Bonn Bonn

Well I guess I can cancel the rest of my trip. I found the perfect, self-actualizing job. Someone in this world gets paid to give tours of the Cologne Chocolate Museum to kindergartners. Are you kidding me?

One of the Oompa Loompas at the Schokoladenmuseum
So I am in Cologne, visiting a couple the husband of whom was an exchange student with my Palm grandparents 43 years ago. Gr. Pat is always impressed with how the bread they cast on the water comes back to them (so she tells me). Adnan and Helga are their names, a Caucasian from Jordan and a German woman. And not just Caucasia, but Nalchik! The very place I wanted to visit in Russia but called it off. Hope springs eternal as he keeps an apartment and car there for half the year. They are wonderful hosts and I had quite a rigorous program of touring today, which ended in an organ concert in the Cologne cathedral, the first time I've ever seen a grand cathedral full of people.

Sandwiched between Leah and the Mahmud-Westerwilds was Bonn. The city has fame, or infamy, in my family as one of my mom's last efforts to get rid of cancer. Back in 1990, pre-internet, which she would have loved, she found out about a new chemo cocktail invented by a German doctor. So in October 1990, she and Dad came to Bonn for 38 days, if memory serves, for the first round, and in January 1991, Grandma Pat returned with her for another run.

The first time, Abby lived in Albin with Palm grandparents, and I spent the five weeks between the families of three of my mom's Chugwater best friends, the Kaufmans, Guidices, and Hellbaums. As a third-grader, it was a sort of holiday, my first time of having three brothers, then living with Crystal's family, then living with Aftann's family.

So I went to Bonn to try and understand a bit more as an adult what happened to my family when we were all younger. The only other time I've really encountered it as an adult was watching the play "Wit," which had me wracked with sobs 2/3 of the way through. I had Dad on the phone and Gr. Pat on email, tried to find the hotel they lived at, the clinic, walk by the Rhine. It turns out Ad and Helga gave some legendary hospitality both times Mom was over.

Tried to imagine 59-yr-old Gr. Pat pushing 37-yr-old Mom around in a wheelchair, Dad kicking around the capital of West Germany in his cowboy boots, Mom picking out Christmas presents for us. I still don't know if I conncted it very well. It was my attempt to, as Diane Hellbaum said in an email today, "let it unfold as it comes to us now." It will be 15 years since she died on the 29th of this month. I think it's part of the process.