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Our baby boy Axel will have the nickname ‘Titi bello’ for life.
When we moved in to our house in Croatia, Our landlord, Iva, told us about the 89 year old neighbor named Anna. Iva took us next door the day we moved in to introduce us.
Anna was living in the shed in her small courtyard. She no longer had electricity and gas because she couldn’t afford to pay for these utilities. She cooked dinner and heated her house with a wood stove.
But Anna was sooo cheerful! And friendly! And loving. She started to send us gifts: homemade brandy called rakija, vegetables, and Dalmatian cookies.
She could only speak Croatian and Italian, and we only speak English and Spanish, so we would use an interesting Spanitalian mix with lots of miming.
We would take Axel over to see her and she instantly fell in love with him and he with her.
We brought her some flowers for brighten up her home and invited her over to our place for dinner.
We let her hold Axel and she would just hug him and squeeze him and say “oh titi bello”. I took a video and it was a minor sensation on my Facebook. My friend wrote me and told me it was so beautiful it made him cry.
She could only eat a few spoonfuls of rice. She kept showing us the scar where they had taken out her gall bladder. She complained how much it hurt, but she always maintained this joyful demeanor.
We slowly pieced together her story. Anna never had any children. She had six brothers and sisters, but they had all passed away. So she was the last remaining member of her family.
I think that Axel knew what was happening, that he sensed that it was Anna’s final hours and was sad to see her go.
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She had grown up in the house next door and lived there for all 89 years of her life. A neighbor named Bernard is the son of one of her friends and chopped her wood and helped look after her. She had adopted him as her “adult foster son” because he has always been a little “special” and an outcast.
And now she adopted Axel as her great grandson. She would wander into our courtyard just to pinch his cheeks and he would squeal with delight.
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We started to learn from the other neighbors that when she was younger, she had taken care of all the kids in the neighborhood. She had the most beautiful house on the block, it was well maintained, had a lovely garden, etc. She cooked for people and shared the bounty from her garden. She always wore lovely dresses.
Then the war for Croatian Independence happened in 1991-1995 and she stopped caring. She let herself go physically, and she let her house go. At some point she could no longer put in the effort to keep it nice. Her garden is now a pile of overgrown rubble with a couple tired chairs in it.
When she had the surgery, she had to move to her shed so everything could be close and within easy reach.
You might think this would make someone bitter or grumpy. Not Anna, maybe she gave up on her appearance but she never gave up on love and kindness.
We visited her and she gave us gifts up until the day she went to the hospital with pneumonia.
I called Iva, and she did everything she could to make sure Anna got the best doctors, calling in favors from friends (you don’t get much in Croatia with the national healthcare it seems).
Her joy was all the more remarkable given her living conditions and personal history.
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Everyone in the neighborhood was worried. Every single person cared about Anna a great deal.
Anna was in the hospital for a week or two, and we would hear reports – “maybe she is coming home tomorrow!”
One day, Axel woke up bawling. I’ve never seen him cry like that before. All day long he was whimpering and sobbing softly. I thought maybe he was teething.
The next day we found out that Anna had died. She never made it home.
I think that Axel knew what was happening, that he sensed that it was Anna’s final hours and was sad to see her go.
Anna’s death really pierced my heart as well. We had only known her for a few weeks. She came into our life and then went right back out.
Anna showed such amazing love and kindness to us and especially Axel while we knew her– it makes me want to try to be that way with everyone I meet. Her joy was all the more remarkable given her living conditions and personal history.
Axel is only seven months old – probably too young to comprehend what death is and that he won’t see Anna again. But given his distress on the day she died, I’m convinced that he had some sort of heart to heart connection with her.
Now that she is gone, I’m glad I have this image of her in my mind and the stories from our brief time with her. Her cats are still here though – they prowl around our house looking for food scraps. In a few weeks, we will move on from Croatia and we will just have this short but heartful vignette of time with our Croatian Grandmother Anna.
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Feature photo courtesy of the author.