Dear all, a few days ago I went to see the film „Oh, That Horrible Gap“. Perhaps you’ve already heard of it. Joachim Meyerhoff’s brilliant book has been adapted for the screen, with Senta Berger and Bruno Alexander in the lead roles. The film depicts a young man’s search for his own path; it deals with grief and, above all, with this young man’s relationship with his grandparents, with whom he moves in whilst studying acting.
At the end of the film, a few years after his grandparents’ death (I can only recall this from memory now), the young man says that no matter how long his grandparents have been dead, his memories of them do not fade. That he only has to close his eyes and he can bring them back.
These lines touched me deeply, because it is exactly the same for me. I had a very close relationship with my maternal grandparents; the ninth anniversary of my grandmother’s death is coming up soon – and yet nothing has faded.
I can still see her clearly before me, frying schnitzel for us in her lightly striped apron. She never used the dishwasher, but always washed up by hand. We children weren’t allowed to help with that; instead, we were told to lie down in the living room and rest (which, with our bellies full, we were of course only too happy to do).
In my grandmother’s fridge there were things my mother would never have bought (e.g. Babybel and Actimel); my grandmother loved *Lindenstraße* and later *Sturm der Liebe*. She was brilliant at giving back rubs and foot massages and telling exciting stories. I could have listened to her for hours as she recounted how she fled from the Russians after the war, how she had to sleep in barns and beg farmers for bread. When the refugee crisis reached Germany, she was completely distraught for days on end because it made her think so much about the past.
She always slipped us money and then said: „It doesn’t hurt me and it does you good.“ As children, we always found it creepy when she took out her dentures in the evening and they floated in a glass next to the washbasin.
Sometimes, when I can’t sleep these days, I travel in my mind through my grandparents’ little flat, where the 1970s wallpaper hung right until the end, making it strangely colourful. I can remember every little detail; I know exactly how I used to skip up the stairs to the flat. She never stood in the doorway, but always just left the door ajar, because she was, of course, at the stove cooking.
For me, the relationship with my grandparents was completely different from that with my parents. You don’t clash with grandparents, you don’t really think they’re stupid, you don’t rebel against them. Just as my grandparents never thought I was stupid, never really brought me up – there was always just an overflow of affection.
My grandparents’ generation is almost gone now, and sometimes I’m worried that their life stories will die with them. Yet most of them had truly incredible stories that we should listen to more often.
I think one of the greatest gifts of my childhood was being able to grow up so close to my grandparents. And I feel exactly the same as the young man in the film: whenever I miss them, I close my eyes and travel to them.
