Life and Death

This week, we nearly died. When we last left off, we had just arrived in Kreffeld, to take a walk down Memory Lane and pay our respects to Alessandra’s grandfather. From there, the week was an explosion of events, each day as unique as the last, leading up to Christmas Eve and the ultimate disappointment. But I’ll get to all that in a moment.

We awoke in the car park in Kreffeld, and a light drizzle of rain threatened cold as we went about our morning routine, snug in our heated van. When all was ready, we drove to the cemetery, buying a bouquet of roses from the nearby florist. The graveyard was a sprawling, well-kept space, tree-lined and sombre in its beauty, and we wandered the meandering pathways, umbrellas held high as we searched for the headstone announcing Alessandra’s grandparents. We passed enormous statues of angels that watched over whole families with blank granite faces; walked through grassed sections where shrubs and low-lying plants clustered prettily amidst the graves. Finally, we arrived at a small quartz headstone by the chapel, where Alessandra silently introduced me to her grandfather for the first time. As she did so, I thanked her grandfather for being the role model Alessandra had told me that he was, and asked him to lend me his strength of character, that I might give her whatever she needs most in each moment.

After taking the time that was needed, we left the cemetery and drove to a lovely restaurant that Alessandra had visited with her grandfather in childhood. It was themed after a railway station, complete with a little train that made its way merrily around a narrow shelf circling the inside of the dining area.

Warm and full, we drove a few minutes down the road to visit the home where Alessandra’s grandfather spent much of his life, but it was going through extensive renovations and did not resemble the house she knew. Our next stop was the nearby park, where Alessandra would feed the ducks or ride her bike or play on the playground with her grandfather whenever they visited. The rain didn’t stop us from having a play ourselves, before walking back to Ziggy and returning to the carpark we temporarily called our home.

When we arrived, I tried driving Ziggy for the first time, and nearly sideswiped a parked car. Jumping into the driver’s seat on the left side, it quickly became apparent that being blind on my right side was going to cause a lot more issues here than in Australia. Driving on the right-hand side, I can see the whole car and both mirrors with the cone of vision of my left eye - whereas here, with the driver’s side on the left, the whole of the right side of the van, mirror and all, are one big blind spot. The lack of depth perception came into play, too, as Ziggy is so wide that I cannot tell how far away I am from objects on the right-hand side - even when I turn my head to look at them. All of this added up to coming no more than 15cm away from a parked car I was passing (through which I learned Alessandra’s unconscious panic noise: OIEEOIEEOIEE) and deciding that I might be best suited to the role of ‘back-up driver.’ God, but I hope I never actually have to drive this beast of a van.

After recovering from the trauma of my test-drive, we settled in for a night of board games and quiet time.

…

The next day, we headed back to Koblenz to arrive in time for Mateo’s fourth birthday. He was still in kindergarten when we got there, so we leapt into a flurry of productive activity to pass the time. Then he came tottered through the front door, wearing a golden crown on his head and a big grin on his face, and we gave him his present: an obnoxiously loud, remote-controlled digger. He loved it - his mother, not so much. Presents were followed by cake and, when the birthday boy was put to bed, we had hot pretzels and played Rummy until it was time to sleep.

…

Thursday saw us back on the road by mid-afternoon, taking Ziggy for a second mini-adventure before we park him up for a week and travel with the family for a ski trip in the Czech Republic. We drove toward Frankfurt, parking at a gorgeous, secluded car park at the edge of a huge forest, forty-five minutes away from the city itself. After setting up, we stretched our legs, following a winding trail flanked by long, thin pine trees. You could hear them speaking to one another in the wind - a chorus of trees against the muted backdrop of fog and dead leaves. We saw a deer bolt across our path at one point, vanishing amidst the trees as we approached. Soon after, the rain that had threatened all afternoon began chasing us back to Ziggy for the night, and we had dinner amidst the sounds of cracking thunder and pelting rain; of hail and of the wind that lightly rocked Ziggy back and forth. We were not to know just how unlucky - and lucky - we were until the morning.

…

As it turned out, we could have died that night, there in the clearing in the forest. The morning was slow and quiet, as we prepared to leave for a day exploring Frankfurt. When Ziggy was ready to go, we drove up one of the two roads that connected the car park to the main road…and stopped. A huge pine - no more than forty centimeters in diameter but easily twenty meters long - had been ripped from the ground and lay right across the road. A second, even bigger and longer, lay ten meters further down the path -also blocking the road. It turned out that several of the cracks the night before were not of thunder, but of thick wood splintering and heavy branches breaking, and of root systems being torn free from the soil. I tried to shift the roadblock, but my pushing and pulling had no effect on the tree, serving only to coat my hands with sticky sap and to wake me up. We gave up on that road and I tromped across the hoarfrost-encrusted bracken to survey the other exit - only to find that this road, too, now featured a fallen pine acting as a natural barrier. We were trapped.

In the distance, we could hear chainsaws. Having no other option, we decided to make our way to the road and follow the noise to its source. We quickly found that the storm had done real damage. Huge trees lay on their sides, uprooted or snapped at the base littering the forest around us. The noise stopped and did not start again, and as we returned to Ziggy we found one tree that hadn’t even fully fallen yet, having merely split along the shaft and come to lean against its brother, only a dozen or so paces from our van. We were alone, barricaded into a car park with a water tank that was nearly empty and a portable toilet that was nearly full, surrounded by trees which, had they chanced to fall differently, would have crushed our van and us in it. Lucky and unlucky; both at once.

When we got back into Ziggy, I found a contact number for the park’s office - which closed in forty-five minutes - and, in doing so, also found the park’s website…which had a huge warning plastered across the welcome page, advising that severe winds and storms had rendered the park highly dangerous, and stating that all car parks in the area were closed due to the danger. If only we’d known sooner. As things stood, Alessandra called the number. The lady who answered said that the main road had been blocked by fallen trees all morning, and they were finishing up clearing the motorway now; and, as the lady on the other end tried to figure out how she might help or who she could call, Alessandra spotted a big, orange construction machine, hazard lights flashing yellow, trundling down the main road. It was in view from our position, perhaps forty or fifty meters away. She told me to run.

Of course, there was no making it in time, and the machine was well past flagging down by the time I made it to the road. I returned to the van, where Alessandra suggested I wait by the roadside, in case another came by. I did not expect such a miracle, but I went anyway, briefly diverting down a side-path that split from the connecting road in the hopes that Ziggy could, perhaps, get out after all. It was while I was examining this option that the second tree-clearer passed by.

I was so frustrated with myself - if I’d simply gone directly up to the road! - but I would not miss another. I determined to walk up the winding road in the direction the machines had come from, a light rain adding to the bitter cold and the damp of my jacket. Alessandra messaged as I walked, to say that the lady on the phone couldn’t find help, but that she had provided a number for the local police and recommended that we call them instead. A follow-up message told me that Alessandra had called the police, and they would send someone to help as soon as possible. On I walked regardless, not knowing if help would come in four minutes or four hours. For fifteen minutes I followed the road, each sound of an engine causing me to glance up, only to see cars and vans pass by. In the end, it seemed to me that it would be best not to stray too far, and so I made my way back again.

*The base of one of the toppled trees. This was one hell of a storm.*

When I arrived, I stood by the side of the road, hands in my pockets, unwilling to let a third tree-clearer pass me by. Fifteen minutes more passed in this way; waiting, watching, until eventually, I decided that any workers that had been here must have left some time ago and so walked back to the van. I relieved myself behind a tree, thinking that, with my luck, this would be the precise moment a third tree-clearer would pass by. Then the rumble of a slow-moving, heavy vehicle met my ear. I zipped up and bolted for the road - this time without hesitation, without shame, flapping my arms madly at the digger-like vehicle that was approaching…but I wasn’t close enough, and it rolled on by without even slowing down. Fuck. Back to the road then, I thought. I’m not letting another go by if I have to wait all goddamn day. As I reached the road, I heard the most beautiful sound I had ever heard: the warm buzz of chainsaws. It was like hearing sleigh bells on Christmas Eve. I crashed through the bracken, determined to intercept our potential savours. I needn’t have rushed - it turned out they were the same crew that had passed by a moment earlier. They had seen me running up the side-road after all, and had come down the next side road to help.

It was a troop: two men with chainsaws; one in a kind of digger with a claw attachment at the business end; and a truck following behind. They made short work of the fallen trees, and even pulled down the leaning tree by the path. Once they had cleared the way, the older man approached, and spoke with me in broken English. The conversation went as follows:

‘You stay the night here?’

‘Yes.’

‘In the storm?!’

‘Yes. We didn’t know.’ My response elicits a shake of the head as the man searched for the right words to capture the utterly insane disregard for personal safety that presented itself before him.

‘You are one lucky guy,’ he said finally, wagging a calloused finger at me.

‘Trust me,’ I said. ‘I know.’

Once we were out of there, we parked up near Frankfurt to get our bearings. The whole day had been swallowed up by our confinement and rescue, our plans scuppered by the incident. In the end, we decided that was enough adventure for one day and headed for home, making our way through countryside and narrow little towns that clustered in the valleys scattered across the plain. The night ended parked up down the road from the family home, listening to a cacophonic chorus of custom horns from a train of trucks snaking their way along the far side of the river for a good thirty minutes straight. Why they called, or to whom, only the truckers themselves will ever know.

…

The following day was a blessed and timely reprieve. We returned to Gritt’s by midday and Alessandra took the others to a friend of Leonie’s, to drop off Dobby the cat for our week away. Back home, I packed a few things and finished off my Christmas preparations before getting stuck into visa research. It was a productive day, finished off with the first drawing I have done in months.

...

In no time, it arrived: Christmas Eve - the night of the ultimate disappointment. Not the night itself - the night was wonderful. No, it was the ultimate disappointment because I almost saw Santa Claus. I had been sent out into the stairwell with Mateo, to listen for signs of his passing when, suddenly, we heard the sound of sleigh bells…coming from inside the house. Startled, we rushed back into the apartment, but it was too late. We’d missed him - and by mere seconds, according to Alessandra. Shoe prints surrounded by a coating of snow (or flour - hard to tell, really) lead right up to a pile of presents, which had miraculously materialised under the tree while we were outside. Next time, then, you jolly, fat fuck.

*Can’t believe I just missed him. I always miss him.*

Anyway, the disappointment quickly faded - in Germany, presents are opened on Christmas Eve, rather than Christmas Day, so we all sat around the coffee table and played ‘the dice game’ (you take turns rolling a dice, and anyone who rolls a six can pick a present from the pile - to open, if it’s theirs; or give to the intended recipient, if not). The best part was Mateo’s unadulterated excitement at the growing pile of toys that were gifted to him.

The whole process took some time, and by the time everyone had received their gifts, we were well and truly ready for dinner. It was fondue - but not with cheese. Instead, we skewered pork and chicken, prawns and spring rolls, leaving them to sizzle in large pots of oil simmering in the centre of the table. We filled our plates with sauces and crisp hunks of hot garlic bread, and spent the rest of the evening feasting by candlelight.

…

Well, that just about covers it for this week - a week of near-misses and small joys. All that’s left now is to reflect. So, what did we learn?

Revisiting the past can be a valuable way to guide movement forward.
Driving a new car? Driving in a different country with different rules? Half-blind? Do a test-drive somewhere safe to get a feel for things before bringing it to the main road.
It is an auntie and uncle’s job to provide the noisy toys.
There is something special about a child’s joy.
If you’re staying somewhere in nature, take a gander and see if there are any damn warnings for the area. Wild places are beautiful, but they are also…well, wild.
One can be both lucky and unlucky at the same time. You can never be certain which is truer - it’s a matter of perspective.
Stay next to the Christmas tree. He has to go there eventually.

Balancing Act

Hit the Road, Jack