‘HOW COULD I NOT LOVE YOU, MARO?’
‘HOW COULD I NOT LOVE YOU, MARO?’
Description
The story of a love that overcame every obstacle in its way, even the ravages of time.
Tags
Credits
Field Reporter
- Xaidemenh Paltoglou
Interviewee
- Marw Damianidou
Podcast Producer
- Magia Filippopoulou
Sound Designer
- Iasonas THeofanou
- Dhmhtrhs Palaiogiannhs
Sound Editor
- Spyros Lymperopoulos
Video Director
- Apostolhs Karoulas
Voiceover
- Eva Kesserling
We met when I was sixteen years old, one Sunday morning, when he came as secretary to our community and had come to see the village. We met outside the church.
I felt something very strange. I was still a child, the tomboy of the village. And love and all the rest of it was the farthest thing from my mind. But, when I saw Damianos, something changed inside me, although I couldn’t understand what. From then on in, I couldn’t get him out of my mind.
I wanted to see him, and I would leave school to be on time for the bus that came to the village, to go to see him. And that’s how we would meet. We would get on the bus and sit on the same seat. He would buy the ticket – such a gentleman – and he would ask me about school. At some point, he said, ‘Maro, do you want us to go out together?’ I began trembling all over. I just wanted to fall into his arms, but... I was scared. I was still a child. My body might have felt like that of a woman, but my heart and mind were still those of a child and I was afraid. Add to that I was afraid of my family, because things were different in those days, girls weren’t all free.
He kept trying for two years, and I, of course, kept turning him down... Until one day we fell out and he stopped chasing me. It was during this time that he got engaged to another girl from the village. We didn’t see each other at all for about a year.
One day we took wheat to the church. The priest reads a prayer over it and the girls put it under their pillow, to see who they’ll marry. We were living with the sister of my sister-in-law – Poppy and I slept in the same bed – and we put the wheat under our pillows. In the morning Poppy asked me, ‘So, what did you dream about?’ And I replied, ‘What if I told you I dreamt about... Damianos?’ I said, ‘I saw him passing by outside the house and cutting a branch of red carnations and then giving it to me...’. ‘You see’, she replied, ‘it’s all just rubbish. Seeing an engaged man in your sleep!’ I asked, ‘What did you see?’ ‘I’, she replied, ‘saw a donkey!’ and we fell about laughing...
One day, I was taking some rubbish out and the postman came. ‘Who is Maria Akritidou?’ he asked. ‘Me’, I replied. Then he said, ‘You have a letter’. I took it – I still have it over there – and Damianos had sent me his wishes for my name day, ‘On the occasion of the celebration of your name day, I wish you a long life and for every worthy desire to come true’. On the one hand, this made me so happy, but, on the other, I thought to myself, ‘He’s an engaged man. Why would he send this?’ One of my friends insisted that I replied, I didn’t want to. She finally convinced me, and I answered. Just a ‘thank you’, nothing more. However, he wrote back again. He wrote about the time when he wanted us to start a relationship, but I had kept refusing...
At Christmas, I went up to the village. I was now nineteen years old, and we started to meet up. My family found out and they threw me out of the house. I took my suitcase with the few clothes I had and went to Kavala, to my sister’s. On the tenth day, my father came and said, ‘Please, come back home’. So, I went and it all started over; I wasn’t allowed to go out, it was all the same.
At some point, Damianos said, ‘It can’t go on like this; let’s get engaged’. I said this to my parents, and my father said, ‘Alright. Let him come on Saturday and ask for your hand’. On Friday morning, my brother came, and who knows what was said. But my father shouted, ‘Tell Damianos not to bother coming. There’s no way we’ll come to an arrangement!’
I carried on with Damianos. At some point, one of my young nephews told my father, ‘I saw Maro and the secretary sitting together at the confectioners!’ When we got home, all hell broke loose. They wouldn’t let me go out at all, not in the village, nothing. But when a woman sets her heart on something... So, what if there were three men in the house and as many women! We sent each other notes, love letters, and stayed in touch. Every evening, after everyone had come home, I would go out into the yard and meet with Damianos.
This went on for quite a while, until the day I started work. It was the 11th of September, an unforgettable day. From then on, I was free to do what I wanted. And my father had no choice but to say to my mother, ‘Tell Maro to tell Damianos to come. Let’s get them engaged and get it over with. There’s no way those two are going to separate’.
They met over coffee, and my father asked him, as they did in those days, ‘What do you want? What are your demands?’ ‘I’, he replied, ‘am not asking for anything. Maro and I will make our own life together. There’s nothing we want from you but your blessing’. This was Tuesday. I asked Damianos, ‘When will we have the engagement?’ ‘Thursday’, was his reply. I said, ‘Hold your horses! That’s just two days away. Let’s do it on Saturday’. ‘No!’ he said, ‘Thursday. Because god knows what might change by Saturday’.
The priest who performed the wedding ceremony was drunk and almost spilled wine on my wedding dress. But Damianos snatched it out of his hand, and it wasn’t stained. Of course, I had the best wedding dress of that time, better than anything anyone else had worn. Everything was perfect...
We set up house. I got pregnant with our first child, our daughter, and then with the second. From then on, we were never apart. Never, except for one or the other of us going into hospital, and once when I went to Athens for twenty days to retrain as a secretary. These were the only times we didn’t sleep in the same bed. We got to know each other and the love we shared. We improved each other’s character without arguing, without... It was wonderful. We had everything: parties, nights out, trips, a social life, friends. Our home was always full. In summer, outside, the balcony was packed.
In early 2014, he was diagnosed with dementia, Alzheimer’s. I knew something was wrong. Things that he used to do well, he couldn’t do anymore. Half the village's tax returns, but he said to me, ‘I can’t do the return. It’s too hard!’. This was the first time. I said, ‘You’re just getting old’. I said, ‘Finish it and take it to the accountant’. So, he went and came back more cheerful. ‘Everything was fine’, he said. So, I said, ‘You see?’ But, despite this, I noticed other things, difficulties driving... I said, ‘Children, something is wrong. I’m taking your father to see the doctor’.
And so, I took him in. ‘I suspect, Mrs Damianidou’, the doctor said, ‘that he is developing Alzheimer’s. His brain is turning from dark to light grey. But you can keep going to the café. Carry on Damianos’, he said, ‘Keep doing what you usually do. It’s nothing. We’ll get you started on medication’.
And then one day, he said to me, ‘Maro, I don’t want to drive again. I know that something’s not right, and I don’t want to be responsible for killing anyone’. And he never drove again. Others with Alzheimer’s have to be forced to give up their keys. But even with his illness, he was still logical.
One day, while we were out walking, he fell. He broke his hip. The doctors said, ‘He’s not going to walk again, because, when he has to stay in bed, he will think that this is the state he’s supposed to be in’. And the truth is he never walked by himself again. I hired a girl for the house, to help me out, but he didn’t want anyone else, just me. He was so ashamed. I had to change him; he couldn’t do it by himself. He couldn’t go to the toilet. I bathed him. I did everything. I took care of him. Mrs Lemoni would say to me, ‘Put him in a home, just for two weeks. You need to rest’. ‘No!’ I said, ‘Not even for an hour. Not one hour!’
I was the first to be lost to his illness. It was 22nd April, our anniversary. The day before we had been fine. He chatted away happily. I said, ‘Damianos, today is our wedding anniversary’. He said, ‘It is?’ ‘Happy anniversary’, I told him. ‘Happy anniversary’, he replied. But in a way that sounded confused. And then he turned to me and said, ‘Can I ask you something? What’s your name?’ This was the first time he didn’t recognise me. The day of our wedding anniversary. I said, ‘Damianos, it’s me, Maro!’ And I said to myself, ‘That’s it. It’s all over...’
And so it started. He wouldn’t recognise me. He wanted me to go. He pushed me away. ‘Get out’, he told me, ‘Keep away from me. I don’t want to hurt you!’ ‘Damianos’, I persisted, ‘It’s me, Maro. Your wife!’ ‘No’, he kept saying, ‘You’re not my wife! Get out! Don’t you ever dare mention my wife’s name again! You don’t know what a wife I have! You’ve never met her! If you had, you’d know what kind of a woman I’m talking about!’ And this, he was saying to me...
One day, he’d grabbed hold of my hands and wouldn’t let me go, I managed to hit the redial on the phone. I’d been speaking to my son, who picked up, and I shouted, ‘Philippos, get here now! I don’t... Your father’s got hold of my hands, and he won’t let me go! I don’t know what he might do!’ He rushed round. But he’d forgotten his keys – all the children have keys to the house – so, he beat the lock out – imagine how worried he was – and grabbed his father’s hands. ‘Dad, what are you doing? It’s Mum!’ he said, ‘Are you trying to kill her?’ He let go of my arms, and looked at my son like this, his eyes full of tears. And they hugged, and both of them cried. There’s no worse illness...
For ten days, he didn’t speak at all. He ate, we fed him, he ate. I called in the pathologist once, who said, ‘He’s fine. He looks fine to me’. He was so breathing well. I would take Xanax at night so I could sleep. The previous evenings, I would wake up four times during the night to see if he was OK, if he was still breathing. And when I couldn’t sleep, I would hold him, take his hand and then I could sleep.
I had cleaned him, bathed him, shaved him, changed him. And that’s when I cried. I bent over him, I held him, and kissed him, and told him, ‘Damianos, how I Love you! I want you to know that. But I don’t know if you love me’. And then he turned, and looked at me – you’re not going to believe this – and said, ‘How could I not love you, my Maro?’ Even though he hadn’t been speaking at all! And Voula said, ‘I don’t believe it, Maro! I can’t believe he spoke!’ He never spoke again.
On his gravestone, I wrote, ‘Take me with you where you are going. Kiss me and take away my pain. Hold me and take away my fears. Take my hand when I lose my way on the paths of loneliness’.
I only ever knew one man; I fell in love with one man; loved one man. And now, I’m done. I don’t know if there are many such couples. I don’t know if there is such love, I don’t know if it exists. I remember nothing of life before I was sixteen. I don’t know, I don’t... My life began when I met Damianos.
