Tante Gretel

The death of a loved one can be a bittersweet sorrow.

I just found out that my Dad's godmother passed away two days ago. My Tante Gretel is gone.

She was an amazing woman. I'm glad I had the opportunity to know her. She would stand in line for hours for a loaf of bread to bring home to my dad's family. When government officials made a last minute demand for American dollars before allowing my dad's family to leave Poland she vanished - only to show up a couple hours later with the money. What she had to do or sell to get that money, I never found out.

I visited her a number of times in Germany. She'd given me a bagful of jewellery - telling me the history behind the special pieces. One of my favourite pieces is an necklace of metal spirals - a present from a male friend. I've never seen anything like it.

I can only begin to imagine all the hurt, sorrow and devastation she'd seen in her life. She never married - from some of the stories she told me and the look in her eyes as she'd let a sentence trail off - I'm not sure that the decision had been hers to make.

She lived through World War II. On my last visit with her she told me stories about life before the war. Stories of how life changed when Hitler came into power. The sports centre was re-named after him, as were a number of other prominent landmarks in her town. She'd go quiet and then with a slight shake of the head she'd continue talking.

Of the war itself she was vague and I didn't want to pry. "Es war schrecklich. Furchtbar."

One of the things that saddens me most about her death, is that as far as I know, no one was there for her. Her entire life she'd lived helping and looking after others, but when her time came, no one was there.

The pot calling the kettle

I attended my first work Stampede party today. It was...ahem...interesting. We were a pretty quiet group, but there were a couple other individuals there who were less than quiet. It wasn't even 3 p.m. and they were completely trashed. Kind of sad actually.

Is it wrong that the best part of the party was the people watching? I was going to make a snide comment about one individual who'd clearly had too much to drink and was sauntering over to every male in Wranglers and a cowboy hat...

How quickly I pass judgement on someone else...yet I hate when someone passes judgement on me. I've done my fair share of stupid things...I remember thinking how great they'd make me feel...only to end up disappointed in the end. Funny how some of things that we think will make us happy - don't.

I have to watch my attitude. At first I was irritated and frankly, a little disgusted with this individual. At some point I realized I saw a bit of myself in her. Where's the line between passing judgement and looking down on someone and relating to him/her and feeling sorry for him/her? Is there a line? Aren't both options just different forms of passing judgement?

Is it even possible to not pass judgement in some way? I don't know that it is. I do know however, that I need to watch my attitude and not be so hasty in jumping to conclusions about people and situations.