On April 24, 1922 a little girl was born in the Black Forest. She was the second child of Lydia and Emil Bodammer and would soon find herself as the oldest girl amongst her six siblings. By her tenth birthday she would be caring for the brood while her parents eked out a living selling ice cream in the park and running a concession stand at the local theatre. In her sunset years she would recall spitting in the eyes of the little ones so they would rub them and fall asleep. 

Two decades later the little girl had grown into a young woman who was offered a scholarship to attend an acting school in Berlin. Her father disallowed such extravagance and found her a post as kitchen help in the barracks where she learned to withstand the brutal advances of enlisted men. The benevolent officer who sheltered her from harm stole her heart but would later be executed in the dragnet that ensued from an assassination attempt on the Fuehrer. 

She married another soldier, mostly out of fear that she did not want to end up like her mother, forever condemned as used merchandise for having slept with him. That soldier found himself at the eastern front where the atrocities committed by both sides became too much to bear. He was court-martialled and condemned to death by firing squad for “cowardice in the face of the enemy.” 

By then he had a wife and a young child to care for. As part of a strategy to brutalize the troops, the commandant offered him a reprieve if he agreed to execute his battle buddy. On his next leave her young husband went AWOL from Hitler’s army, an act punishable by instant death. When the young woman emerged with her son from spending the nights in bomb shelters it was the flowering weeds in the cracked pavement that gave her the hope that her husband had survived the night out in the open.

When the war finally ended they found themselves in a small town near Heidelberg after walking across half of Germany. He found employment as a chauffeur for American officers while she was given a typewriter to provide a local perspective about the occupied forces to the U.S. INR. It was then that she saw the leaflets nailed to telephone poles depicting the horrors of Auschwitz and other concentration camps. This left her ranting at God in tears until she collapsed in a heap of sorrow on the floor of their little attic flat. How could a loving, all powerful God permit such atrocities?

Although briefly returning to the bible for guidance some thirty years later, this pivotal event set the stage for a lifelong spiritual quest that took many turns. It was also the time when her material world took on new form. A decade after the war she and her husband had built a thriving European enterprise while bringing two more children into the world. But alas, her business acumen proved too much for her husband’s fragile ego and by the end of the 1950s both their livelihood and their marriage lay in ruin. 

It would be after the arrival of her fourth child, and another decade in poverty as a single mom, that she would cash in her life insurance and spend her last pennies on a one way ticket to Canada. By then necessity had fragmented the family but she still held on to the dream that all would be reunited under one roof. She embraced the transition from successful business manager to housekeeper, living in the basement of a lawyer’s home in Toronto, with pride and dignity. Longing to be reunited with her eldest daughter she soon arrived in California where she found work as a personal care nurse to the rich and (sometimes) famous. 

Eventually she returned to running her own business as the founder and owner of a renowned reflexology center in Glendale where she helped establish this ancient healing art in the minds of the public and professionals alike. It was only after retirement in her mid seventies that she finally realized her childhood dream of living peacefully in a small house in the forest.

As her youngest son, I was fortunate by then to have the financial success that enabled me to buy what we called Oma’s Cottage, nestled in the forest of San Juan Island in Washington State. It is there that we spent her sunset time together before she finally departed this earth for new adventures on March 15th, 2006. Her last wish was that in her next embodiment of consciousness she would not be born into such a poor family and also be reunited with her twin flame. 

Now it’s April 24, 2022. The cherry trees are in bloom. It is surreal that life goes on while so many people are dying. Russia is at war having brutally invaded Ukraine. Women and children are cowering again in bomb shelters and bodies are piling up in mass graves. It is hard to grasp how hard it is for humanity to learn from the past. 

Oma Margarete Teuwen did not have any physical or monetary assets to leave her heirs. A couple of reclining reflexology chairs, a lot of angel statues and a two foot tall likeness of St Francis of Assisi that has found a new home on our front porch. And of course there were countless smaller mementos that found their way into our family’s collection of stuff.

Her gift to me was bigger than all the money in the world. It took the form of her life experience recounted in the stories and anecdotes that she would share from time to time. She spoke of how important it was for her to be able to let go of physical possessions so she could embrace the next opportunity for survival. She spoke of how she focused only on placing one foot in front of the other or she would have never undertaken most of the journeys in her life. 

She spoke of the importance of trusting your own moral compass and not being easily swayed by critics; “If I close the curtains the neighbours ask what is she doing behind those closed curtains. And if I open them, they say there she goes doing striptease for the neighbourhood.” To the amazement, and sometimes ridicule, of others she would hang those curtains and make her home cozy even when she knew that the home was transient or temporary.

Oma introduced me to manifesting my love in my world long before I realized the most important lesson of my life: That love is a verb. 

Oma’s actions confirmed her passion. She would take cuttings from plants in city gardens and always plant them in pairs: “That way if one is struggling, the other can encourage it along.” More than once in outdoor restaurants she would take all the hanging plants down and place them on the tables so they could be watered. “Can you not hear them crying?” she would ask the waitress. While driving through the meadows she would ask to stop the car so she could jump out. She would make tiny bouquets, often from wildflowers and weeds, to brighten up her world.

After the war Oma experienced real hunger personally. And loneliness was her steadfast companion for most of her life. But she accepted loneliness with grace and sometimes even spoke of a loving God whom she welcomed into her arms when he had no one else to turn to for comfort. More than once, she reached out to the homeless with compassion. One such event is chronicled in the draft of a book I’m still working on about her life story.

He was sitting outside the drugstore on the concrete. Ragged shreds of clothes, a tattered sleeping bag protecting him from the indifference of those passing him by. Half forgotten, the cup that stood in front of him would clang with the sound of the odd coin as he gazed into the distance remembering a time long ago. Oma bought some underlay for her dentures and was heading back to the car when he caught her eye. She walked directly over to him and without saying a word, bent down and gently stroked his head. The man, reciprocating the respectful silence, looked up at Oma as tears filled his eyes. A moment passed as they rolled down his cheeks washing a trail through the grime on his face. Then he spoke: "Do you know how long it has been since anyone cared enough to touch me?"

Oma Margarete Teuwen, my dearest Mütterlein, left me the example of courage, fortitude, tenacity, pride, dignity, compassion and the love that is manifest in the appreciation of everyday life. These are gifts I will treasure forever. Today I celebrate that 100 years ago she arrived on this earth.