As time goes by
Family albums have always fascinated me.
I found some, in abandoned houses,
or in the garbage,
sometimes I'm shown one at the old people's home,
and I also keep looking at an album of my mother.
She was so young back then.
Of course she was.
It is written:
Dad Me, back when I was still a nice, good little girl.
1949, Szolnok
Just married, registry office
I knew them, just like a child knows his parents.
I knew them as Mom and Dad.
Mom had depressions and drank too much.
When I turned fifteen, she killed herself.
My dad went to work and made a point of being very bright. He liked to tell stories in which he was the great guy.
I grew up and left home.
My father and I argued a lot, finally I decide not to see him anymore.
After 13 years I got in touch with my father again. I didn´t want him go without saying good-bye.
Over the last few years my father slowly dwindled away.
Now it is too late to get to know him.
Mother must have been very disappointed back then, when she threw her diary away.
With herself, with life, with Father, with us children?
My mother started writing a diary three months before I was born and kept it up for about three years. Later on, she threw her entries into the rubbish bin. My father fished them out of there, and somehow the whole thing ended up with me.
07.01.1960
I don’t know whether you will be a boy or a girl, and I don’t even know if you will ever read this at all once you grow up, but it will certainly be interesting for me one day, years from now, to read about what you were like when you were a little child. You will be born in about two months, and then you will already have a name; right now you are just "the kid," even though you have already strongly become the center of our lives- or at least of mine. You are heavy and you´re kicking hard. Sometimes into uncomfortable places, too. Once you kicked your father so hard that he woke up from it. We infer quite peculiar things from your behavior. Whether you will be a boy or a girl, whether you will look like your father or like me. . The joy is that you live, you move, you exist. This is surely unbelievable to anyone who hasn't gone through it, but I love you already. (…)
10.03.1960
Today you are three weeks old, my little son. You were born on February eighteenth, at 6:45 in the morning.
Because you turned out to be a boy, it is not likely that you will ever read the story of your life as I see it. True, for now it is rather the story of my life, because even now you belong to me just as much as you did before your birth. Not because of the feeding. You are so tiny and helpless that you can't really be called an independent person yet. You are a tiny little animal. You eat, you sleep, and of course you poop.
At first, you didn't want to eat. You always slept. You made me cry twice because of this. I couldn't bring myself to wake you up with a slap.
Your ears, mouth, and eyes are just like your father's. Only your ears are hairy. Your forehead too. Supposedly it will go away. Your hair is brown. And it stands up like a hedgehog's spikes. The whole thing stands straight up.
When you’re hungry, you open your mouth wide and turn your head wildly, hoping that somehow you’ll find the source of food. If you don’t succeed, you turn red and start screaming.
You always scream during bath time. Otherwise, only at dawn. At that time, you are already hungry.
But you only get food at 6 o'clock. We are awfully strict with you. Meanwhile, of course, our hearts almost break because we feel so sorry for you. But there must be order.
13.04.1960
Today you really annoyed me. You've been screaming all day. And in the evening, during the "admiration hour" (it's called that because when your father comes home and it's time for feeding, I always ask him, "well, are you coming to admire your son?"), you made such a stupid face the whole time that we were completely at our wits’ end. You stared fixedly at a single spot and didn’t even react when we turned off the light.
04.03.1961
If we let you roam free, you crawl around the entire apartment. Like a little bear cub. Thump, thump, thump. You scratch your way through every reachable thing; you are very enthusiastic about the stove. You also gladly scratch all along the doors.
You already understand "forbidden!" Or do you just feel it? If you want to do something forbidden, we shout loudly that it's “forbidden!”, and then you leave it alone. In fact, you already know that wires are so taboo that if you head toward them, you glance back from time to time, as if asking what's going on and we are going to shout at you. Or is it allowed this once?
You are grateful for every little smile; if we just look at you, you rejoice, and when we change your diaper! You fidget, move, laugh, shout—your father even lost his temper once.
You really loved playing with buttons. You moved them here and there. You threw them all around. Then all of a sudden it occurred to you that it would be good to eat them too. You didn’t listen, so I slapped your hand, and you started wailing and reaching your hand out toward me. You weren’t really crying—you were just putting on a show.
20.04.1961
You babble all day long, crawl on all fours, and constantly want to go for a walk, which is quite a hassle because you can’t do it on your own, and I don’t have the time or energy for it. You already have seven teeth, but you still don't know how to use them even now. In the evening, we always let you out into the room; at those times, you crawl around and around. When we sit down to eat, you stand next to the table on all fours, like a little dog, and look up at us with your mouth open. If you don’t get any food when you look up, you start yelling really loudly.
27.06.1961
You’ve become incredibly temperamental. If you don’t like something, you throw yourself on the floor and kick and thrash about. I don’t know what to do with you. I’ve tried everything. Nothing works.
On the other hand, when you are in a good mood, you are awfully sweet. You sing, talk, crawl around and around, shout loudly, and squeal. You still don't want to start walking, (...) and you are as skinny as a starving Congolese negro.
11.09.1961
For two weeks, you stayed next door with your friend Judith while we were enjoying life in Holland. You were very well behaved over there, but since you've been home, life is a madhouse. You recognized us, and were very happy, but since then you are constantly throwing tantrums and whining. You don't eat, but you sleep a lot. You still don't want to walk even now, but to be led around—oh yes. From morning till night. You also like to cuddle, and besides that, you would crawl into every little hole. We were nervous about whether you would recognize us, but you hadn't forgotten us.
to be continued