Long time

It has gone a long time since I wrote on this blog. A lot has happened in this five, soon six, month.

My Mom got a massive heart attack the 26th of June and did never recover from that. She died, 86 years old, the 23rd of September and after that I’ve had a lot to take care of.

I’ve been helping her with her invoices and other bank matters for some years now so it was me who took care of the paper work after her death too. Hopefully everything will be ready before the New Year is coming up. Otherwise I’ve to make her declaration two more years, 2013 and 2014.

I’ve also contacted a lawyer who is doing the inventory of her belongings and assets, and now I’m waiting for these papers to come back from the Swedish Tax Agency so I’m able to close everything after my Mom.

Mom’s apartment is emptied and clean, so now I only have to hand over the keys to the landlord one day the coming week.

It feels very strange and sad to know that this is the finally end. No more “fika” (coffee time/break) on Friday afternoons when I made her hair. I’ve done that for as long as I can remember.

When my Dad lived (he died in 2006) I used to fix his hair too, with haircut and sometimes his hair sprawled in all directions so I put some hair mousse in it so he looked more respectable.

My in-laws have also taken a lot of my time the last year actually. My mother-in-law has at last, after a lot of persuasion, a place on the elderly section in the service home they have lived at for the last six years. She has been there for a week now, and is not satisfied. She’s demented and doesn’t know/understand what’s best for her, she’s 89 years old.

I’ve also had to get some help for my father-in-law who’s 93. Now when he’s alone he needs to be looking after too. The home care service is coming daily to look after him, and that’s nice to know.

Hopefully I’ll get some time over for things I want to do for my self now when they are taken care of and my Mom (sadly) no longer is here. But that’s of cores only wishful thinking.

Bertil is getting more and more dependent on me because of his brain tumor. After four and a half years the illness is taking out the last of his strength. He has been taking/eating so much medicine (cytostatic) over these years so now it seems to knock back instead of helping him.

He has difficulties to walk, rise up from sitting to standing, is dizzy, and has got diabetes from all the cortisone, and thrombosis because of the cancer.

Most of the time I’ve hard to understand what he says and what he’s talking about. He’s fabricating own words and thinks that I’m able to understand them. According to him there’s nothing wrong with his talking, and I’m the one that is “sick” in my head. Every day is a challenge with him. Is he in a good or bad mood? Will he be able to get up from his bed today or do I have to call for help…? How long will it be like this and how long am I able to get along before I need help?! So far I’ve had the strength to keep my mind up, and that I’m grateful for.

He lies on his bed most of the day and is also sleeping a lot. His car has been standing unmoved for the last month and that is very reliving to know.

I really, really do not wish to see him “go”, but how long can a body be able to function on such low flame. It’s so very hard to see a person you have lived together with for 45 years be so helpless and most of the time very black hearted.

We met in 1966, I was 15 and he 19 years old. We were together as often as we could (read every day). He should know by now that I will do and are doing everything that I’m able to do for him, but in his eyes I’m not doing a shit.

It’s strange, I know him in and out, but after all these years he hasn’t a clew who I am in any way at all. Perhaps that’s a typical manly thing, I don't know.

On the bright side, today anyhow, is that I’ve been at a dance show. Agnes is participating in a dancing group for kids, “Funky Kids”. All the kids were dancing very good and seemed to have very fun on the stage.

Grandma's sweetheart

Agnes will be 8 years old on New Years Eve.

HAVE A NICE DAY!

KRAM EVA

Birthday cake

Today we celebrated Maria's birthday. 

It's her 30th birthday on Wednesday the 21st of December.

 The cake she had baked was very, very tasty!

 Here is one of her "babies", Embla...

 ...and here is the other one, Vincent.

She also had a beautiful Amaryllis ;-)

Hope you will have a nice day!

Kram Eva

Hipp, Hipp Hooray!

Today we have celebrated Maria's Birthday! She will be 29 on Tuesday the 21st. She had made a very tasty Birthday cake.

Maria's cake.

Clownish Agnes and Tintin were also celebrating Maria today =)

Kram Eva

Kusinbarn - sysslingar

Sju stycken kusinbarn träffades den 21 maj hemma hos mormor Marie-Louise på hennes födelsedag. Det som var extra roligt den dagen, förutom mammas födelsedag, var att lilla Leah var med. Leah bor med sin mamma och pappa i Nya Zealand och är "hemma" i Sverige på besök.

Från vänster:
Ebba, Elvira, Felisia och lilla Allis i mormor Margaretas famn. Sedan har vi mina två små barnbarn Agnes och Tintin med mamma Anna i bakgrunden. Sist men inte minst mormor Mia med lilla Leah på höften.
Som syns på bilden så var det inte lätt att få alla telningar att titta åt mitt håll i några sekunder och inte heller kunde de vara stilla :)
Förutom de här sju kusinbarnen så finns det ytterligare 12 stycken kusinbarn som inte var med på träffen. De bor lite utspridda från Malmö i söder till Stockholm i norr, och de barnen som är med på bilden bor alla på Bjärehalvön, utom Leah då förstås.
Sammanlagt är vi 6 syskon som har 15 barn. De i sin tur har sammanlagt 19 barn (senast jag räknade) .

Ha en bra dag!

Kram Eva

Yesterday

Yesterday was Anna's 35th birthday!

I haven't forgotten her, but I haven't had time to blog about it until now ;-)

Happy Birthday again Anna!

One rose for Anna and one for Peter.

My Little Pony

Agnes loves to play with auntie Maria's My Little Ponies when she's visiting us. When Tintin is taking an afternoon nap, she's able to play without interruption from her little brother.

HAVE A NICE WEEK!

My Family

Today something took place that doesn’t happen so very often nowadays. Almost my whole family was meeting up at my mother’s place this afternoon. My oldest brother Christian wasn't participating.

My brother Anders has been visiting Skåne for some days now. He lives in Stockholm, so we are not seeing him and his family so very often. (We all live here at the Bjärehalvön in the southern parts of Sweden except for Anders).

He drove back to “the big city” after our meeting, so he’s hopefully safely back home by now.
Fortunately I had my little camera with me, and here’s the result (not the best shootings) of our little “family get-together" this afternoon.

My siblings and my mother.

Marie, Anders, Kerstin, my mother Marie-Louise, Margareta...

...and here am I also participating ;-)

HAVE A NICE DAY!

Sune's 90th Birthday!

Sune is my father-in-law, and yesterday he had his 90th birthday. He had his anniversary celebration at restaurant Hovs Hallar.
We had a nice afternoon with good Christmas food, Swedish Christmas Smorgasbord, and all his relatives were gathered together.

Signe 86, and Sune 90.

If I get that old, I hope that I will be as bright in my brain and "young" in my body and mind as they are. Of course they both have their ailments. Sune's eye sight is bad, he's blind on one eye and Signe has some difficulties to walk because she's broken her legs a couple of times. Otherwise they are healthier than most people at their age.

HAVE A NICE DAY!

Laughing =)

Today I've been laughing a lot =) I've had my grandchildren here for three days and we have had a lot of fun during these three days. I would lie if I said that I'm NOT tired after thre days with two small children, but that doesn't matter when you are having fun :))))

A great hug!

Running around =)

Agnes is whistling :)

Cutie!!!

Gamine (busfrö) ;-)

Grandpa is coming!

Happy!!!

"Water" painting =)

HAVE A NICE DAY!

Two Great Men

Today it would have been my Dad's 85th birthday. Me and my sisters went home to our Mom this afternoon and celebrated him with flowers and a small birthday cake.

We all miss him very much.

This picture of my Dad was taken the summer 1955 in Kattvik, Båstad.

*************************************************************

Today we also got to know that our dear old friend Julius Hagander had passed away this last night after a short time of disease. He was born in 1925.

Bertil has known Julius all his life, and I since I meet Bertil in 1967.

Julius was a very nice, charming and caring man. He always had a smile on his face and he also was a very generous person.

Mine and Bertil's thoughts goes to his whole family a sad day like this. Julius will be missed by a great number of friends.

These pictures (it's a collage) were taken in Julius garden the 30th of June, 2008. Bertil and I was served up with coffee and cakes by Julius, and we had a nice couple of hours together .

Take care of each other out there! You only live once, and you will never know when it's your time to say goodbye to this life that have been given to you on your day of birth.

HOPE YOU ALL WILL HAVE A NICE DAY!

Graduation Day for Maria

Today it's Maria's day. She's graduating from the florist school Ingvar Strandhs Blomsterskola. The course of study has ranged/gone over 40 weeks.
It's also Maria's name day according to the Swedish calender. Her second name after Maria is Karolina.
Congratulatins Maria to both your exams and your name day =)))))

Lots of HUGS for my "little" girl today!!!!

Maria, Karolina Hagbjärn

The picture was taken the 19 November, 2008 by:

Photographer Mette Ottosson

HAVE NICE DAY!

My days just flies off!

Already Thursday?
My days (Thursday-Saturday) in Stockholm were nice, despite the sad reason why I went there, but it was also far too short time to get enough time to speak to my cousins.
My mother and I stayed at my brother Anders and his wife Catarina’s home. Anders was very kind and drove us wherever we needed to go, (he also attended the funeral) to and from the airport and so on. He’s a taxi driver, since 41 years back, so he’s accustomed to the traffic in Stockholm, and knows every street and place in the whole city.
Friday evening we went to Tyresö Slottskrog and ate Swedish Julbord (Christmas buffet or Swedish smorgasbord). The food was very tasty and we all got satisfied more than enough ;-)
Saturday at 12 pm we landed at the small airport, Barkåkra again, and Bertil picked us up.
Bertil had coped by himself these two days smoothly, just as I had believed.

******************************************************

Yesterday it was Christmas Eve and as usually we, Bertil, I, Maria, Anna, Ronnie, Agnes and little Tintin had Christmas dinner, here at about 13.30 pm, and then we opened our gifts.
Agnes was very tense all through the dinner. All she wanted was to open Christmas gifts. Food wasn’t interesting at all. Because she’s almost four years old, she remembered how it was last Christmas. Tintin on the other hand didn’t have any memories, he was only 6 month old last Christmas, and so he was very confused. He wasn’t that interested in opening any gifts. He just wanted to pick them up from the paper bags that we had stored them all in, but there was one gift that he got from Bertil and me that he liked very much. It was a big truck with a smaller car on its lorry platform.
We had a lovely day and evening together, as always. A big THANK YOU and lots of hugs to my dear family!

Here are some pictures from our Christmas Eve ;-)

Christmas Spirit

Maria and Agnes.

Anna has got a yoga mat from Maria.

This is me with a book I got from Maria.

A happy little boy, Tintin.

Agnes is drawing upside down.

Tintin is sweeping =)))

Agnes has got a Snow white doll from Grandma and Grandpa.

Tintin and Agnes is playing with his new truck.

Agnes, Tintin and daddy Ronnie.

Tintin is joking with Grandpa Bertil...

...and so is Agnes.

HAVE A NICE DAY!

Leaving for the big city

Well, today I and my mother are flying to Stockholm because tomorrow, the 19th the funeral for her brother that so tragically died the 1st of November, is taking place. It will be nice to see some of my relatives again, but it had been nicer under other circumstance.
Don’t remember exactly when I visited the "big city" recently. Perhaps it’s 8-10 years since I was there.
Bertil is (I think) a little bit anxious to be left alone, but I think he’s more capable then he think he is. He’s taken some medicine at the moment, and for him that’s more complicated then it really is. I’ve written a lot of instructions, so I’m not worried. His medical condition at the moment is very good, it’s just that he’s so forgetful and don’t believe in him self anymore. His ego is very low, but when he really has to do things by his own I actually think that he’s capable of doing it. He’s very dependent on me, so he really needs to be by his own for a couple of days, (I think anyhow).

This is what I'm looking at when I'm sitting at my computer. My grandchildren in "double edition", so to say ;-)Vincent and Embla is kind of grandchildren too of cores =)))))

HAVE A NICE DAY!

Lucia - 2008

Today at about 3.30 pm my mother had some visitors, both big and small. Four of her 15 grandchildren and seven of her 18 great-grandchildren came and celebrated Lucia with her. The children were singing Lucia songs and then they had some hard earned syrup, gingerbread and Lucia cats.

Agnes and Tintin on their way to greatgrandmother Marie-Louise...

...and here are some more children - cousins and next-cousins.

The walk way into her apartment...

...and here they are arriving at her frontdoor. Elvira, Julia, Ebba, Felisia, Agnes, Tintin and Allis (sitting on her mothers arm).

From left: Agnes, Tintin, Ebba, Allis, Elvira, Julia and Felisia.

Agnes and Tintin are a little bit sky of there next cousins. They do not meat them that very often, but the other five at the picture are first cousins and are meating quite often though.

They all were singins very nice and a lot of Christmas and Lucia songs. Afterwards they applaud them selves ;-)

Poor Tintin, he's the only boy among all the girls ;-)

HAVE A NICE DAY!