equinox, family legacy, and when everything happens all at once
🌱 Welcome! Happy March 🌱
I am in fact, writing this months newsletter in the beginning of April. I feel that the events of March have lead me to feel carried away in the slipstream of a river for what felt like a minute, only to find that a month has passed. This edition will be short for this reason, but I didn’t want to miss it out entirely because although there has been chaos, it has been an important time for my family, therefore this will be somewhat of an even more personal post.
My Nan, my dads mom, sadly passed away on 17th March, a week before her 88th birthday. Because she was healthy, it came as quite a shock to everyone. On that day, I hadn’t felt so good and was trying to ignore it. Aeva had come back from Copenhagen with CORONA VIRUS a week before (🌝) and the day after we lost Nan, I was positive too. Not to be dramatic but it felt like the most terrible joke. In these situations, I am very stubborn and it was very hard to accept the circumstances. I couldn’t really be of any use to anyone for anything in those first few days. Sometimes everything happens all at once, and you have to relinquish control. It’s not comfortable.
Nan was nothing short of a matriarch, she knew everyone’s news, everyone’s birthdays, welcomed grandchildren and great grandchildren into her home over the years. Between all of the cousins, it became obvious during the planning of the funeral, that it would be very hard to summate what she meant to us all. As I have learnt in the past, when someone very loved passes away, you realise how everyone had their own specific, nuanced relationship with that person. That said, my two cousins wrote the most beautiful and moving speech for us to take turns reading aloud at the funeral service itself. I am proud to say that I felt it said everything I couldn’t have found the words for myself.
These situations are always strange, so confusing in their complexity. The way the atmosphere can change one moment to the next. It’s rare that the whole family is together, as we’re scattered over the globe, people travelling to the UK from Germany, France, the US and Canada, and so part of me can’t help but feel excited to see all these faces, until I realised that the one person linking us all, the person always at the center of our family, was not here. I kept thinking she would turn up.
Before the service I had to sleep - having woken up at 5am to catch the first flight to Birmingham that morning - and I had the most surreal dreams, the kind where you don’t know what’s real and what isn’t, and I heard Nan next door, singing a phrase to herself as she often did in that 1940’s style vibrato… something like “up along the stairs”. It was nice to think of her with us that day.
Before heading to the crematorium, everyone waited in Nans living room, coats and shoes on, not knowing where to look, what to say. I seem to remember going on about the cuddly toy goose wearing a bonnet (that had always sat in Nans bedroom and was a favourite of mine as a child) several times. Maybe even to the same person. The atmosphere was serious and tense, and some of us (I won’t give you away!) were making terrible/hilarious jokes that made me laugh absolutely too hard. Although I’ve lost many loved ones in the last few years, this is only my second funeral, but even if it was my tenth, I don’t believe that you can ever get used to this.
On arriving at the crematorium I spotted the geese outside the window on walking in. I’d been asked to read some of the cousins speech last minute and was feeling the pressure, and I told myself to just think of that goose sitting in the grass by the stream outside. An objective audience. Not wearing a bonnet.
On hearing what Nan had often said to my dad and my uncles I realised that all the core ideals behind the things my dad has passed down to me and my siblings, have come from Nan. A resilience, a fire, the idea of committing to something either wholeheartedly or not at all, of never giving up and most of all, cultivating a strong belief in yourself. In your own abilities. To me, that is one of the biggest parts of her, and my grandads, legacy, and it’s something that I’m so grateful for.
Looking at the photo of Nan as a girl, I see myself, my sisters, my cousins, my dad. After the service I asked Nans sister what Nan was like as a kid, and she pointed at that photo and said, just like this. She was always the same.
What brings me solace is that my Nan lived such a long, rich life. That she knew how loved she was by us all. That we always knew how much she loved us! I had thought that losing my best friend when she was so young would somehow prepare me, harden me to these kinds of things, but it doesn’t really change anything. In comparison to the vast network of my family, my life in Berlin feels a little small. But also, very safe. My own. The journeys to and from the UK were full of delays and disruptions, on the plane, on the train, in the car, and yet it felt like everything happened so fast. Now I’m back in Berlin, I still haven’t quite processed everything. I decided to write mainly about Nan in this edition not only in her memory but also because she always read these newsletters! She would leave me the loveliest messages and comments. Once I went to visit her and I brought her some of my comics, and while we were chatting someone came by the check the meter or something, and she started showing them my comics, saying ‘this is my granddaughters work, she’s a very talented artist’ with such pride! And she was like this with us all. Never wavering in her belief in you, no matter what your goals and ideas were.
She always made me feel very seen. It’s one thing to acknowledge or praise someone, but to really listen and understand that person takes something special, it’s something I’ll always keep with me. I hope I can share it the way she did.
One of my favourite moments over the weekend (and there were a lot of good ones) was discussing a film I had recently seen with my uncle and cousins. ‘The Banshee of Inisherin’ leads with a narrative about two best friends seemingly in a feud for a reason one of them can’t figure out. The film is woven with morbid and pointedly lonely themes throughout, but is also so funny, the contrast of which I think is completely essential to get across some deeper emotions. There is something about the storytelling and overall approach to the story in this film that felt very Irish to me. Surreal, layered, beautiful, deeply tragic and yet also hilarious and ironic. It was somehow poignant to be discussing this film for many reasons. For one, there is Irish ancestry in the family (the song that brought everyone to the dance floor screaming and jumping during the wake was Sally MacLennan by the Pogues) and for two (is that right?) I think the context of a funeral reflects the pairing of the highs and lows of the emotions in that film. The sad moments were equal in intensity to the joyous ones. My uncles and my dad, when all in the same room, tend to transform into 12 year old boys telling 12 year old jokes 😅 and honestly I was glad to have the comic relief after all of the tension of the previous days. (To those uncles mentioned this is not an excuse to rope me into listening to more of your terrible jokes! This is a warning!!)
The one joke I really enjoyed the most was told to me by my cousin Servane. Truly the unsung hero of comedians in the family. Why did the scarecrow get a promotion? ….. because he was outstanding in his field. 🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾🌾
https://open.spotify.com/track/2779hybiMKwid1gcrFVMzH?si=p2c5dBoHTRiDzhyvrBcd7w&dd=1
On our last visit to Nans house, I found some scissors and took cuttings from the herbs in Nans garden, mint, sage, lavender and thyme (classic herbs!) She always had the most beautiful plants growing in her garden that I’ve always admired. I hope these can grow to be as lush as their parent plants, so that I can continue the legacy of those herbs in her memory.
I’ve written before about my Opi’s interest in plants, and had somehow not fully acknowledged that my Nan was always in the garden! Where Opi was more of a forager, teaming together with my Omi to make The Best Jam, Nan grew things herself in the back garden. I have memories of ‘popping’ the little red fuchsias when I was little, and sitting on the lawn admiring the colourful flowers.
It feels strange, to be saying goodbye at this time of year, when everything is carrying on and beginning again, but in the hopes of trying not to sound ridiculously cliché, death is never just an ending. I think Nan knew that too. On the day of her passing I planted some marigolds in the windowsill planter, without really thinking, and by the time I left for the UK they were already sprouting.
With the equinox on 21st, I’d already felt the shift. While Aeva and I endured Covid together we went out a couple times and brought back handfuls and handfuls of wild garlic (AKA Bärlauch or Ramson). Violets and miners lettuce have popped up in the courtyard by the flat. These, as well as dead nettle and ground ivy are new friends to me. I found that spring had already sprung on arriving in the UK, the sticky weed and nettles taking over the sides of the pavements and the gorse bushes and magnolia trees already in flower.
With April already opening it’s dewy doors, I’m looking forward to meeting new plants 🌱 and spending more time outside and with friends (especially those returned to Berlin for a while!! Ya know who u are!) I’m honoured to be practicing a little more stick and poke tattooing under the guidance the talented Haley, one of the aforementioned friends returning to Berlin, results of which I will share next month.
I hope this hasn’t been too gloomy of a post and I’m wishing everyone a lovely entry into spring. I’ll leave you with the comic that was shown on the U-Bahn during one week of March! I didn’t see it personally but I was sent videos from friends instead. I’m super proud of having made it to the train tvs (and especially of the fact that I made it all in one day…!)
🌱 Take care out there and thanks for reading! 🌱