Unfortunately and Fortunately

Thoughts on our recent experiences in Vienna

In recent weeks, I have taken a break from writing weekly posts. Not because I wanted to stop communicating with all of my friends and subscribers here on Substack but because things were happening in my personal life that I didn’t quite know how to talk about.

But I want to start posting stories and photographs again about Austria and Ireland (and any other places my husband, Gerhard, and I travel to). To get started, it feels like I need to share a bit about what has been happening in the last few weeks, which can basically be framed as “unfortunately” and “fortunately.”

Our purpose for going to Vienna this time and for staying there for five weeks was to have eye operations. I needed surgery for a cataract, and Gerhard needed surgery to repair issues stemming from an operation he had received last summer to repair a detached retina. Both of us are insured in Austria and the standard of medical care there is very high, so this is where we go when we have elective surgery.

We stayed in a hotel for a week and then moved to an apartment building for four weeks. The apartment was located in the far north of Vienna on the 33rd floor of a high-rise, so it had a gorgeous view of the city. Fortunately, it was part of a shopping mall, so there was a large grocery store just downstairs, and the entrance to a U1 subway station was only a three-minute walk away.

Unfortunately, the owner of the apartment would only give us one key, which was necessary to enter the apartment building, make the elevator work, and open the door to our apartment. This meant that Gerhard and I had to plan our comings and goings so that the one with the key would always be in the apartment to let the other one in. Which means I was constantly afraid that I would lose the key when it was in my possession.

One night, both of us were out for the evening at different locations. I arrived back at the apartment first and then dozed in bed, fully dressed, until Gerhard’s return. (He was at a dinner with former work colleagues, so I knew he would be late.) Gerhard buzzed the doorbell about midnight, which woke me up. I slipped on a pair of sandals, grabbed a key, and took the elevator to the ground floor to let him into the apartment building.

Then we walked into the elevator. I tried to put the key into the lock that would enable the elevator to rise, but the key didn’t fit. In my half-asleep state, I had grabbed the wrong one! In a panic, we wondered what on earth we should do. It was past midnight, Gerhard’s phone was almost out of power, it was 20 degrees outside, and I was wearing sandals and had no coat!

Should we try to get a hotel somewhere? Without any luggage or even a coat or shoes? How were we to charge Gerhard’s phone? Should we call a friend and try to camp out in her small apartment until morning when we could call the owner of the apartment?

Fortunately, a young man and woman emerged from the elevator at that moment. Gerhard explained our dilemma to them, and the young man gave Gerhard the code for the elevator that would enable us to make it work without a key. He also just happened to have a friend who was a locksmith! The young man called his friend, who said he could be at the apartment in 15 minutes.

The locksmith arrived on time as promised, we used the code to go up in the elevator, and he had our door open within seconds. He even charged half the rate that other locksmiths would have charged. With a great deal of gratitude, we said goodbye to him, entered our apartment, and collapsed into bed.

Unfortunately, we both caught colds soon after arriving. To help the healing process move along, I made chicken soup three evenings in a row. This seemed to help a bit, and the coughing and sneezing ended just in time for us to have our surgeries. Fortunately, the operations were a success, and our eyesight is much improved now.

Unfortunately, however, Gerhard’s mother, Herta, became quite ill while we were there and was admitted to the hospital three different times in a span of four weeks. She had been ill and in pain for several years, but she fought to live in spite of it. This time, however, it was her time to transition, and she died at the age of 87 during her third admittance to the hospital. Fortunately, Gerhard and I were in Austria when this took place.

As an only child, Gerhard was responsible for arranging for the funeral. He contacted an undertaker in the town where he grew up and where his mother was living, and the people there were extremely helpful. The undertaker provided the words to a lovely announcement about Herta’s passing, along with the date, time and place of the funeral, and printed numerous copies of it. Gerhard then went house to house in the neighborhood where Herta had spent her entire life to let the neighbors know of her transition.

Unfortunately, it was raining early in the morning on the day of the funeral. Fortunately, the rain had stopped and the sun was peeking through the clouds by the time the funeral took place. According to Gerhard’s wishes, a simple ceremony took place at the graveyard. Three wreaths of flowers—from two families as well as from Gerhard and me—decorated the site.

After the ceremony, four men wearing traditional black hats and coats lowered the coffin into the grave, which was located next to the grave of Gerhard’s father.

Finally, each mourner walked up to the grave and tossed a flower they had brought with them into it, along with a spade of earth given to them by the undertaker. After the ceremony, Gerhard invited several close friends to have lunch with us in Herta’s favorite restaurant, which made a lovely ending to her transition.

We are now back in Ireland again, where the weather has fortunately been mostly dry and beautiful. As a result, we have been able to do quite a bit of gardening and house cleaning in preparation for spring.

I love seeing all of the new green shoots bursting out on the trees, and the first new flowers (white daisies and yellow primroses, gorse, buttercups and dandelions) springing up everywhere. The frog spawn in our pond hatched while we were away, so hundreds of little tadpoles are happily munching on all of the vegetation in the pond now.

Gerhard and I both feel especially fortunate to be living surrounded by nature, where the annual cycle of life, death and rebirth puts our human lives into perspective and greatly helps in the process of healing.