Wednesday

20 December 2017

— Two mourning doves at my new makeshift feeder atop the rose trellis.

Good Morning All,

Well, as it turned out, Esther and I did not go to the cut-your-own-tree farm. Instead we went to a Plante Skole (read: Nursery) where Esther has been doing business for years and years. The municipality is putting in pipes along the only main road leading to the place, meaning you really have to go out of your way to get there, and Esther figured the husband-and-wife owners could use the business. (Eric, the husband, in fact, told us business was down fifty-percent, and the road would not be repaired until April.) 

There were no other cars parked in front of the greenhouse. There were a dozen cut trees lying against the glass. I found a good one, but the price was 400 Danish crowns ($63.00), which was out of my price range. I was heading back for the car when Eric came out, looking hopeful. He found me a tree just as good for 300 crowns, and then Esther and I went into the shop, so that I could find an orchid, a Christmas present, for Maria, my nephew Mikey’s wife, and so that Esther could have a chat. As usual, I was impressed that virtually everyone in the country knows Esther.

Two days ago, Hannah, Esther’s older sister, came down to visit her, since it is unlikely Esther’s going to be feeling up for the trek up to Hannah’s for the usual family get together on Boxing Day. We had a good visit. Hannah,  going through her archives, had come across a seven page letter written by Britta to her parents on her birthday, 10/10/62.

Britta was in Johannesburg, starting her first year at the University of the Witwatersrand. Esther was a nurse at the Queen Victoria Hospital not far away. A day or two earlier, Britta had telegraphed their folks back at the Mission Station in Swaziland that Esther was in hospital with a concussion, but was okay. The letter was to explain the circumstances. Some medical students after their last day of classes and a week before their exams had all gotten drunk and then for a lark in the wee hours had invaded the nurse’s quarters, tipping all the sleeping nurses out of their beds. Esther had hit her head hard on the radiator.

Since Esther’s eyesight isn’t what it once was and since Britta would never have won any awards for penmanship, Hannah read the letter aloud for us. It was in Danish, of course, and I think I got about a third of it, the gist of it, anyway. Not that it mattered, because the experience itself, the two surviving sisters joined together by the words of their kid sister from fifty-five years ago, the words of my future wife, who I was not to meet for yet another seven years … well, I won’t kid myself or you, there is no way I could find the words for a feeling surpassing wonder and mystery by several country miles.

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

P.S. Two Holly snaps: