My auntie, the younger sister of my mother, died a few days ago. This is for her. She would understand why.
There he was, brought in by the nurse, wrapped up in a soft white towel,
only the face visible. His grandmother took him, ignoring his mother's
outstretched arms. His grandmother was the mother of his mother, who kept
quiet, having submitted herself to the old lady's wilful authority since she
was old enough to be told, she was in no position to object now. He was the
first boy for two generations—his mother was an only girl and his grandmother
had two sisters. His father sat in the chair next to the bed, a bit unsure of
what to do, expecting recognition as the provider of all this, but none was
coming, certainly not from his mother-in-law who disliked the fact that he was
from a four-boys-and-no-girls family. She took it as a personal affront and had
made sure that he understood her dislike the moment he had shown an interest in
her daughter. Unfortunately, she could not possibly refuse him, after all he
was from a respected and well-to-do family, but it riled her, four boys!
This was a rather unexpected
aspect of the normally liberal woman. She was a fairly gifted artist whose
paintings had been sold widely. The painting her grandson would inherit, Girl in the Reeds, showed a beautiful
nymph-like girl. Many years later, when he saw the painting consciously for the
first time, he had asked: "Grandma, is that you when you were young?"
As his grandmother had never been that beautiful, the question earned him a
nearly inexhaustible amount of goodwill.
 |
| Girl in the Reeds by Selma Gutzkow |
"Hello, g'day everybody,
top of the morning... Ahh, there he is, my grandson! Here, let me hold him for
a sec"
This was his grandfather, the
father of his father, self-assured, a bit too loud, but charmingly playing the
country lad he was not. His grandmother reluctantly let him be taken from her.
She silently hoped that he would start to cry but her wish was not granted.
Men...!
"And what do we call him,
have we decided yet?" That caused quite a little stir. His father had
insisted that he be called after him but was overruled, even by his own wife.
Grandfather had promised to set aside a fund for his education when called
after him, but was rejected although nobody dared to tell him so. And his
grandmother had insisted that he be called after her father, once a writer of
local fame, but that was before the war, WW-I that is.
"Well, whatever they will
eventually call you, I'm sure you'll make an excellent third-generation manager
of our proud family firm." His grandmother was inhaling deeply in
preparation for her undoubtedly snide reply, when his mother made herself heard
asking for her baby...
"It is my baby, I believe,
and you keep him away from me, squabbling over names. And if I'm not mistaken by
the signs, the educational issue is coming up in a minute! So why don't you all
leave me for a while, have a coffee in the canteen, I need a rest and so does
my beautiful wee little lad."
They all tramped out, but before
the door was closed the grandmother was heard voicing her opinion on
traders—she called them tradesmen even though the company his grandfather had
referred to was a multi-million business in tropical produce and oils.
The issue of the name would be
settled within a few days. A victory for his father it was. His mother had
given up, she was tired out by the delivery and did not want to keep on
arguing. But, she would never call him by that name. I married one, she would
say when asked, that's my contribution to the ugly names society, I don't have
to further support the lack in aesthetic judgement of the family. So she called
him Little Lad, which when he grew older was shortened to L-L.
She was a kind and soft-spoken
woman who abhorred arguments and disharmony. Her contribution to his upbringing
was concealed in the bedside stories she told her Little Lad. They always
started with: Ich weiß
nicht, was soll es bedeuten... which, she had explained, was the opening
line of a beautiful poem by Heinrich Heine about the Lorelei on the River Rhine,
and also that she would take him there one day. It meant I do not know the meaning... and then she would weave a tale of kindness
and love ad tolerance, and nature full of beautiful animals and flowers. It was
their little escape from the family fights and arguments...
The endless discussions about
his education would drag on for years, forever it seemed. Grandmother wanted
schools with strong arts sections, and grandfather came around with
registration forms for the public schools of his choice, pressing for a quick
decision to secure a place. In the end he went to a primary school at walking
distance from the house, and for the secondary school his parents opted for the
school the parents of his classmates had chosen, too. He was intelligent and
gave teachers no problem. And as he also was fairly lazy he had quickly
discovered that he could freewheel on sixes and sevens with a minimum input,
leaving him lots of time to pursue other things. Although not very athletic he
liked sports, especially the ones related to water—he was a good sailor and in
university he was on the varsity rowing crew. After a failed attempt in
mechanical engineering—mainly to get away from the MBA dangled in front of his
nose by his grandfather—he switched to humanities and eventually became a much
appreciated teacher, whose banner read: Each
Child its Own Dream at its Own Speed! This, of course, was not his original
thinking, but an adaptation of the theories and practices of a whole range of
educators, from Pestalozzi and Friedrich Fröbel to Maria Montessori and Rudolf
Steiner. He had studied them all and taken the bits and pieces he liked. And
unknowingly (perhaps) he had fulfilled his mother's dream.
References:
Family secrets
and thanking you, Heinrich
Heine
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