When I was
a child, my grandmother used to earn a few Pfennig (Pennies/Cents) by removing
decoration and greenery from the wreaths people had taken from the gravesides of
their loved ones and thrown away. She would carry them to the garden shop for
re-use. I was allowed to help every now and then and I remember vividly the red
hands from the rusty wires and the prickly fir-tree green. It was not a
pleasant job. If my memory does not fail me, I received 5 Pfennig per piece.
Forty years
later, my mother still un-wraps old wreaths, but she also redecorates them
herself for the family’s gravesides. Each
year for the Sunday of Commemoration of the Dead she sends a package across
Germany with a wreath to be placed on my second grandmother’s grave.
And each
year my aunt returns a package containing the used wreath base. It arrived when
I visited recently and contained, in addition, tasty apples from my aunt’s
garden. All content was protected by padding made by the one-way nets of
produce she had collected for me for some time.
Yes, I
agree, looking at the whole procedure from the outside, it has its funny
aspects. But hey, it is not junk, we move across the country, but crafter’s raw
material…
