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- Missy La Vone
- Mar 14
- 7 min read
I want to write, because it's been one of those weeks where a million things happened, like candy tumbling from broken papier-mâché, and here I am collecting the pieces, touching the edges, searching for something to savor.
First, yesterday:
Oma's nephew called me yesterday morning. I think he was the same person I talked to in January when I said Oma was in the hospital. He was frantic and flustered and thought momentarily that I was Oma answering the phone. It is very sad, I told him, my voice broken and shaky from nerves of answering the phone and delivering bad news, but Oma has unfortunately died. He cried, repeated that he has to process what I just told him, and that he has to tell his mom (Oma's sister). I tried explaining I already had. I kept him on the phone as long as I could, rehashing the whole situation, of Oma wasting away in the hospital back in November, how quickly everything went. I told him I was leaving next week and there's a whole apartment here full of stuff if he wants anything. Of course his mind wasn't there. We'll see, he said, I need to process everything. I'm so sorry, I said again, and he hung up. Our whole lives, we never met any of our second cousins, and now here they are: pained and distant sound bytes.
Immediately after that phone call, I FaceTimed Austin's mom briefly, who wanted to give me some good advice about inheritance.
Around lunch, I FaceTimed with Doug--we'd been meaning to catch up for months. We were just talking about how different relationships bring different energies when there was a knock knock on the door, which I first ignored, and then another, which I couldn't. At the door was the apartment manager, who I'd emailed earlier that morning. So I told Doug I had to go and then figured out a lot of things with the apartment manager, who really is such a nice and helpful guy. In a matter of 20 minutes, we'd hashed an exit plan for me to leave Germany; he said I should call Vonovia directly to check on the apartment cancellation, advice that I followed immediately after he left.
I've adopted from Danielle a stress-reliever when I make German phone calls: a disclaimer at the very beginning that my German is not perfect. It helps tremendously; most people are actually quite nice and patient. So I explained the move-out situation to one man, who then said he would route me to his coworker. I then spent about 20 minutes on the phone with another lady, who by the end of everything, sent me an official apartment termination letter (for the end of May, since everything takes 3 months to cancel) over email. OH MY GOD. We've been waiting for this for weeks. As much as I hate it, everyone's advice here to get anything done is to "call them, you have to apply pressure." I feel like I'm walking in Oma's footsteps after Opa died. For months she complained so much to Danielle and me about die ganze Bürokratie that it was practically scripted. I always thought she was being a little dramatic, using it as an excuse for not coming to America, but now I get it. I sit at her table and use her pens and shake my head at the walls.
I FaceTimed with Danielle shortly after all of that and told her about the day prior, when the global shipping company came to pick up our shipment to America: heavyweight boxes full of family history (photo albums, slides, letters from Mom), an impressive stamp collection, fancy dishes, sundry household items. Three bicycles. I'd been so anxious about the pick-up, but an hour prior to their arrival an ambulance had removed the post that normally blocks vehicles, so the shipping company's van was able to pull directly in front of the door. When the man stepped out of the van he asked with a big smile if I was the one who had removed the post. No, I said, but it works ganz prima. He and someone I could assume was a son or family member then proceeded to remove all the boxes from the living room. The older man moved the boxes to the elevator; the younger man took them from the elevator to the truck. I kept warning the older man the boxes were heavy, but he kept smiling and saying alles gut, this is my job. I thought for sure he'd need help moving the MARBLE TABLETOP but he gripped it with both hands and walked it down to the elevator. When I handed him a cash tip, he Chesshire-grinned.
I had another quick phone call at 3:30, and then at 6:00 pm Doug and I finished our catch-up from earlier. I ate my first Pick-Up chocolate-cookie bar since being here in his honor, since that was our favorite hiking snack in Munich in 2023. He told me about his new BEACH HOUSE, which was a dream/investment goal of his back in 2022 when we first met, and we talked about golf carts and how where he lives in South Carolina lacks mountains but at least there's wetlands and how he can't wait to photograph spring birds.
Oma's friend Helga called the house phone an hour or so after I got off the phone with Doug to thank me for the letter Danielle and I sent her with photos we'd found of her and Oma and Opa and Helga's late husband Rudi, who was Opa's cousin. They were very nice memories, she told me, ganz herlizchen Dank. I am the last one still alive of that group.
Today
I woke up crying last night for the first time in maybe months. In my dream I was standing outside of a glass wall. Through it I saw Oma and Opa together on a couch, a younger Opa wearing a navy blue suit and red striped tie, facing a younger Oma, who curled into him despite the space between. They were both laughing. When I walked through the glass door to get closer, Opa disappeared, but Oma was still at the end of the couch. Now she was looking down, hands folded.
Danielle told me it was a full moon, which explains the phone calls and the dream and the restlessness in my body, like all my water is being pulled in all directions. Mom loved to warn us about full moons and mercury in retrograde. Today, at the pedestrian crossings, I watched a lot of emergency vehicles zoom through the intersections. Their sirens are even more piercing here, but their aesthetic is perfect, a blazing highlighter orange that you absolutely can't miss.
I sat with the apartment manager in Oma and Opa's living room today as we waited for the cleanout guy to come and give us a quote. He told me he lives half the week in Berlin and half the week about 100 kilometers away from here on a little piece of land where there's horses and cows and Strauß--oh, was ist Strauss auf Englisch, sie sind die grosse Vogel aber sie konnen nicht fliegen--and I said ostrich? But he didn't understand, so I kept guessing, and he kept repeating Strauß-, Strauß-, in Deutsch wir sagen STRAUSS, and he laughed, and I laughed, and he said, well, there's always Google.
He said when he retires in a few years he'll move permanently out to his land with his girlfriend. And I said, yeah, I don't find Berlin that great either, and he said it used to be. But now it's dark and dirty. After the war they rebuilt things but not necessarily to be better. He told me how the social system is heavily abused, how families with tons of children take advantage of the German subsidy and free health care but don't work. Part of the reason the healthcare system is so bogged down, he said, is because of that. I'd just been telling him how I think the hospitals screwed both Oma and Opa over in the end--that they were both impressively strong and healthy for their ages (both 89), but the slothlike pace of care caused their bodies to quickly eat through their reserves. He responded: well, when a 90 year old gets admitted to a hospital, the hospital staff assume they're already dead.
I've done a lot more cleaning of the apartment these last few days, throwing things out and vaccuuming and sorting through stacks of scribbled notes. Earlier, I stood on a ladder overlooking the dusty bookshelves to check inside a vase for money, but all I found was shiny black porcelain. I stayed up there for a minute, surveying the living room, picturing Oma and Opa on the couch watching TV, laughing, bickering, sharing a life. Eating ice cream. To my right was the blown up photo of Mom in her red dress on the steps of Oma and Opa's old house in Oedt. The apartment manager said he used to run into Opa about twice a week and was always impressed by how spry he was. I remember him telling me about everything that happened with your mom, he said, and he wondered a lot where cancer comes from.
I had so many similar conversations with Oma the year Opa died from cancer. Your Oma was really strong after your Opa died, the apartment manager told me, but once she ran out of things to do maybe she realized there wasn't much left.
I woke up at 4:30 this morning. I doom-scrolled on LinkedIn, perhaps the most depressing social media platform out there but the only one I haven't blocked from my phone, attempted to read, attempted to fall back asleep, and then finally hauled myself out of bed by 7 am. Ate breakfast, took some bags to the trash, rode the bus to the gym. Did lats, back, teased my legs with a low-weight seated press and five minutes on the stairstepper. And then stretched. Could feel my breath in my belly against my leg when I twisted. Could feel my body saying slow down, slow down. Breathe.
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