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Thank goodness
Aug. 6th, 2008 07:11 amI can still make myself wince by moving in the wrong direction, but merely existing is no longer cause for pain.
Aug. 6th, 2008
Thank goodness
Aug. 6th, 2008 07:11 amI can still make myself wince by moving in the wrong direction, but merely existing is no longer cause for pain.
Anneliese Lodden (1922 - 2008)
Aug. 6th, 2008 05:51 pmJohn's grandmother died this afternoon after a bout with pneumonia that turned into congestive heart failure. Most of her family was with her today, and she was transferred to the nursing home that she specifically requested as where she wanted to die.
Even knowing that she was having a lot of health trouble lately (she had not left the hospital since my post about her going into the hospital two weeks ago), it's hard to believe that she's gone. She's always been a strong, larger-than-life character, the type who would outlast us all.
Certainly, she'd outlasted an awful lot. She was born in Berlin in 1922. She was engaged to be married when she was 17, but if you do the math and compare it to history, Germany was at war when she was 17. Her fiance was drafted and sent off to the Russian front. On the day that he was supposed to arrive back home from his tour of duty, his family instead received notice that he had been killed in action.
Concerned for her safety with Berlin being heavily bombed, her family sent her off to southern Germany. She made her living as an assistant to a pharmacist who traveled around from place to place. He had lost his wife in the war, the victim of a building being bombed. Anneliese fell in love with him, but because his wife's body had not been recovered, she was officially "missing" and he was still legally married to her. He was present at the birth of their son, John's father, and they planned to marry once the war was over and the missing were finally declared dead. However, after the end of the war, his wife turned up quite alive, and Anneliese remained a single mother.
While out on a rare excursion (her friends had convinced her to get out of the house, with one of them babysitting), she met a young American with the Army Corp of Engineers. As Tom told it, he declared to his buddies that he was going to "marry that woman" when he first laid eyes on her, before they had spoken to each other. Love is a powerful thing, and even Tom's first meeting with his toddler step-son-to-be (in which Tom held Wolfgang on his lap, and Wolf peed on his leg) couldn't stop it. She became an American citizen and they remained happily married for 52 years, until Tom's death.
Anneliese will be missed tremendously.
[ETA: I had trouble coming up with words to express why I chose what I did as examples of her life, so I didn't express it at all. One of the things that always impressed me most about Anneliese was her resilience-- she never spent her time feeling sorry for herself or crying into her beer. She just picked herself up, dusted herself off, and got on with living.]
Even knowing that she was having a lot of health trouble lately (she had not left the hospital since my post about her going into the hospital two weeks ago), it's hard to believe that she's gone. She's always been a strong, larger-than-life character, the type who would outlast us all.
Certainly, she'd outlasted an awful lot. She was born in Berlin in 1922. She was engaged to be married when she was 17, but if you do the math and compare it to history, Germany was at war when she was 17. Her fiance was drafted and sent off to the Russian front. On the day that he was supposed to arrive back home from his tour of duty, his family instead received notice that he had been killed in action.
Concerned for her safety with Berlin being heavily bombed, her family sent her off to southern Germany. She made her living as an assistant to a pharmacist who traveled around from place to place. He had lost his wife in the war, the victim of a building being bombed. Anneliese fell in love with him, but because his wife's body had not been recovered, she was officially "missing" and he was still legally married to her. He was present at the birth of their son, John's father, and they planned to marry once the war was over and the missing were finally declared dead. However, after the end of the war, his wife turned up quite alive, and Anneliese remained a single mother.
While out on a rare excursion (her friends had convinced her to get out of the house, with one of them babysitting), she met a young American with the Army Corp of Engineers. As Tom told it, he declared to his buddies that he was going to "marry that woman" when he first laid eyes on her, before they had spoken to each other. Love is a powerful thing, and even Tom's first meeting with his toddler step-son-to-be (in which Tom held Wolfgang on his lap, and Wolf peed on his leg) couldn't stop it. She became an American citizen and they remained happily married for 52 years, until Tom's death.
Anneliese will be missed tremendously.
[ETA: I had trouble coming up with words to express why I chose what I did as examples of her life, so I didn't express it at all. One of the things that always impressed me most about Anneliese was her resilience-- she never spent her time feeling sorry for herself or crying into her beer. She just picked herself up, dusted herself off, and got on with living.]
Anneliese Lodden (1922 - 2008)
Aug. 6th, 2008 05:51 pmJohn's grandmother died this afternoon after a bout with pneumonia that turned into congestive heart failure. Most of her family was with her today, and she was transferred to the nursing home that she specifically requested as where she wanted to die.
Even knowing that she was having a lot of health trouble lately (she had not left the hospital since my post about her going into the hospital two weeks ago), it's hard to believe that she's gone. She's always been a strong, larger-than-life character, the type who would outlast us all.
Certainly, she'd outlasted an awful lot. She was born in Berlin in 1922. She was engaged to be married when she was 17, but if you do the math and compare it to history, Germany was at war when she was 17. Her fiance was drafted and sent off to the Russian front. On the day that he was supposed to arrive back home from his tour of duty, his family instead received notice that he had been killed in action.
Concerned for her safety with Berlin being heavily bombed, her family sent her off to southern Germany. She made her living as an assistant to a pharmacist who traveled around from place to place. He had lost his wife in the war, the victim of a building being bombed. Anneliese fell in love with him, but because his wife's body had not been recovered, she was officially "missing" and he was still legally married to her. He was present at the birth of their son, John's father, and they planned to marry once the war was over and the missing were finally declared dead. However, after the end of the war, his wife turned up quite alive, and Anneliese remained a single mother.
While out on a rare excursion (her friends had convinced her to get out of the house, with one of them babysitting), she met a young American with the Army Corp of Engineers. As Tom told it, he declared to his buddies that he was going to "marry that woman" when he first laid eyes on her, before they had spoken to each other. Love is a powerful thing, and even Tom's first meeting with his toddler step-son-to-be (in which Tom held Wolfgang on his lap, and Wolf peed on his leg) couldn't stop it. She became an American citizen and they remained happily married for 52 years, until Tom's death.
Anneliese will be missed tremendously.
[ETA: I had trouble coming up with words to express why I chose what I did as examples of her life, so I didn't express it at all. One of the things that always impressed me most about Anneliese was her resilience-- she never spent her time feeling sorry for herself or crying into her beer. She just picked herself up, dusted herself off, and got on with living.]
Even knowing that she was having a lot of health trouble lately (she had not left the hospital since my post about her going into the hospital two weeks ago), it's hard to believe that she's gone. She's always been a strong, larger-than-life character, the type who would outlast us all.
Certainly, she'd outlasted an awful lot. She was born in Berlin in 1922. She was engaged to be married when she was 17, but if you do the math and compare it to history, Germany was at war when she was 17. Her fiance was drafted and sent off to the Russian front. On the day that he was supposed to arrive back home from his tour of duty, his family instead received notice that he had been killed in action.
Concerned for her safety with Berlin being heavily bombed, her family sent her off to southern Germany. She made her living as an assistant to a pharmacist who traveled around from place to place. He had lost his wife in the war, the victim of a building being bombed. Anneliese fell in love with him, but because his wife's body had not been recovered, she was officially "missing" and he was still legally married to her. He was present at the birth of their son, John's father, and they planned to marry once the war was over and the missing were finally declared dead. However, after the end of the war, his wife turned up quite alive, and Anneliese remained a single mother.
While out on a rare excursion (her friends had convinced her to get out of the house, with one of them babysitting), she met a young American with the Army Corp of Engineers. As Tom told it, he declared to his buddies that he was going to "marry that woman" when he first laid eyes on her, before they had spoken to each other. Love is a powerful thing, and even Tom's first meeting with his toddler step-son-to-be (in which Tom held Wolfgang on his lap, and Wolf peed on his leg) couldn't stop it. She became an American citizen and they remained happily married for 52 years, until Tom's death.
Anneliese will be missed tremendously.
[ETA: I had trouble coming up with words to express why I chose what I did as examples of her life, so I didn't express it at all. One of the things that always impressed me most about Anneliese was her resilience-- she never spent her time feeling sorry for herself or crying into her beer. She just picked herself up, dusted herself off, and got on with living.]