Taboo Topics: Dealing with the grief of losing someone you love – Intro.

I started to write blog posts last August and how I have enjoyed it. To blog as an individualist and still have the possibility to be in contact with many other bloggers all over the world is a privilege. Each blogger has his or her own style. Thank you to Brett Anderson with his blog called Irresistibly Fish for inspiring me to this post and for asking me to guest blog on the subject of overcoming grief.

Years ago I wanted to show my mother’s birthdays as the summer day 13th of July was a day of gathering the family. As a child, I loved the old fine black and white pictures from her childhood and I am the lucky owner of these family photos.

My mother’s one-year birthday Holbaek 1924

Brett’s blog mentioned in the link on how we deal with grief inspired me to write about her again. One way is to gather these photos and remember all the good things about her.

Ruth is sitting on her mother’s lap

When I look at the old pictures I imagine how she lived her life from early childhood to her death in 2008. I am glad she often told us about her friends and family as a child. She liked all food while some of her siblings were very picky and she loved to play with lots of children, who lived close by. She jumped into the water without having learnt to swim, but luckily her older sister was around at the right time. She loved her school and did her homework without having to be reminded. The last bit I know from her father who wrote songs for the birthdays in the family.

Ruth on the right with her siblings when the house was new in 1929

A rare visit by a car, my mother is on the left 1930

She loved to dance and is seen here with her sister in their dancing dresses.

She kept her letters and treasures all her life and therefore I now have even her birthday cards from her childhood.

 Birthday cards (1925-1932) from three aunts and her grandfather

During the war hardly any pictures were taken so I jump to the time after she got engaged to my father.

“Lagkage” Layer Cake

I have heard the story many times as a child. My father had taken a birthday layer cake with him to their trip to Norway. It was a very primitive trip and they had too little food with them. As I remember being told that to every body’s surprise he had cocoa, to mix for drinking, and a little Danish flag and other decoration for the cake with him in his rucksack.

My father and mother in Paris 1949

Paris in 1949 the famous café Les Deux Margots

My mother’s birthday 1955

My father had just sat down after activating the camera to take the picture and we are having strawberries with cream. I still have the little wooden table and the tablecloth. These photos represent the happiest part of my childhood.

These neighbors gave me a sense of security as my own grandparents were living far away. We kept on celebrating her birthday in this garden until she died. I will show you a few more pictures. Sometimes we celebrated her abroad a few times or around in Denmark on holiday.

As long as she lived I wanted to be with her on that day.

As seen in the following pictures my children are very interested in the birthday cake in 1993 and they loved their grandmother.

Often the rest of her family were away on their holiday on that day so she invited them later on the so-called “round” birthdays as we call the 40th 50th 60th and 65th 70th and so on. The 13th of July will always be a special day of a good memorial. She was a person who always treasured others higher than her self and I have never heard her complain.

I wrote another blog post “The last rose of the year” on her and a love story from the wartime if you would like to read it. I have a few on my grandmother Asta too. If anybody would like to know how my grandparent met I have two posts on that Serially Lost-Part Three and The Dragon Fountain.