It took me one year to get here. Nevertheless, I am here. This place is beautiful and you have chosen it. I have your picture with me. First, Montreaux, than Gstaad. One night, a romantic trip. How everything have changed. We did not go together. I told them in the hotel that instead of a romantic dinner for two it will be a mourner dinner for one. A dinner full of memories. It would have been such a lovely trip. While sitting in a panoramic train Golden Pass, I thought about you every minute. You would have taken a camera, run from one end of the train to another, from one side to another. There are only mountains behind the window. I look at the mountains being aware that they have taken you from me. That is why I do not like them. You liked them a lot. Maybe, one day I will too. I am not sure. They are majestic, silent. They know a lot. There are many stories of lives taken by them. You would plan to climb one of them while I would swim. This is how we did it all the time. Me water, you mountains.
I am here. The hotel is impressive. It is not huge but there is a charm in every corner. It is beautiful, nostalgic. It seems like seeing Hercule Poirot here. You would like it here.
There is a fire in the fireplace. People from the reception came. I am filling papers with tears in my eyes. When someone wishes me a nice stay, I cannot stop thinking that both of us have to be here.
Girls said, “Mum, enjoy and have some rest”. It was an extremely difficult year.
It is impossible to enjoy. Completely impossible. An evening walk took me back to the year 1994. We got married. You gave me a present. We went for a dinner to a restaurant Bellevue in Prague. I tried a spinach soup with roasted mushrooms. There was a bit of pesto with garlic, a bit of olive oil with a nuts taste. It was the best spinach soup I have ever eaten.
“Bellevue” translated from French to Czech means a nice view or a nice prospect. When I ate the soup with you, being 24 or 25 years old, it looked like a nice prospect. Nice moments were ahead of us, birth of our first daughter Anicka followed by Klarka and Terezka. Trips, parenting, new languages, new challenges. Conflicts and reconciliations, good and bad decisions. Circle is closing. I am in a hotel with the same name. I grasped it yesterday during the walk when I saw the name of the hotel under the lights illuminating it. One of the most beautiful period of the year is coming. Christmas. Cities and villages are preparing for silence and meditation. Once the rush of chasing for presents finishes, time for glass of red or white wine comes. Maybe champagne. Christmas dinner and everything around it. People will look forward the end of the year. The only thing I look for is to carry on and hold our hands with girls. Being together, close to each other, watching a fairy tale in the evening.
When someone says, “Have a nice Christmas, enjoy”, I am not sure, how to do it. I have not enjoyed anything for a long time. Such a nice feeling of endorphins everywhere in the body that something went well. I am only fulfilling tasks and trying to survive. I am like a well-oiled machine. I am cutting one task after another, as a digger in the Most region, digging its shovel into earth. A visit of Bellevue in 1994 had a completely different feeling that a visit of the place of the same name this year in a different part of the world. This year, I am crying having this present.
One thing is sure. It will not happen next year. You will not be here and I will manage everything. There will be no present from you. I have not more tears, I have cried too much throughout this year.
Gstaad, 15.12.2020
Hi Lea, I am reading your memories with lots of emotions. As your girls said, enjoy and have some rest as much as possible. Would love to see you in 2021. Big Hugs, Guylaine