Healthy Diet Weight Loss

This post is going to be a sad one. I am writing it whilst in Germany, a visit that was not planned. -

– I started to write this post early October, but I never made it to the finished product, too many things have been going on. I will try to finish it now though.

For more than 9 months I had been thinking that I would like to go back and visit my parents, but there was always a reason why it didn’t work out at the time. Money, work, kids school, it was my parents turn, I wanted to lose more weight before I went back because I wanted to look great for them… I had all sorts of reasons why I did not go back then. The last time we were over was in July 2009, when I wrote to you about the problem with holidays and weight loss, the health benefits of red wine and the health benefits of chocolate, all blog posts about my visit in Germany at the time.

Well, unfortunately I have found my reason to go back – and I wish I never had. It was the worst possible scenario – and that is that my Dad passed away on 29th September. I got the phone call at around 10:30pm at night, I was sitting at my dining table doing what I am absolutely not supposed to do: eat and read.

When the phone rang, I thought “who on earth is ringing me so late?!?!” but when I answered, I only could hear a silence, and then my Mum: “Well, Petra ….” – and I knew something awful had happened. My mum struggled to get the words out: “Der Papa ist gestorben.”

I nearly lost it right there and then.

I could not believe it, I even told my mum she was making a joke. But it wasn’t. I had not seen my Dad for more than 2 years, and now I am not going to see him ever again. Incomprehensible. Unimaginable.
We had been very close, even though we were so far apart. To think that I will not ever be able to talk to him again, for him not to see his grandchildren grow up, for my Mum to be alone in the future…. just not possible.

In Germany

So, you might imagine, my weight and maintaining a blog at the moment are quite far from my mind. I hope you will not abandon me in the next few weeks, whilst I am trying to come to terms with what has happened and might not write much in this blog during that time.

I am finishing today with a poem from Hermann Hesse, a German Poet, which I will send on to my Mum tonight (in German) because I hope that she can draw strength from it.

To all of you out there, I can only say – if you want to do something, or see somebody, and you keep putting it off for whatever reason – don’t, or it might be too late. I have to live with the thoughts now that I could have seen him one more time if I wouldn’t have been so vain to put a visit off because of my weight. My Dad would not have cared, anyway!!!!!

Hermann Hesse – “Stufen” – “Steps”

As every flower wilts, and all youth gives way to old age,
Each step on the journey of life blooms.
Each insight, too, and every truth believed in
Flowers in its own time
And may not last for ever.

At every call of life, the heart must be ready to depart
And to start anew.
To be courageous, not full of sorrow,
And then to make new bonds, and new connections.

And in each new beginning dwells a magic, an enchantment,
That protects us
And helps us
To live.

It is essential that we walk and move from one stage of our lives to the next
With joy!
Not to try to grasp and keep hold of a particular one
As we might onto a childhood toy or memory.

The spirit of the world and that of life does not intend to strangle or subdue us.
We are being willed to grow, to broaden, and to live,
Step … by step.

As soon as we become too familiar and comfortable with one particular stage or room,
The energy from it begins to fail.
Only those who are prepared to break camp
And venture forth
Can free themselves from that sapping of energy.

Even when we are at death’s hour,
We may be sent to yet another realm,
New stage,
New step on our way:
Our hearts full of the spirit of adventure,
Youthful again.

Life’s calling to us will never end.

Fare thee well, then, my heart,
Bid your goodbyes;
And life be with you.