Tonight I learned something about my paternal grandparents, Frank and Angelina.
Frank played banjo in a ragtime band, and Angelina was a guitar player.
I have no memory of Frank, since he died when I was three. He decided to remodel his bathroom by himself, and he fell over in the middle of it at the age of sixty-five. Frank and my father were similar in that nobody--not even their own bodies--told them what to do. Frank was deathly allergic to lobster, but once a year he brought home a lobster and had Angelina prepare it. She cooked it in some kind of sauce; the family sat down at the table and said grace; and then Frank took one bite and instantly went into anaphylactic shock.
Pandemonium! The two boys and Angelina would knock over their chairs and scream, and Frank would be ambulanced to the hospital in total respiratory shutdown. He'd be intubated and given antihistamines, and he'd pull through. A year later, he'd bring home another lobster.
I knew Angelina only in her later years. She was... austere, let's say, as unapproachable and mysterious as Dad. A deeply religious Catholic, she spoke only of death, destruction, and disaster. Cancer and tornadoes terrified her, as did the telephone. When it rang, she jumped because she was sure it would be bad news. I inherited choking fits from her. What happens is that I swallow the wrong way and begin to cough. I've gone through it so often that I ride it out, knowing that in three minutes it'll be over. Angelina would faint in panic, sure that this time she would die.
Finding out Angelina was a guitarist blows my mind. I have no idea what kind of a guitarist, but I choose flamenco. I picture her strumming violently and whipping her sweaty hair, snarling, stomping one foot, and grinning like a hungry tigress.
In Dad's history of his family, which he wrote in 1989, I discovered a few minutes ago that Frank used to sing this song to Dad as a bedtime lullaby when Dad was a toddler. Frank sang it in German, which Dad understood:
Here are the lyrics in English:
O, you dear Augustin,
Augustin, Augustin,
O, you dear Augustin,
All is lost!
Money's gone, girlfriend's gone,
All is lost, Augustin!
O, you dear Augustin,
All is lost!
Refrain
Coat is gone, staff is gone,
Augustin lies in the dirt.
O, you dear Augustin,
All is lost!
Refrain
Even that rich town Vienna,
Broke is like Augustin;
Shed tears with thoughts akin,
All is lost!
Refrain
Every day was a feast,
Now we just have the plague!
Just a great corpse's feast,
That is the rest.
Refrain
Augustin, Augustin,
Lay down in your grave!
O, you dear Augustin,
All is lost!
Good night, Edward. Sleep tight.
That lullaby is more in keeping with the Frank I knew of and the Angelina I knew. Dad was terrified of death, so much so that I had participate in his Last Rites to calm him, even though he was unconscious. It worked, and I know he wasn't afraid when he died. For anyone dreading having to do such a thing, it's easy when you think only of the other person. Easing someone's terror is an opportunity we laypersons get only once or twice in a lifetime, if ever. It was the greatest thing I've ever done, in terms of the positive impact it had on another person.
What I hope is that somewhere Dad is jamming on his clarinet with Frank on the banjo and Angelina on the guitar, and they've put all that Teutonic thanatoid nonsense behind them and are just having a good time. I'm pretty sure it's true. I mean, they've died, so in their mind the worst has happened. They died, but it didn't kill them, if you know what I mean. It appears that Dad is trying to tell us he's okay. We've had to empty his wallet three times now because it keeps refilling, and the last time there were eight new dollar bills in it.
Counting Dad, there were eight of us in the family.
Here's Frank at twenty and Angelina at twenty-three. Hellraisers both, I'll bet, which is why Dad's family wants to keep it all under wraps.
So don't tell anyone you've read his.
.
