Gizela

My mom said just yesterday: "In fact, she was a charismatic person." The only imperfection in her lifestory was that there were no people who followed her charisma.

A beautiful young lady

She was born to a beautiful young woman, Marija, and a beautiful young man, Franc. Fabčič was her maiden family name. She was born as an Italian because today's Slovenia used to be a part of Italy then. Her first years were quite happy ones, although she did never tell us so. She admired her granddad Luka, because he was a rich and capable man. She tried to please her dad, who was in fact beating his wife from time to time. And then, just before the WW2, her mother died at the age of 45. A little girl was then taken to her relatives, where kind people tried to comfort her. But she kept crying. Her father decided then to take her to other relatives, where she was treated badly and worked as a maiden servant. She was 12 at that time. Interesting, that she stretched those two years and a half into an infinity, all she could remember from her youth were those years of hard work. She kept telling us the same story over and over again, as if there was no other life after that.

But there was life after that, after the war, when she went to work to the other part of Slovenia. She met her future husband there, got pregnant and, of course, married him. Several hard years followed, when she was often hungry. She waited for her first cooking pot in a line all night. She kept telling us this story, over and over again, as if there were, again, no other, happier stories to tell. My mom was born soon after her marriage, some years later also her son, my uncle Aleš, who died suddenly last year in August at the age of 60.

With her husband, Franc.

She was only 41 when I, her first grandchild, was born and she was retired only about a decade later. She worked hard, always. In her home, in her garden. She didn't like to travel, her life was her garden. Her home was a tidy place, I have never seen a tidier one. She always had to be no. 1. And as long as her husband was alive, it was so. She spent the last 7 years alone. She stopped to exercise each morning soon after his death, but not of sadness but because she had no one anymore to prove that she was the best wife in the world.

In her garden ("ranch") two years ago.

She got sick about three years ago. Diagnosed with a cancer. We were not allowed to tell anyone about her illness. She did not believe in her recovery, she despised doctors. When she could not live by herself anymore, she moved to the old people's home, where she passed away yesterday, at 4.30 in the morning.

I was quite shocked when she told me a few months ago that she had never really loved my granddad. "Why did you marry him?" I asked. "Because he was the only one who was kind to me," she answered. 

And recently she's said: "I am sorry that I worked that hard," realising that nothing would remain after her when she's gone.

Her last word to me a week ago was: "Čau." Goodbye, grandmom! She would celebrate her 89th birthday on Wednesday.

1917

Today I received a Power Point presentation full of pictures of Ljubljana at the beginning of the 20th century. Immediately I thought of a photo of four women that I found in my grandmom's album. Nobody could tell me who they were.This photo was taken in 1917, and my grandmom was 11 years old then, so I wonder if these women were really her colleagues from work like my mom was guessing. A memory lost, and names too, because they were not written down.

I just love this picture. Have you noticed the dresses they were wearing, their hairdo? Look at the second woman from the left - she is holding a hand of her "friend" on the right. And the right woman is having her hands covered with a muff. An open book makes you think like the left woman is reading to the rest of them. And a rose? Of course both, the book and the rose were put there by a photographer but it looks like they were reading a romantic story and daydreamt about their future lives. I wonder what their lives really were like. What happened to them, how did they look like in 10, 20, 30 years from the day this picture was taken?

I found out that I write this blog also because I want to remember what I did. With so many events going on in my life, I can't keep them all in my memory. Maybe that's also why I take so many photos. Although I know that when I am gone there will be nobody browsing through my photos and asking the same questions as I keep asking today - who is this, where was this?