My father had two brothers, Bogoslav and Marinko. They were born on the Island of Krk or Veglia in Italian. My father was born in 1912, Bogoslav in 1913, and Marinko in 1917. Bogoslav died in 1991, my father in 2001, and Marinko is still alive. Barely, as it turns out. I just talked to his wife, Slavica, who lives in Zagreb. She told me that he is in a nursing home now. It is an hour’s drive from Zagreb. He is suffering from Alzheimer’s, and she cannot take care of him by herself any longer. Until recently, he was known to have Parkinson’s only. My father suffered from a severe form of senile dementia, but it was not diagnosed as Alzheimer’s. Marinko seems to have a milder form of dementia, as he is unhappy to be in a nursing home. He blames his wife for his plight. Slavica is quite distressed about it, too. This was her explanation for not being able to remember her own phone number. "You know," she said as we were saying goodbye for the twentieth time, "life is shit." I kept laughing, thinking of Beckett: "I know, I know…" Except if you suffer from severe dementia, I suppose.

Addendum (October 28, 2003)

As I just learned over the phone from my cousin Maja, uncle Marinko’s daughter, he died yesterday, less than a month since he was moved to his nursing home. It was an easy death, though. He went to sleep and that was that. His heart just gave out. Thus, my father’s siblings are all gone, as are my mother’s. With some luck, I will get closer to their children, my first cousins, as well as their children and grandchildren. On my father’s side, besides Maja, there are Marina and Andrea, uncle Bogoslav’s daughter and son. On my mother’s side there are many cousins. As luck would have it, this afternoon I will meet with my cousin Lela, uncle Dragutin’s daughter, who lives in Rijeka. She has an elder brother, Boris, who lives in Zagreb. One day soon I will meet for the first time my cousin Carmen, aunt Nada’s daughter, and her husband Aldo, my uncle Radovan’s son. Yes, first cousins can marry in Italy, provided they get the Pope’s permission. They live in Trieste, where there are a few other cousins of mine. Sadly, I do not even know how many of them there are, let alone their names.