Shall
I tell you how my mother and father met and got married? Today being
Mothers' Day and all. I always thought it was funny ...
My mom was studying at Tallinn Conservatory to become a concert pianist and working as an accompanist. She wanted to become more independent, so she took a room in a private house, owned by an elderly couple with one son, approximately of the same age as my mom.
My mom loved her studies and was practicing and working hard. But she was an good-looking and popular girl. Tall, slim, with dark hair and green eyes and with a quick wit and sharp tongue. She also had a quality of innocence about her that was very attractive to guys. At the time she was being pursued by an older man, who (o horror of horrors!) was married. He was being very persistent about it too: popping in at all hours and making a general nuisance out of himself.
The people with whom my Mom had rented the room strongly disapproved. The young lady obviously didn't have any morals. Studying to be a musician, smoking, running around, coming home late and ... encouraging inappropriate attention of gentlemen! How fortunate that their beloved son was nothing like that!
At the same time the beloved son and the inappropriate young lady were becoming fast friends. The young man was studying to be an engineer but he, too, was a musician, and quite a good one. He played violin in a jazz band (how's that for degenerate ;) but his parents didn't see it that way). My mom used to accompany him on the piano and they had a great time making music together. He had a vast collection of gramophone records (yes, this is what they were called back then!) and they listened to those, and the radio, getting more and more snug on the couch (wink, wink). There, they discovered a very important fact: they had the exact same taste in music! And that, I might add, is a very rare thing. Especially, taking into account that my mom was a professional musician with an exacting taste and my dad (that was him, as if you already hadn't guessed) had absolute pitch.
Then, one winter night - and what a dark and stormy night it was - my mom's admirer showed up, pissed as a newt. He parked himself under my mom's window, singing a serenade. Then he started to nod off. My mom was watching in horror. It was 10 degrees below zero and she was sure he'd freeze to death if she didn't do anything about it.
So she woke up my dad and together, they transported the half-conscious Romeo inside and planted him on the couch in the living room. They tucked him in and told him to be quiet and sleep. Which, he didn't do. He soon began another serenade at which point my dad's father showed up only to find a total stranger, drunk as a king, in his sitting-room.
The story goes that the unfortunate admirer had opened his eyes, looked at grandfather and said in a feeble voice: "Tell me, doctor, will I die?" which made my grandfather throw a screaming fit, promising to get a gun and shoot him there and then. Then grandmother made her entrance, wringing her hands and sobbing suitably.
My parents - the poor lambkins - were smack in the middle of things, trying to explain, placate and avoid bloodshed. Which, they managed to do, through some miracle - my grandfather had an explosive temper (although, I suspect, he didn't have a gun:).
When all quietened down and the admirer was, once again, safely tucked in (my grandparents may have been utter muggles but they were not heartless), my parents retired in my mother's room and sat there, thinking. After a while, my dad said: "Look, this is no good. He's a bad egg and will never divorce. Why don't we get married instead? I rather think we should!"
At which note, my mother has said yes, without thinking too much about it.
They stayed together for over 30 years, quarrelled a lot down the road but could never get rid of each other. My father died unexpectedly on his birthday of a massive coronary attack and my mother left this world a year later, almost to the day. We often spoke about their relationship (and of ours) with my mother during that final year and finally, came to this conclusion. No matter what, but there was one thing that the three of us could be absolutely certain of: everyone had really loved everyone else. Of that, there was never any doubt. That absolute certainty of someone's love is a powerful thing to have in one's life. That was also their most precious gift to me. In addition to the luck and honour of knowing them.
And ... they were FUNNY.
My mom was studying at Tallinn Conservatory to become a concert pianist and working as an accompanist. She wanted to become more independent, so she took a room in a private house, owned by an elderly couple with one son, approximately of the same age as my mom.
My mom loved her studies and was practicing and working hard. But she was an good-looking and popular girl. Tall, slim, with dark hair and green eyes and with a quick wit and sharp tongue. She also had a quality of innocence about her that was very attractive to guys. At the time she was being pursued by an older man, who (o horror of horrors!) was married. He was being very persistent about it too: popping in at all hours and making a general nuisance out of himself.
The people with whom my Mom had rented the room strongly disapproved. The young lady obviously didn't have any morals. Studying to be a musician, smoking, running around, coming home late and ... encouraging inappropriate attention of gentlemen! How fortunate that their beloved son was nothing like that!
At the same time the beloved son and the inappropriate young lady were becoming fast friends. The young man was studying to be an engineer but he, too, was a musician, and quite a good one. He played violin in a jazz band (how's that for degenerate ;) but his parents didn't see it that way). My mom used to accompany him on the piano and they had a great time making music together. He had a vast collection of gramophone records (yes, this is what they were called back then!) and they listened to those, and the radio, getting more and more snug on the couch (wink, wink). There, they discovered a very important fact: they had the exact same taste in music! And that, I might add, is a very rare thing. Especially, taking into account that my mom was a professional musician with an exacting taste and my dad (that was him, as if you already hadn't guessed) had absolute pitch.
Then, one winter night - and what a dark and stormy night it was - my mom's admirer showed up, pissed as a newt. He parked himself under my mom's window, singing a serenade. Then he started to nod off. My mom was watching in horror. It was 10 degrees below zero and she was sure he'd freeze to death if she didn't do anything about it.
So she woke up my dad and together, they transported the half-conscious Romeo inside and planted him on the couch in the living room. They tucked him in and told him to be quiet and sleep. Which, he didn't do. He soon began another serenade at which point my dad's father showed up only to find a total stranger, drunk as a king, in his sitting-room.
The story goes that the unfortunate admirer had opened his eyes, looked at grandfather and said in a feeble voice: "Tell me, doctor, will I die?" which made my grandfather throw a screaming fit, promising to get a gun and shoot him there and then. Then grandmother made her entrance, wringing her hands and sobbing suitably.
My parents - the poor lambkins - were smack in the middle of things, trying to explain, placate and avoid bloodshed. Which, they managed to do, through some miracle - my grandfather had an explosive temper (although, I suspect, he didn't have a gun:).
When all quietened down and the admirer was, once again, safely tucked in (my grandparents may have been utter muggles but they were not heartless), my parents retired in my mother's room and sat there, thinking. After a while, my dad said: "Look, this is no good. He's a bad egg and will never divorce. Why don't we get married instead? I rather think we should!"
At which note, my mother has said yes, without thinking too much about it.
They stayed together for over 30 years, quarrelled a lot down the road but could never get rid of each other. My father died unexpectedly on his birthday of a massive coronary attack and my mother left this world a year later, almost to the day. We often spoke about their relationship (and of ours) with my mother during that final year and finally, came to this conclusion. No matter what, but there was one thing that the three of us could be absolutely certain of: everyone had really loved everyone else. Of that, there was never any doubt. That absolute certainty of someone's love is a powerful thing to have in one's life. That was also their most precious gift to me. In addition to the luck and honour of knowing them.
And ... they were FUNNY.
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