about something I would not change it. Nowadays I have learned from my faith in Jesus that sometimes one should quietly back down, especially when one is in the wrong.

The last cigarette

The 12th of January 1969 was a typically cold winter morning. Like every morning I heard my stepfather getting up, going to the window in the lounge, opening it in order to smoke his first cigarette of the day, this being the “Salem Gelb” sort, available at every kiosk in the former East Germany at a cost of 2,10 Marks; the smell of that tobacco sticks in my nostrils even to this day.

This particular morning was no exception in this respect as I heard the squeaking of the lounge window opening; but then quite suddenly there was a dull thud, one which somehow made my heart race. I suspected that something awful must have happened. I ran into the lounge, and saw my stepfather lying lifeless wedged between the bedroom door and the armchair.

I saw my mother stuck in the bedroom through the slightly ajar door, with my stepfather’s 75 Kg blocking her access to him. She tried with all her might to get the door open attempting to push the body aside in order that she could get out of the bedroom, but he was just too heavy. He was lying completely jammed between the door and the armchair so she could not do anything about it alone. My stepfather lay there with his face utterly contorted with pain; his hand pressed against his chest. With almost supernatural strength I managed to shift his body centimetre by centimetre into a slightly different angle; it seemed like hours before my mother was able to squeeze herself through the now ajar door. She then kneeled next to her husband on the floor.

She sent me to telephone for the emergency services, but the doctor on duty could only establish what we already feared, that he had already died.

For the second time in my life I had to experience the loss of a relative; only this time I was actually there when it happened.