Traces of Love

By Willa van Gent

Squeaking swings
squawking seagulls
screeching toddlers.
Spring is here.
The playground is full
tiny tots crawling
up and down like ants.
Scrambling on steps,
slides, sandboxes,
remembering how it was last year.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Aug 22, 2011
• ISBN: 9781456789978

Willa van Gent

Anna Danzinger (born Deissler) 6 November 1912 born in Taschwitz (at the time Sudetenland, Czechoslovakia) to Anton and Anna Deissler (born Riedl) 1914-1915 Anna Deissler, a porcelain painter, dies of pneumonia, leaving behind forester Anton with 2 infant girls. Anita and her sister Gisela are left in Viennese orphanage by widowed father. They are adopted separately. A distant aunt adopts smaller Gisela, “But they are sisters, they are together,” the orphanage says, “No, I can only take care of one girl.” Anita is left behind. Later, a widow with a little girl visits the orphanage, “Mother, take the one with the dark eyes, like that she will look more like my sister,” the little girl says. 1927-1943 Anita studies to become a Modistin. Some of her jobs are with hatmakers. 6 September 1936 Anita marries Franz Danzinger. Shortly before this she is reunited with her sister Gisela. 27 June 1939 Husband Franz joins the army as a male nurse, due to his bad eyesight. April 1945 Anita, 8-months pregnant, is evacuated from Vienna. The Allies bombard their apartment building, she, husband Franz and mother-in-law Maria are homeless. Anita lives and works on a farm in Schaerding (Upper Austria), where the aged farmer couple wishes to trade half a pig for Anita’s first daughter, “You are young, you will be able to bear more children.” 30 May 1945 Anita gives birth to daughter Elfriede Rosalia in Schaerding. First daughter Fridi almost dies a few weeks after birth due to neglect from farm family while mother Anita is hospitalised for breast infection. Fridi had drank some of the infected maternal milk. Both mother and daughter hospitalised. September 1945 Husband Franz discharged from army. 14 October 1946 Anita gives birth to daughter Maria Gisela in Andorf, Upper Austria. 27 December 1946 The family settles in a room and kitchen back in Vienna - Anita, husband Franz, daughters Fridi and Midi and widowed paternal Grandmother Maria Danzinger. 2006 Anita dies in Vienna, age 93.

Book preview

My only wish is that my path on Earth leave behind traces of love.

SPRING SWING

Squeaking swings

squawking seagulls

screeching toddlers.

Spring is here.

The playground is full

tiny tots crawling

up and down like ants.

Scrambling on steps,

slides, sandboxes,

remembering how it was last year.

Now the swings are not so tall,

the slide not so long,

sandboxes not as entertaining

as that other girls’ ball.

Every Spring they come back,

grown a size larger,

ready to play

in what seems to be

a smaller playground.

Decades later,

they will come with

tiny tots of their own,

let them rediscover

Springs’ swings.

19.Apr.1999

TYPEWRITER

Cori

gave me this machine

on which I so

happily pound

out my thoughts

doubts

feelings.

She got it when she was 10.

She painted it

peppermint green.

It smells of smoke

and is full of cat hair.

Such a good spirit

in this

her typewriter

which I now inherit.

Sitcky P button

and all.

25.Jan.2003

NUR AUS FRUST

Just because of

frustration,

Meggy bought the

jeans outfit

she really does not need.

Out of frustration.

Nur aus Frust.

How many things

move the human body

nur aus Frust?

The good, the bad,

the appetites,

the angers, the loves,

the passions, the inspirations,

because of frustration

or for lack of it.

Three little words,

so heavy, so true,

so illuminating.

Together, this trio

could explain

world history.

28.Jan.2003

FILING

Forget filing! Monica said.

I spent a whole year organising, labelling, shuffling papers into an impeccably ordered filing system. And when I finally finished, my boss retired and threw out all the files. So now I don’t break my head about filing. Some papers I keep, the rest I throw out. That’s it! That’s my new filing system—throw it all out!

5.Mar.2003

DRUNK

At Aumannplatz, two teenage boys got on the tram. They remained standing, talking loudly, swaying across the wagon, arguing, smelling of alcohol. They were stone