Thursday, June 4, 2009

On the train, I looked out the window and tears rolled down my cheeks.

Tiny purple wildflowers flecked the foliage along the train tracks as we whizzed past. Bits of confetti sprinkled from heaven. I imagined my tears running down, out the window and dripping along the path to stain the flowers. Passing over a river, the tears continued to pour down and mingle with the mountain water, fresh, cool and splashing over rocks.

I tried so hard to figure out why I couldn’t stop crying. The surface answer is that every time I say goodbye to Omi, I cry.

What if it is our last goodbye?

Just writing the questions brings another flood of tears.

But there is something beyond the fear of a last goodbye.

A visit to Omi’s is essentially the equivalent to staying at an authentic gasthaus in the German countryside: fresh coffee awaits every morning the moment you get up and shuffle downstairs, bare feet kissing the hardwood floor. For breakfast, pick from a schmorgasborg of pancakes, waffles, French toast, super snackers, scrambled eggs – or, all of the above.

Take a seat at the breakfast table, a café bistro set with red plaid seat cushions and tablecloth that match the kitchen’s red walls. A soft breeze whispers through the house from the yellow sun room, soft and cheery, brushing the lace curtains to the side until it swirls around the stairway’s pine banister.

After breakfast, sip a second cup of coffee outside, rocking in the porch swing with the flower boxes, wind chimes and humming birds.

She told me about Mutti, her mother, a petite woman who worked culinary miracles in their tiny Frankfurt apartment, where the kitchen is smaller than an American bathroom. Young Marlies used to watch Mutti in the kitchen and wonder how she always seemed to produce delicious morsels of food when there was none.

“She was an angel,” Omi said. “Sometimes I even saw her wings.”