2th March 1923

My fathers birthday. He passed away 7 years ago, almost one month before his 80th birthday. Very sudden because of a stroke he had when he was driving home after doing some shopping.
I borrowed the idea of a memorial blip like this from AMerika, I liked the way she made a little collection of the things she kept in memory of hér father.

The old photograph of my father is hanging in my livingroom, just above the couch where I usally come to rest after busy days. The picture was made when he was held captive in a German Arbeitslager near Hamburg during the second world war. It was there when he met my mother who was also held captive there together with a lot of other Russian girls (she was 15 when she was brought to Germany).
The watch that he was last wearing is hanging on his welding(?) diploma. Almost his entire working life he spend working on a shipyard, the NNNS near Groningen.
I also kept his last passport and driverslicense. The two little things on top of the picture frame are a pair of cufflinks shaped as lions, wich he didn't wear often because he thought they were to big.
The lighter was the last one he used to light his Cabbalero's.
There's a pocket watch in the left down corner which he only kept in a box, that one was also to big :-).
At last the little black thing in the bottom. That was a bandage holder he used when he lost the tip of his left forefinger working at the shipyard. He always told me that when a piece of metal had cut it off, a Seagull came, picked it up and flew away with it.

My father was a most warm hearted, sensitive man. He was always there when needed, and not for me alone. I stil celebrate his birth, for what would have become of me if he hadn't been in my life.
I mis him....