Norbert

Today would have been my late brother's birthday and he (Norbert) would have been 57 if he had survived the event of early 1974.  I was fourteen months older than him.  This is a photo of us during the first Christmas in Canada in December 1957.  Norbert is in the foreground and I in the back.  I was able to suppress the emotions for years but since the last of our parents passed on in 1999 (mother), an event last year brought it all out and may have lead to the first of my two mini-strokes or may have been at the same time as the stroke.  Who knows!  I had been waiting for months for Brad to show up from the east coast.  When he didn't show up, I was scanning earlier photos of my brother and others.  The emotions came out and I wept for days in private as I was trying to make sense of everything.  I do not fault Brad  for anything.  I'm sure he had his reason and was dealing with his own demons!

Anyway, Norbert and I had spent most of his years sharing the same bedroom, so his passing was very difficult in the beginning.  Later as I was occupied with other situations and events over the years, the emotions concerning his death were pushed back in my mind.  The event of 2010 brought it all out again.  Such is life.  We take the good with the bad and make the most of it as best we can.  Its a difficult time of year so close to Christmas! - V

memories

While I was checking out some slides to scan the other day, I found this one from the early 1960s taken by either my aunt (mother's sister) or my uncle. My younger brother Norbert is in this photo. The scene was the patio at our home in the eastern part of London, Ontario. That home is long gone as has my brother but the memories are still very strong as if it was just yesterday. - V

Norbert and company

This is a photo taken at our first house in east London (Ontario) about June 1964. My brother Norbert is in the centre plus two kids, one that lived next door and the other on a corner on the next street. Norbert was nine going on ten at the time. This was before our house got new siding to cover up the old stuff. The addition on the front of the house was done or nearly so. - V

motorbike

Back in the 1980s I used to have a motorbike, a Yamaha XT500, a single cylinder engine with a compression release. I was in my 30s by that point and even remember in the beginning getting so frustrated with the thing in trying to get it started that one day in the north end of town I gunned it and did a wheelie down the road for a stretch. A guy walking toward me on the sidewalk thought it was hilarious! I haven't done one before or since, but then, I no longer have a bike!

By the way, the blue spruce in the background was planted by my younger brother (Norbert) and myself in 1969. Its a Hoopsi Blue Spruce and we hammered in the handle from an old broom to keep it growing straight but it did. By the time I sold the house in September 2005 the tree was a lot taller than you see it there. Tree sparrows nested in the top of the tree later when it was taller and a pair of cardinals even built a nest on one of the lower branches about waist high from the ground hidden by a branch above it. If the trees could talk!

Its another of those pleasant memories you tend not to forget!! What memories have you got to share? - V

summertime

Well, since its summer now (or supposed to be!), here is a photo taken in the late 1950s in a park in London, Ontario. My mother made the outfits but things have changed a lot since those days! My father was taking the photo. Can you remember those days as a child when you had no worries and were carefree, just living from day to day? - V

brothers II

Our first year in Canada was nothing to what came later when it was time to attend school. These photos were taken during our first Christmas in London, Ontario after spending the summer on a farm outside Hensall, north west of the city. My mother didn't much care for the mice that frequented the house and a bull chasing my mother and older half-brother through a farmer's field did it for her. That was the final straw! She was a city girl born and raised in Berlin, not a country person at all. My father, on the other hand, was born in a village and was used to the country life and all it offered.
During the Christmas Eve dinner, I had the bright idea of taking an empty wine bottle to my lips and Norbert thought this was hilarious. Amazing what you'll do as kids to amuse yourselves!
As with other European families, we had our own "children's table" where we sat down to eat away from the adults. You can see the stuffed monkey and other toys on the floor behind us, all brought over with us from Germany. Just a little something else to share with you! - V

brothers

For those of you who have never had siblings I pity you because you don't know what you're missing out on. Norbert was my younger brother who was born in December 1954 just after Christmas. I was born the previous year in August. We share the same room for years. It wasn't until 1972 or 1973 that we each had our own room but in light of his sudden and unexpected death in March 1974 I often wonder whether having our own rooms was a mistake! In the photo above, I am on the left, Norbert is on the right. We had just come from a children's birthday party on the ship. That's the only image I have of us in party hats!
Norbert had taken a bath after we had spent some time chatting about travel in the dining room. It was at the table I last saw him alive. In what had unfolded in the bathroom ended in his taking his life. There was no warning. It just happened and we were all affected afterwards in different ways. The emotions are as fresh today as they were then.
If you have brothers or sisters, cherish the moments together. You just never know when they end and you're left with the memories! Make those memories good ones!!! And we don't really know how much we miss them until afterwards!
The photos above were taken by my father on our crossing of the Atlantic on the ship, the Arosa Star, in June 1957. We had left from Bremerhaven, Germany and landed in Montreal, Canada. They bring back pleasant memories more than worth remembering! - V

monkey business

This is a photo of my late brother Norbert and myself in the winter of 1955. This was two years before we came to Canada. Note the stuffed monkey on the counter with the horn! Keep that in mind when you re-read the Gemini horoscope in the previous post. - V

brothers

My younger brother Norbert was the only true brother I've ever known. Here's a photo of the two of us, Norbert on the left and me on the right, on the balcony of our apartment in Knittlingen, Germany where we lived at the time before coming to Canada. I was three at the time and Norbert was two. That was 1957 before emigrating! Norbert passed on in 1974 and is missed! - V