Survivors

Nana Mouskouri

This woman gives me hope! She is 83 years old and is kicking off a 14-day cross-Canada tour on May 3, with stops in Calgary, Toronto and Winnipeg, to name a few! I just listened to her singing Bob Dylan's "Forever Young" and was amazed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po1ALayrqOE

Recently, in an interview with Hello! Canada magazine, she was asked: "Is retirement in the cards?" Her reply: "No way!" After a 60-year career, Mouskouri is still “elegance in action.” 
Hello! quotes her:
I’m getting older, but when I tried to retire, I realized I had no contact with creativity anymore. Even listening to music was sad for me. My message is this: when you love something, you really can’t separate yourself from it. It’s important to do what you love. If I stop singing, I don’t learn anymore. Life is about creating.

Nana Mouskouri grew up in Greece; besides her mother tongue she is also fluent in German, Italian, English, Spanish, and French. Having lived in several different countries myself, I agree with her when she says, “You need to understand the culture before you try pronouncing words ... .  And it takes patience.”

Nana’s older sister Jenny initially appeared to be the more gifted sibling and since the parents couldn’t afford both girls’ studies, the tutor recommended Jenny over Nana. However, it was Nana who had the true need to sing and became famous. A medical examination revealed that she had only one functioning vocal chord, but apparently this enhanced her singing voice. She sang a husky dark alto in her younger years and later changed to “a ringing coloratura mezzo.” (Wikipedia)

Although I am not musically gifted, Mouskouri’s experience of having to give up voice lessons reminded me of a time during my early teens when I longed to be able to play piano. We were an immigrant family and my parents worked hard to keep their eight children fed and clothed. There was no money for musical instruments or lessons. However, I begged, and somewhere my parents got an old piano. My little sister (eight years younger than me) was deemed to be the musical one. The piano teacher agreed that I could attend the lessons, but my sister would be the one to get the lessons and I would observe and also practise at home.

I really enjoyed playing the piano, but my first and only recital was a disaster so I knew I did not want to perform. However, my great-uncle John (who was to us like the grandpa we never had) would come over on Saturday nights and would sit by the piano and listen to me play. He was musically gifted and could play by ear but he never said a word, just listened. That was his gift to me. 
Later I paid for my own lessons with babysitting money. I still enjoy playing the piano, but we gave it to our daughter when we moved to Manitoba. So now I resort to playing the recorder when the spirit moves me!

Mouskouri’s stamina in her later years reminds me of my mother’s younger brother, my Onkel Hans. He is a survivor! He turned 95 this April and is the last surviving sibling in his family.

As a young man he was conscripted into the German army toward the end of World War II, and for several years our family did not know where he was. However, he found us in Paraguay and later joined us in Canada.

The above photo shows some of our family as refugees from Ukraine in Germany. Onkel Hans is on the right. I am the baby on the left. My grandmother (on the right) is holding my brother.

Onkel Hans loved to have fun with his little nieces and nephews by showing up at night with a glowing flashlight in his mouth and his eyelids turned inside out so they looked red, and then pouncing on us! We shrieked and ran, with him chasing us. After he got married, he would bring his little girl and throw her onto the bed where the four of us were settling down for the night and we all had a good romp. In Paraguay he taught in a village school and later became a pastor.

Onkel Hans sent me this picture of my classmates a year after our family left Paraguay

There was sadness in Onkel Hans's life. He lost his first wife (our Aunt Susan) to ovarian cancer. After several years he married again and it was a happy marriage until Aunt Frieda, too, passed away. He also lost a daughter to ovarian cancer. Some years ago Onkel Hans had a serious heart attack but he survived.

Onkel Hans especially enjoys wood carving as a hobby and in his retirement has made many beautiful pieces over the years.

My grandmother wrote a page in her Bible for each of her children after they were born. It was a big family Bible she and my grandfather received as a wedding gift. On Hans's page she begins very positively about the beautiful spring morning in 1923 (he was born in April) but her joy soon turns to sadness as she writes that he will not have the privilege of having his grandmother close by since she and the rest of the family will be emigrating to America in June.

Her last sentence seems almost prophetic:

Auch wenn alle dich verlassen, du mein Hans! 

Wird dein Heiland dich umfassen, will dich haben ganz.

[Trsl.: Even when all leave you, my Hans! Our Savior will embrace you, he wants to have you completely.]

Forever young! 

"I’m a young man trapped in an old man’s body."

(Onkel Hans's words as he celebrated his 95th birthday)