When my mum was about to receive her master’s degree the whole building suddenly crumbled, reduced to a pile of debris. Everyone was safe but all the archives were destroyed and there’s no proof she ever went to uni. At least this is the story she’s been telling us since we where kids.
No one in my family managed to get a degree, and because war and poverty everyone had experienced were decades behind, my sister and I, we just had to. We were the first ones in our entire genealogical tree, but there wasn’t a big fuss about it. It was a given.
When you finish writing your dissertation and print it, you can dedicate it to someone. Anyone. That’s the closest you can get to be a published author without really being one. Who you dedicate your work to is also the only part of it your friends and family will ever read, hoping to find their names. Mine was a disappointment to everyone since I dedicated it to my uncle. One of my Mum’s five brothers.
We used to drink and smoke together. Uncle would always leave packets of cigarettes everywhere. Just in case. Creating an involuntary treasure hunt. He was one of those hypnotic storytellers you could listen to for hours. My uncle taught me how to listen. We drank and smoke. And then we didn’t. Because his stomach hurt too much and it turned out something in his blood was killing him, just no one could…