They gather like grasshoppers

Petra Richter Brno
There’s not much to write about our family. It’s only my mother, my father and me. I have no brothers and sisters. I think it’s kind of a revenge—for no reason – by my parents.
And all my grandmas and grandpas diedbefore I was born. So I have only aunts and uncles: nothing interesting.
But I have a "second family” in Germany and it is very large. When they celebrate and are all gathered together there are about hundred of them – not that I know all of them, not by a long shot, but it’s true: there are terribly many of them.
I decided to write about them because there is nothing to tell about my own family.
There is one thing about them that surprised, even astonished me. Their children give birth to children. That seems a bit disgusting to me.
I once saw a mother of a thirteen year-old girl on television. When she was asked her opinion she answered: “I know they’re having sex, but what can I do?” Well – . I don’t know.
My “second family” is German, as I said, but they are also Gypsy and Czech. But nobody can speak Czech anymore, and nobody would say they are Gypsies because they have mixed with Germans very much in the course of the years. Only one branch still has Gypsy characteristics.
They aren’t my friends. I only recently got to know them. They’re pleasant and all that, but when I see the sixteen year-old son-–forgive me for saying it – licking his mother…. And the grandmother acts as a brothel mama, which she really is. I can’t be a friend of these two.
But the others are normal, except that Gypsy blood circulates in them.
They don’t spend much on themselves, but only care for their kids: they don’t want them to suffer. When they come to visit us their first thought is: what to buy for kids. On one hand it is nice, but on the other hand I wonder: what joy are they getting from life? Perhaps the kids will repay them. Perhaps.
There is one thing I really like about them. They always help each other. When someone has a problem or finds himself in a critical situation, they gather like grasshoppers, forget all their quarrels, and give him a helping hand. I think that’s very nice.
My dad always tells me that if something bad happened to him he wouldn’t be afraid to send me to them. He knows they would take good care of me.
And I wouldn’t be afraid to go there either.
It’s not my real family: they’re just good friends of ours. But I love them very much.

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