Ah, it was just a dream... noooo, it was not just a dream, I feel awake, it is a peaceful sunny day, noon, blue cleared sky, no clouds to be seen, the best time to gather dandelions flowers that at the noon time are wide open by the sun so my great grandma can make some dandelion honey. There is a field by our house full of those beautiful goldy colour flowers. I am picking up one by one and throwing them into a basket. Company keeps me our old black cat Mikes, suprisingly he still adores me and my sister no matter how much he had to endure with us. We used to play with him instead of playing with dolls, we used to put clothes on him, then putting him into that small stroller and going for walks with him, and he would let us and never complained. I mean our playing had always been gentle, and he probably knew well we would never harm him. Somewhere in the background I hear my great grandma talking, I love her voice, it is always so comforting, warm and easy going. She is the the most human person on this planet, she is literally a walking heart, without words she teaches about love, she is that wonder woman, she is my idol I put on a pedestal. Loosing three out of her five children, such pain in her eyes yet smiling, laughing and making jokes. She is 91 years old, still able to fully take care of herself, lives in her small house, physically strong, working on her field. Of course, she does not live far away, there are three houses close to each other divided by fields, one is our great grandma, one is my grandparents and the third one is my parents. It is the communist time where families live close to each other, and it is almost a must, a responsibility of the children to stay living with their parents. It is very common to build so called generational houses and a brick by a brick they are built slowly by family members hands with no help of any building company. It took my parents almost five years to build our house.

I look up and see Starka coming towards me. Starka, that is how we call our great grandma. She helps me to fill up the basket with dandelions and we go to sit down on her swing chair in her garden. I love her garden, full of fruit trees and berry bushes, a bit wild looking, it is not that kind of posh looking garden that we can see now, it is raw, true and gives that kind of village feeling life. It is a place where I and my sister grew up playing. We used to spend hours in her garden. In front of the swing chair there is a big cherry tree that gives the most amazing sweet cherries. When there is that happy cherry time I and my sister Martina would climb up the tree up to the top, sit there, talk, look at the whole village and eat cherries till our bellies are so full that we almost could not climb back down. Starka starts to talk about how she used to climb trees too, she talks about horses and I can see how much she likes of me and my sister our spending time with horses, talks about all animals she used to have, talks about her son Tonik drawings and his dream to build a big house for her what sadly stayed only a never fullfilled forever dream. After that we just sit quietly, and enjoy the calmness. We say bye to each other and she goes to her house. Starka spends all the evenings in her room talking to God, being alone in her mind with her lost children. I would never hear her complaining about difficult life, crying in front of us, she never talks about the pain nor suffering. But one can imagine what burden she carries every single day. Especially her son who died in the second world war while Berlin was bombed, he was seen the last time by his friend from the village just a week before the war ended, and his body was never found and her hopes were never lost that one day she would see him coming back. I go to my home , and I know I will see her again later on as every day and every evening Starka walks towards our house and knocks on the window of my and my sisters room to say good night. She knocks, then I and my sister look out of window, we say good night to each other, and happily she walks back towards her house. And if it happens that she comes and we are not at home then we have to walk to her house to knock on her window and wave and say good night otherwise she could not go to sleep. That is our every single day ritual, that is a must and that is also a privilage of being so much loved by your great grandmother. What pain she kept inside her from loosing her children she turned into love for her grandchildren.

So I sit in my room, trying to learn for school for the next day, it is getting slowly dark, and my thoughts are turning me away from reality, and at the same time while trying to remember phrases I am slipping into my imaginary world. I remember that evening, I am so sure I learnt all, I check if I know and I am saying all that is written in the book, but unfortunatelly it is a short term and the next day at school I do not remember much. Suddenly I hear knocking on the window, it did not scare me nor surprised me as I know for sure who it is..my lovely Starka, I pull the curtain and see her big smile on her face, such heart warming face, she says loudly good night... Suddenly I hear the clock ringing, I wonder what is happening, want to say to Starka to wait a second, but she is slowly disappearing into a dust, want to say do not go I will come to talk to you, but in that moment I appear in my grandparents house, running quickly up the stairs, it is dark, I hardly can see anything, I am running up the stairs, reaching the handle and trying to open the door, but I can not open the door, I hear someone running behind me, I start to breath heavily, then...I hear the clock ringing again, I am opening slowly my eyes, I am laying on my bad, I rather not continue thinking about that nightmare running up the stairs that I keep having now and then, and I rather slip towards memories of my Starka. Ah, yes it was just a dream because it has been years since she is gone. I still hear her voice, her loud laugh and remember the smell of her clothes and how she was falling asleep while I was combing her hair.

After her death I and my sister started to spend most of our free time with horses,I know Starka would be proud, she loved animals. Horses in my life became a stability and kept me sane through my life.

I love you my Starka, I only wish I would be telling you that more often when you were still around. For some kind of reason, probably due to the childish naivity, I thought you would be always around... because why not right? Why would you leave? You were my safe place, my loving great grandma so why would you leave?

With loving memory of Starka, my great grandmother.

Your great granddauther