When I was 19, I lost my girlfriend because she decided to
swallow something at a party just to go along and not be boring.
I was trying to finish an assignment that night and, by the
time I was called, she was already dead. Afterwards, I felt
like being enveloped in some kind of fog and just kept on
moving forward without being able to push through. I remember
glimpses of the funeral through a haze of tears and heavy-heartedness
that dragged me down physically - like wearing a weight belt
of pure lead. I drifted in and out of sleep and felt that
my young life was already at an end. Eventually, my worried
parents dropped me off at my Grandpa’s place in the
mountains as we were very close, kind of soul mates. If anybody
could help me it would be my beloved Grandpa. As per usual
Grandpa didn’t say much, just chopped wood and cooked
my favourite stews. After two days I started helping him and
that night around the fire, Grandpa said he thought I was
ready to listen to a story he had kept for just such a moment.
Way back in 1945, during the last days of the war deep inside
Germany, Grandpa was attached to a medical unit. They took
care of our wounded boys, administered first aid and prepared
them for transport. One day in early May, somewhere in Thuringia,
Grandpa’s unit came across a bunch of wounded prisoners.
They were all old men in their 60s and 70s, dressed in rags,
all gaunt and haggard-looking. This was Hitler’s final
army, the Volkssturm. The medics got started on them and mostly
they had just received light wounds. However, Grandpa got
to one old man who was lying on his back, torn open by shrapnel
and bleeding heavily. What was really weird was the strangely
contemplative, resigned smile on his face. When Grandpa started
to cut open his jacket, the old man focused his eyes on him
and addressed him in flawless English with a broad South African
accent: ‘So it all comes to an end. You see, Doc, if
it hadn’t been for the bloody Civil War, I probably
would have fought on your side.’ Grandpa asked him to
explain. He breathed in deeply and said that, way back in
the 1850s his Dad had left Germany to farm in Virginia. When
the Civil War started in 1861, his Dad joined the local militia.
One day three years later he went home and found his wife
shot dead and the farm burned down. He had lost everything
and decided to leave. He somehow found his way to South Africa,
settling in a German community and started farming again.
Soon enough he was married for a second time and the happy
couple produced three sons, including the old man. The years
passed and suddenly there was war again; this time it was
the Boer War. The old man’s Dad wanted his sons to stay
out of it but to no avail. All three of them joined the militia
and fought the British. Sometime later their Mum and Dad,
who had stayed on the farm, were taken away. The farm was
burned down and their parents perished in the concentration
camps. Later on, both of the old man’s brothers were
killed in a skirmish. The Boer War finished and he had lost
everything: his family, his home, his country. So like his
Dad before him, he looked for a new country and decided on
German South West Africa. He joined the army for a while,
worked as a farm manager and in 1912 finally bought his own
farm. He married and had two children and life was pleasant.
Then the First World War broke out and he was called up to
fight in the army. He was taken prisoner and spent some two
years in a POW camp, not once receiving news from home. In
the meantime his name appeared on a black list of farmers
who were to be evicted from their properties because they
had fought in the war. When he finally got home, his wife
had already packed up and they left. They decided to go to
Germany but the ship hit a terrible storm and sank. They managed
to get into an overcrowded lifeboat together but after three
days at sea people started dropping off one by one. He had
to watch his wife and two children die from thirst without
being able to do anything. He had lost everything again: his
family, his home, his country. He told my Grandpa that he
was despairing; after all, how much bad luck can one have?
A few survivors like him were finally rescued and, once in
Germany, he worked on farms up north but eventually found
a position as manager on a country estate in East Prussia.
Life was finally good again for him. He was financially secure,
got married and had two more kids. Then the Second World War
broke out. He said to Grandpa that he had a bad feeling right
from the start. Wars had always been bad for him. He was right.
In January 1945 the Russians arrived. Although he escaped
with his family, they all had a bad cold which turned into
pneumonia. His wife and two kids died somewhere in Pomerania.
He said that the ground was so frozen, he could not even bury
them, just had to move on. He had lost everything again: his
family, his home, his country. Somehow he ended up in Thuringia,
was drafted into the Volkssturm, and then got done by shrapnel
a few days before the war was all over. With that the old
man had finished, Grandpa said, and that strangely contemplative
smile appeared again on his face. All notions of enemy had
disappeared and Grandpa held his hand to console him in his
final moments. Finally, Grandpa asked him what had kept him
going all his life, despite the constant batterings he had
to take. Focusing his sad eyes on my Grandpa, the old man
said: ‘The fate of an individual means nothing in this
world. Whatever happens to you, good or bad, there is nothing
you can do about it unless you see it coming from a mile off.
You can’t change it in retrospect. But you can either
give in or go on and make the best of what has been thrown
at you. That is the only choice you have. Life is all about
that choice.’ And with that he closed his eyes and was
dead. Both Grandpa and I remained silent for a long time,
both pondering over the last words of the old man Grandpa
met so briefly many years ago, and whose name he didn’t
even know. There was only the noise of the crackling fire
and some bats swooping by to catch insects dancing around
the flames. I suddenly wondered why these insects hovered
around the fire, even though it meant certain death. With
that I got up, gave Grandpa a hug and went to bed. I had made
my choice.
