My tribute to my sister-in-law Inez Maria Ruscheweyh who passed away in Bremen on the 18th April 2022 at the age of 82 years.
Dear Inez,
This morning I opened the packet of Ostfriesland tea that I had brought back from your flat in Bremen. Ostfriesland, Bremen, the Stadtmusikanten, and lately the Horner Kirche und Friedhof, will they all continue to mean the same to me now that you are also gone? There was no way to say a proper good bye -- I was in Guwahati, you were a little disoriented and confused towards the end, and you did not hear well, with or without your hearing aid. I wanted to tell you that you are loved and you will always be with me, but you did not understand; I wanted to thank you for all that you had done for me but I couldn't. Finally you died alone in the hospital with no one around you -- just to think of that breaks my heart. But there was nothing to be done -- Covid regulations were still in force. Did you somehow sense that the end was near? Why else would you say to your friend Martina the last time you spoke to her a few days before you departed: 'Ich glaube ich muss jetzt bald abtreten und fragen, ob oben noch ein Platz fuer mich frei ist.'
In the last years you had not been keeping too well. First it was just your gradual loss of hearing. But you kept pretending that nothing was the matter for a long time. That was probably the beginning of it all -- your absolute reluctance to do something about your hearing, even after you got yourself a hearing aid, so that you could hear better. Being able to hear was important, for you loved chatting with people, having friends over, meeting up somewhere for coffee and doing things together. Somehow your hearing aid devices did not work, despite your repeated claims that you had been back to the shop to get it adjusted. Finally whenever we asked about the hearing aid, you would say, 'Ich moechte darueber nicht reden.' That was that. And when you did not understand what I said, it was the fault of my bad German pronunciation and not of your hearing aid.
You had survived several complicated operations, one to your spine already in your youth in Guatemala. Then there was breast cancer which forced you to stop working in your early fifties. In the last few years, your feet were always giving trouble, first with a kind of blood clots in the veins (which were then treated) and later with acute arthritis that only kept getting worse. You needed a walker, or at least a stick, to walk even inside your flat. And that meant that you were more and more reluctant to get up and get some food from the kitchen. So you sat on your armchair most of the day and watched TV. And you did not eat. But you tried to pretend you did. That was probably fatal. Your friends, especially your friend Walburgis and your two house-mates from upstairs Frau Rosenkranz and Frau Riemer, tried hard to make sure that you did not starve yourself. Your older niece Ruth visited you a couple of times earlier this year and arranged for paid helpers to come in three times a week to help you keep going. But as you could see clearer that things were gradually unravelling and that you might not be able to go back to your old independent life, you became surly and rather impatient, perhaps more with yourself than with the world around you. In the end you seemed to have lost the wish to keep going.
Another taboo theme was 'moving to an old-age home'. 'I want to stay in my flat till I die,' Inez declared repeatedly. Somehow the idea of moving to an assisted living facility did not appeal to her. Perhaps it had to do with her fierce sense of independence. Some of her friends and I tried to repeatedly bring up the subject, even if only to have that option as a back up. For she was alone and in case she got to a stage where she was not able to take care of herself, she had no family of her own who would take care of her. Her nieces and nephews lived too far away. In that case, instead of having to move to whatever place was available, we tried to reason with her, it would be much better to choose a nice place where one would like to be and get on a waiting list. But Inez was resistant to this idea right till the very end. It was only when her dear friend Walburgis informed her that she was toying with the idea of moving to such a home after having survived a very serious heart problem, that Inez conceded that she might also consider moving, but only if both of them could stay in the same place. But that was as far as she went. Nothing more came of that.
She had done up her flat very nicely... and she kept it tip-top condition right till the very end. 'Please don't put your glass on the glass centre-table,' she would often tell me, 'for it might scratch the surface. That I do not want.' That she had told me this at least a hundred times before did not matter. She had an eye for beautiful things. And so her flat was full of nice, happy and colourful things. And she was very particular about how and where she arranged those things. Right up till the end, Inez did not allow anyone to open one of the drawers to take something out -- only she knew where things were and the drawers were so full that nobody else would be find anything in them. Yes, and then there were her paintings all over the place -- in her flat as well as outside in the corridors. Most of them were beautiful. She had a fully equipped atelier in a garage on the ground floor. And she created beautiful things there. She even made portraits of some of her brother's grandchildren, and was constantly asking for latest photos.
The neatness in her home reflected the neatness in her personality. She had a strict sense of what was proper and correct. Never did she roam about the house in her nightwear, at least not when she had company. She would get up and bathe and dress, before coming up for breakfast. And she tried many cures when she saw that she was losing her already thin hair after her cancer treatment. So much so that when I complained to her once about my hair falling, she promptly sent me a bottle of some tablets that were supposed to help to arrest hair-fall. Not just that, she would save up all the little tubes of hair conditioner that came with the hair dye she used. Since she had very thin hair, there was always some left over. And she had very good taste and a great sense of colour. I loved the way she always had an opinion about what combinations would work, and which ones were langweilig (boring).
She was an excellent photographer and had quite a range of good cameras in the past. We found heaps of photos in her flat, photos that she had taken of others or of flowers and pretty things. She also made cards out of nice photos of flowers, so we found masses of them in one drawer. There were stacks of photos of us, her family, even one of my mother hanging on the wall. But there were hardly any photos of her. Perhaps because she was often the photographer. And also because she did not like being photographed, being quite conscious of her looks. She was a very generous soul and helped her friends and acquaintances as much as she could. Her artist teacher Frau Kleeman lived in her atelier and never cooked -- so Inez took with her a cooked meal every week when she went for her lessons. Frau Kleeman was very happy to have a home-cooked meal at least once a week.
And she loved going shopping, especially during the summer and winter sales when everything, to her intense delight, was 'heruntergesetzt'. That does not mean, however, that she came away by paying less. No, rather she bought more. I will never forget the time she went to the Kaufhof in Wuerzburg to by some pyjamas and came away with two sets because the price had been reduced to 50%. Inez collected gifts for Christmas and for birthdays all through the year -- whenever she found something nice which she thought was also the right price, she would buy it and keep it for the next time she needed a present. That she forgot about the presents she had already bought and landed up buying multiple sets of the same thing or did not find the things when she needed them was another matter. Nonetheless she loved going on 'Stadtbummels'. That is why she took it hard when her legs would not allow her that simple pleasure. Another spanner was finances: since she had stopped working early, her pension was not as big as she would have liked it to. So she did have to worry a bit before Christmas and when she needed a solid amount of money like buying winter tyres, or paying for car repairs, however minor.
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Friends she had many. A few of them she knew since her time in Guatemala and Chile and they formed a Spanish club and often met and spoke only in Spanish. She once took me to listen to her friend Rosemary from Guatemala sing in a church gospel choir group. Then there was the 'Painting Club' which met regularly first at the well-known artist Frau Kleeman's atelier in the city to really learn painting from her, but which continued to meet even after Frau Kleeman's death. Then there was the English conversation course to which Inez went regularly, also pottery and Porcelain-painting occasionally. And over time, these fellow course members became her friends, so much so that Inez had a very active social life, going swimming with some, meeting up for coffee with others, and then visiting each other for birthdays and other occasions. And as an upshot of the fact that she had travelled so far and had friends from so many different places, she could speak and tried to keep up her speaking skills in at least English and Spanish, besides German. And this made communication with her easier, not just for me, but also for Bene's Chilean husband, Luis.
And she was an excellent cook. And she also loved eating till things started to go downhill. Of course as always she had very precise ideas about what constituted good cooking and good food. She'd like her broetchen 'aufgekrosst' over a toaster, never half fat Miracel Whip for her while making her famous 'Kartoffelsalat'. 'If you use half-fat you also get half-taste,' she would loudly declare. 'Either go the full hog or not at all.' And if it was a choice between 'fleisch' and 'gemuse', it was clear where her loyalties lay. She hated tomatoes and was not too excited about all the salad she had to eat with us in Volkach in the evenings at Abendbrot. Since I was an impatient cook and had very little idea about German cooking, whenever she came to visit us in Volkach she would take over complete control of the kitchen. And I happily let her. Of course the endless cycle of what we should eat for the next meal drove me nuts, but Stephan happily went along with his sister's queries and got her to cook for him all the dishes that their mother had made for them, and those that he missed living so far down south from Bremen. Gruenkohl was one such vegetable from the north that Stephan loved. Inez detested it, and swore nothing could make her eat it. But she never forgot to bring it along and to cook it for her brother. Benedikta loved 'kanelbroetchen' which were also available only in Bremen. So at least twenty kanelbroetchen would also come along in her suitcase every time she visited.
In the last years, she would come to stay with us for extended periods, twice a year, once in the summer when she came with her car and could bring everything she needed to do her own thing and enjoy her time painting or sitting out in the garden reading or entertaining friends. She came again over Christmas when she usually came by train. But the many cookies she baked and the many presents she had bought and beautifully packed for all of us -- her brother and his family -- was always too much for her to carry. So a huge Christmas parcel would arrive sometime in mid December to herald her arrival, with strict instructions that nobody was supposed to open it and that the packet should await her arrival. Of course I was very envious of the many Christmas cards that would arrive each year for her at our address. But that was nothing to wonder because each year she sent out at least thirty self-made cards to all her friends, illustrating lovely Christmas motifs. She would first paint in a larger size and then get the painting reduced and printed. I have a perhaps not complete but still substantial collection of at least one from each of her different cards. She would be amused when I would suggest that she should get her cards printed and then sell them. I was perhaps her first and only customer.More than my sister-in-law, Inez was like my 'Ersatzmutter' in Germany. In the beginning she was not sure what to make of me, but once she tested me out and found me okay, she did everything she could to help me. When I first arrived I was rather green and had trouble with coping, also because of the language. Inez quickly she took me under her wing; from giving me tips on how to clean the silver, or water the orchids, on how to bake and to cook special German dishes like Weissspargel, Huhnerfrikasse, Frikadellen and Labskaus, so much so that when I needed help with something in the house, it was more often Inez I asked and not Stephan. All the baking and German cooking I know, I owe it to Inez. And each year when in spring it was time to plant new flowers in the terrace, it was Inez who I asked for advice. And later when the fruits and berries came, it was Inez who showed me what I could do to preserve them.
In some strange way, Inez liked to show me off to her friends. So all her friends knew of this strange exotic Inderin Meenaxi who Inez had as her Schwaegerin, who spoke 'komisch deutsch' but whose English was good enough for her to take some stories of mine to be read and discussed in her English course. Over time, Inez and I became friends, we knew each other well, and hence knew how to have a nice working relationship with each other. She would often tell me stories about her other friends and their families, she introduced me to a few of them and I think she liked me. And those friends of hers will remain my friends, even beyond her death. Walburgis very kindly let me stay with her when I went to Bremen in June for the funeral. And Martina came again, all the way from Frankfurt, to bid her personal farewell to her dear friend. Thank you, dear Inez, for sharing your friends with me.I have often wondered about our relationship; one thing was clear that the two of us had come together only because of our separate relationship with her brother. But soon we had also developed a direct bond, that transcended the cultural and geographical differences that were there, but which Inez often forgot about. Because essentially Inez was German and remained so. So she would, for example, often ask me if I was not sorry to be away from my mother for Christmas. Or whether my flat in Guwahati had heating in place. And why I usually wore only sandals in India. And what I meant when I said rainy season. And although she asked me how to make chai and dal many times, and also perhaps even enjoyed eating them occasionally, she never remembered and next time I made it she would ask me all over again. The same pattern was repeated with my Indian friend Ronjeeta who lives in Bremen. Inez found Indian names and words difficult to remember, fair enough. The main point is, she liked me, regardless of where I came from, and even though I was not German.
It is not that she had no idea of India, she did because she had been there. But somehow she could not relate it to her everyday life. But she really did want to go and visit me in my flat in Guwahati, and see for herself, how her brother had done it all up. In fact she had even made plans with Martina to come to India. But that was not to be. But Inez had travelled widely when she was younger; she had been everywhere one could think of, she had even lived and worked (as a kindergarden teacher) in unusual places like Guatemala and Chile. She had gone around the world by ship, at a time, very long time ago, when travel was long and difficult and rare. And she was techno-savvy, at least for her generation. She had a desktop and printer which she used regularly. She also learnt how to use a smart phone faster than Stephan did, with her nephew Hans' help. She made good use of it, writing or calling me almost everyday over Whatsapp when I was in India, all through the Covid lockdown period. She would also send me photos and funny messages to cheer me up.
All said and done, she had done really well for herself, given the fact that she did not have an easy life and that things started going wrong already soon after she was born. She was a little kid of 3-4 years old when WWII broke out to which she lost her father; the war years were tough on both her and her kid brother; that she did not get along with her step father meant that she left home very early and went off to Sweden to work as an au-pair. She came back briefly to finish her training as a kindergarden teacher and went off again to Guatemala on a ship, even before she had become an adult. By the time she returned the travel bug and the wish to see the world had bitten her, so she took off again to Chile, from where she travelled by road from the Antarctic to the Arctic along the west coast of the Americas with her friend Waltraud. And then again a journey around the world which took her to Japan, Hongkong and India, among other places. Most of these trips she had undertaken with her friend of many years, Waltraud Harms. Waltraud's death, in the autumn of 2009, was a rude jolt for Inez. But despite all the many shocks and upheavals in her life, there remained something innocent and childlike about Inez, right up till the very end, as most of her paintings bear testimony to. She loved life and was happy to be alive. And while she lived she liked to fill her life with fun and colour. And she was interested in many different things -- art, music, theatre, nature, and above all, people.
She was lucky in friendships but unlucky in love. After having lost the one big love of her life, Inez decided to remain single, although she was an incredibly pretty young woman. That is also why she continued to live in Bremen, where she had grown up, also later. Thus she remained a source of support for her mother and after her mother's death, even for her step-father. And as time when by, her brother, and his family, became very important for Inez. They were the only family she had. Stephan's children and later his grandchildren became the high points of her life. As the big sister, Inez was protective as well as jealous of her little brother. But since they had no other relatives, at least at the time I got to know them, they depended a lot on one another. Inez came to help Stephan whenever she could -- she even took charge of her little niece Benedikta for several weeks once when her mother was taken ill. Conversely, I am sure Stephan got infected by the travel bug from his sister. And though he perhaps not openly admit it, Stephan was very concerned about Inez and her welfare. I still remember how upset and worried Stephan was and how he took off immediately for Bremen when he heard that Inez had breast cancer.
I would like to believe that she was very happy when Stephan and I got married in 2009. The following year, we celebrated Inez's seventieth birthday with a big party in Volkach. Her friends came from all over to be with her on her special day. That made her very happy. But she loved her city of Bremen and was a proud Bremer; she was had lived there most of her life, all her friends were there, and she wanted to be buried there. So she did not accept our suggestion that she move closer to us. So, at some point after his retirement, Stephan and I had toyed with the idea of moving back to Bremen -- just so that Inez was not left all alone in her old age. That made Inez very happy and I still remember the joy with which she accompanied us on our trips to inspect various flats in Bremen that were up for sale in the summer of 2018. But that was not to be because soon thereafter Stephan was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. The death of her kid brother in the summer of 2019 shook Inez up very badly. She had depended on him for everything -- and suddenly he was gone. She had no one to fall back upon. On the rebound she held on to me even tighter. But I was very poor compensation. Because I could not help her, in ways Stephan could, to keep her paperwork in order. And what is more, Stephan's death had rattled me up completely. I was in no position to help anyone. But in that bleak time, when I was trying to figure out what to do with the rest of my life, Inez was there, constant in her affection, unflinching in her support. We both tried to cling to one another in our effort to somehow carry on. We spent that first dismal Christmas after Stephan together in Bremen. Neither she nor I had the heart or the courage to go back to a Christmas in Volkach without Stephan. Inez never went back to Volkach again; she just could not cope with all the changes. When she was having trouble managing on her own, Bene invited her to come and stay with her in Volkach, but by then she had grown too weary to be able to be happy in a house with children, even though it was children she had worked with all her life.
But she had not yet given up on life. Even last November when I met her for the last time she was full of ideas and ready for many adventures. She had driven a car all her life, starting in Guatemala. So there was simply no question of her stopping with that; she refused to sell her car even though she had not driven it for the last three years at least and even though the hope that she might get back to driving ever again were getting very small. The car was her lifeline; after her legs got worse and she could not ride a bicycle anymore, the car became the symbol of her independence. 'Even if I can't drive, you can drive and I can tell you where to go,' she told me. She could not imagine living without being mobile and being able to go places, meet friends and do things.
Last year it was clear to many of us that Inez would not be able to drive around anymore, but we also knew that Inez was getting very frustrated just sitting at home because travelling by taxi was expensive and many of her friends were also getting old and also had other health problems that kept them from visiting her. So Martina, a very good friend of Inez who lives near Frankfurt, and I decided to meet up in Bremen for a few days and take Inez around. Martina had a big car. We hired a wheelchair. And the three of us had a great time going to pretty places in and around Bremen including a trip to Worpswede that Inez loved. That was probably the last time Inez went out with friends. She really enjoyed being outside, eating at nice restaurants, and taking a good look at the flowers and the trees, the birds and the bees. But even that was not enough. 'You come back as soon as the weather gets warmer,' she told me last November, 'and then we shall go on our cruise down the Rhein.' I had promised her a cruise for her 80th birthday, because she so badly wanted to go on one, after hearing about the trip Stephan and I made in the spring of 2019. But then came Corona and everything remained on hold till this year. 'Don't know what your plans are but please be back in time for my birthday this year,' Inez announced to be sometime in early April. 'I plan to have a big birthday party this time to make up for the two that I have missed out on due to Covid. And you must be present.' I really thought of taking her invitation seriously and wanted to fly back on the 11th April, in time for her birthday on the 13th. But when she fell and broke her arm again, her birthday party plans got shelved and I thought it would be best to plan to return to Germany when she was back home from hospital, so that I could help her with her daily chores a little. But that was never to be... she never returned home, but died on the 18th April in the hospital, due to an acute infection in the wound of her broken arm.
Many of her friends also came to say good bye to Inez. So did many neighbours from the street where she had lived for more than half a century. We played music that she would have liked, including two pieces from South America, with Luis' help. The sunflowers looked cheerful, and the little purple blossoms peeping out of the wreaths reminded me of Inez's childish mischievous smile, sometimes when she was caught doing something she shouldn't like helping herself to a large helping of martini too early on in the day. And at such times, when you tried to reason with her, she would respond, 'Ich weiss; ich bin doch nicht doof!' What could one say to that logic. Yes, dear Inez, the lieber Gott surely has a place for you there above and here down below, you will be remembered by many of us for many different things, for you have shared your life with so many, and have given us so many reasons to smile and be happy. Hope you are happy too, wherever you are.
I still have the lovely little Schutzengel that you made for me -- it sits at my bedside table and keeps watch. It will keep me company.
And we shall meet again in a land of sunflowers,
Till then, adieu my dear friend, and thank you for your love.
The three pieces of music played at Inez's funeral: https://youtu.be/3iMrKlVvkDI
ReplyDeletehttps://youtu.be/ZM4Qksf9rAM
https://youtu.be/w-rZxLQg3Io