Dedicated to My Granny

My grandmother was not only a businesswoman, but also an ingenious baker, a storyteller to behold and winning a game of cards against her was a feat. At times she would look at me and say, “Please use your head while playing.” to which I always replied, “I am here to play.” And we would smile. She was in it for the win and win she did. 
 
Trauma often happens early in life. She told me that one of her relatives in Upper Carinthia had given her a photo album telling her the following, “There is a picture of your father to be found in this album, but I will not tell you who it is.” She said, that her father had been a soldier from the Netherlands who had fallen in love with her mother. My granny never got to know his name and thus never fully knew her roots.
 
She spent parts of her childhood and youth in Upper Carinthia but was sent to Lower Carinthia eventually to live with her mother, my great grandmother, again. My great grandparents owned a quarry, an apple orchard and berry garden, where my brother and I played a lot, when we were smaller, and other businesses. 

My maternal grandparents owned a car dealership among other businesses.

My grandfather-to-be fell madly in love with her, but acted as if it were not the case, albeit if you come for visits again and again and strut around, something is going on, so she noticed. It became a courting game she enjoyed. 
 
My grandfather was great. He had served in the war, survived imprisonment in Russia as a result of using his skills as a mechanic. He had been useful repairing cars and various machines and he was given more food which he shared with his fellow prisoners. After coming home, one of the fathers of one of his brothers-in-arms gifted him a pig as a thank you, meat to sustain him. My grandfather sometimes told stories from that time. He once said, “After having been in war, you lose belief.”
 
Together they built businesses, a car dealership among others. They also owned a café, the “Espresso”, a meeting place for everyone in town, and chalets in the mountains. We loved to stay there as kids, especially in the winters. 
 
His passing was hard on her, but she found love again later in life and reconnected with the love of her teenage years. She started spending quite some time in Upper Carinthia again, always returning with a smile and once with two cats that helped her over the ensuing years. 

Both my maternal and paternal grandparents were into politics. Family legend has it that my grandfather was calling him out for something.

She taught me a lot and – I have written about me getting my behind handed to me while playing badminton – my mother and her were in attendance in Leoben, when we won the first official Austrian Large Field Floorball Championships, the Staatsmeisterschaften, in a shootout. I was able to show her that I had learned, backstopping my team.
 
I got a plethora of business and life advice, while playing cards and baking. Thank you from the bottom of my heart, Oma. When we were playing, it was always tongue-in-cheek, having fun, trying to lure each other into action with sayings like “One cannot buy courage.” or simply smiling. 
 
My granny and I had talked about money as well and I had told her in no uncertain terms, that I was only interested in playing cards with her and listening to her stories. We kept it that way. 
 
What some people do not understand, is, that the most precious gift someone can offer you, is their time. It is finite. Everything else you can find in infinite heaps and troves all around you. Time spent with someone, the smiles, the tears and the laughter are worth more than anything else. They are also something no-one can take from you, no matter what they do or try.

My grandmother was agile, quick-witted and not one that would let others do the work for her in any way, shape, fashion or form. In the months prior to her death, she complained about dizziness, headaches and she had asked an aunt of mine who had wanted to build a new house, if she were allowed to move in with her and live with her.

​She suffered an aneurysm but survived. She had always been a fighter and giving up had never been her cup of coffee. She would albeit never leave the hospital again, for her brain had been damaged.

My granny loved wearing our traditional clothes and took part in festivals.

Watching my grandmother lying in bed, coming in and out of recognizing people, wasting slowly away whilst I was  being forced to observe the dance of the flying monkeys, relatives and acquaintances being smeared in a variety of colors or alternatively being put on a pedestal for their services, me being painted as the one who had been after her money betraying an elderly, helpless woman and watching the predator smirk in the shadows, was hard. 

We did for her what we could. An aunt of mine came up with the idea of gifting her a cat plushie. At that time she had two cats, Timmy and Snoopy, who naturally were not allowed in hospital. Said aunt said, “Then she can hold it and is not alone.” Someone else had brought in the basket, my granny had used when she went shopping. What it contained you ask? Carelessly thrown together clothes, among them a tracksuit with GM branding that had been issued to people at the car dealership in the 90s. My granny still had one. She was not in need of a sweat suit. She enjoyed our company, the touch and the words spoken in gentle tones.
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At times she would look at me and say, “Please use your head while playing.” to which I always replied, “I am here to play.” And we would smile. She was in it for the win and win she did. 

Oma - German for "granny" - in the "Espresso".

The day my mother notified me about my granny’s passing, I was at work. That very moment I was in my office. After I had gotten the message, I went out of my office to walk for a bit. Karin, a friend of mine, approached me and wanted to say something. I just said, “Now is not the time for that. I have been notified, that my granny has passed on.” Karin closed her mouth, nodded and went to attend to different matters. Understand, that Karin and I were not friends back then. Yet she showed respect and honored my grandmother and me.
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I was taken by a surprise only a few days later. For some reason, my granny’s wake had been rushed and I barely managed to travel to Wolfsberg. My mother had been successful in notifying my grandmother’s best friend and that was that. Her other friends, business partners, friends from her days in politics got to know of her passing later. Some were taken by surprise weeks after my grandmother had transitioned. They were not the only ones, that were taken by surprise.

My grandmother was a Protestant, whilst my grandfather had been Catholic. The church had allowed them to marry, but only if all the children were baptized and introduced to the Catholic traditions. When the pastor, a woman, entered to begin her sermon, she froze for a moment looking around the funeral parlor in shock. There were hardly any guests and the family members had taken up seats matching the rift. 
 
After the service my granny’s best friend came up to me and made a statement in front of a group, part of it being, “You were the one who put the playing cards next to her casket.” “Yes.” She had more to say and what she had to say dealt a severe blow to someone. The very same someone who had haunted my childhood. 

The interest in sports was was big and my granny took part in ski races.

See, my granny and I had loved playing cards. It was known among our family and close friends. So before her wake, I had taken five cards out of a deck of cards we had used. The four aces and one of the pages. Her favorite one. I put one of the aces and the page next to her casket, when I bowed to her and said thank you, before the ceremony began. The three other aces I gave to my mother, an aunt of mine and her then husband. Those were the people who had played cards with my grandmother. They were taken by surprise, but during the ceremony they got up and placed the cards on the casket, not next to it, honoring the ingenious times spent together. 
 
I love my grandmother and losing her that way was hard.

The wake was hard as well.

​My grandmother was an incredible woman, a Grandmother to behold, a granny that knew how to play the games, a businesswoman, one hell of a baker and she could tell stories, both in an expected and unexpected way. Yes, there were stories about the Reeperbahn in Hamburg that were not intended for children’s ears. Oh well.
 
Ich liebe dich, Oma. Danke, dass du da warst.
 
Kristin Raphaela Otti 

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I know that there are still friends, relatives, businesspeople and politicians around, that knew and worked with my granny. Please, if you find the time, write about her. I will put the stories on here. Let us honor her this way.
 
Kristin Raphaela Otti