We had our 15th wedding anniversary yesterday. Due to the vagaries of the virus, we kept things pretty small and headed out with the kids to Linum, north of Berlin, to watch cranes on their migration route. And then we had pizza. Given the limitations of the current situation, it seemed like a good idea.
For the fifth and 10th anniversary, we’d gone to Caputh, where we had our church wedding. On the fifth anniversary, Emma and Noah were so young, we didn’t do more than pose for a picture in front of the church and have a look at the restaurant where we had our reception. I seem to remember most of the time spent there running up and down the dock next to the restaurant.
For the 10th anniversary, we went a little bigger. We didn’t get a professional photographer, but had our friend Stephan take a portrait of the now five of us and actually had a meal and overnighted there. And that was nice.
I’m always amazed by the memories that stick with me. On that night in 2015, Colin got up from the table in the middle of the meal to explore the bar area. I wandered over with him and then he turned back to the table at full speed. I didn’t chase, as I figured he’d stop with Christina. Instead, he breezed right past her and towards a set of stone stairs, which he promptly fell down, thunking his head on the way. Of course it was awful and of course it almost ended the night, but he seemed OK after a while.
In 2017, at the family retreat for children who were living with cancer, one of the other Dads told me something. I can’t quite remember his name: He was from Kosovo and his teenage daughter had a tumor. It was such a weird time there, because you didn’t get to know every other family that well and some families you weren’t even sure which child was the sick one. But this guy told me once that he’d heard that any tumor will be the end result of an injury that didn’t heal properly. And, of course, ever since Colin’s death, I’ve kept that conversation in my mind and wondered if, in October 2015, I’d been a little faster none of this would have happened.
I don’t quite believe that’s the case, but you can’t get it out of your head either.
So, here we are, another anniversary behind us. We have agreed, when things calm down, we’ll go back to Caputh and take another family photo. I wasn’t sure we would. Some places I would happily go spark memories of Colin in Christina, so we don’t go there. Christina frequently looks at photos of him, which is a step I can’t quite take. We all have our limits. But apparently we do have it in all of us to get out to Caputh when the situation is right again.
15 years! Time goes so fast…at least for anniversaries that is! Happy Anniversary….thanks for sharing your memories.
Note my new email.
We remember your wedding well and fondly. Happy anniversary.
I am sorry anyone repeated such a pernicious lie to that other father, and I am still sorrier that he then told it to you. According to science, what he said simply is not true.
People want to make sense of the universe; we want control over inherently uncontrollable events. It is more comfortable to think, in some strange way, that one messed up in some way and can avoid doing so again (so as to prevent a similar event form happening in the future) than to tolerate that misfortune can and does arrive on the doorstep of blameless people. The desire for control over that which cannot be controlled explains why such terrible phenomena as victim-blaming, the notion of the schizophrenogenic mother, and other such misconceptions are hard to set aside. I remember being asked, pretty aggressively, about what warning signs Kniff had before the aneurysm ruptured. (None.)
Anyhow, hopefully this will help you beat back that awful mistaken notion the other father shared; here is an excerpt from The American Cancer Society’s website:
Can injuries cause cancer?
It’s a common myth that injuries can cause cancer. But the fact is that falls, bruises, broken bones, or other such injuries have not been linked to cancer. Sometimes a person might visit a health care provider for what’s thought to be an injury and cancer is found at that time. But the injury did not cause the cancer; the cancer was already there. It also sometimes happens that a person will remember an injury that happened long ago in the place cancer was found.
Rarely, burn scars can be the site of cancer many years after the burn has healed. Most often, skin cancer is the type that starts in a burn scar.
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-basics/questions-people-ask-about-cancer.html#:~:text=It's%20a%20common%20myth%20that,is%20found%20at%20that%20time.
Sending <3
Indeed such a lovely wedding. Happy anniversary!
Wow, I didn’t know you had that awful memory and second-guessing about that fall. So sorry about that. May you know peace in part because of the fact that you’re a great father, Niels.
Happy anniversary, Niels! Thank you for sharing the picture of your family and the story. I wish I could take your second-guessing away from you, but — as you rightly say — that’s not guessing based in logic but based in the vagaries of the human brain trying to make sense of the nonsensical.