Going back to the beginning

I was born on a March day [number redacted] years ago in a U.S. Army hospital in Germany. My mother hadn’t expected to get pregnant when she and my older siblings joined my father there, but she’d been trying for a couple of years, so she was happy. She had some complications during her pregnancy, and maybe that’s why my parents had a housekeeper/nanny for the only time during their marriage. Or maybe it was just customary for young German women to make money by working for military families.

When my parents brought me home, I shared Lennie’s loving care with my brother and sister. My mother always said Lennie treated me like her own, and I even still have some clothes Lennie made for me that my mother saved. I have no memory of Lennie; I was just shy of six months old when we were transferred from Germany back to the States. I’ve heard that Lennie cried when we left.

Now a part of me is returning to a home I don’t remember. I’m not sure how the title translates, but this is the German version of A Coventry Christmas. I wonder if Lennie is still alive, will see it, recognize the author name, and maybe remember the infant she once cradled and sang to sleep. This one’s for you, Lennie.

18 thoughts on “Going back to the beginning”

  1. AS for Lennie, awww… that’s a very sweet story. I do know that is how a lot of the german girls and women make money. My family lives very close to Kaiserslautern so the military was everywhere — and all my cousins and all my Aunts worked on the base or for Americans.

      1. But I was commenting on the title of the book (as translated by Marika), “Cinnamon Stars with Sugar Glaze.” Surely that doesn’t qualify my comment as fondue? Now if I had written “Lynne Cheney looks like German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s evil twin” or “I wish Paul Rudd came sugar glazed” then I’d say you have a point.

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