Judit Dezsi as a girl

This is my daughter Judit Dezsi [nee Kosa], when she was a girl.

My Juditka was born in 1945. Juditka too liked languages very much, I thought she would study languages.

But she took to mathematics, and so only engineering… And she could have chosen a profession, a university, which was close.

We didn't have the financial means - though she had a scholarship too.

And that's why she had to choose something which was in Brasso, she finished timber engineering.

She finished her studies in 1968, and I told her: 'If there are jobs in Marosvasarhely - since they put out a notice-board with the jobs -, I advice you to choose Marosvasarhely, to be in the same town with Alpar, your brother.

'Cause you see, your father is forty years older, I'm ill with my heart - well, I was always burying myself, I thought I had a short time to live, well, my feet and arms swollen, full with water, my face was filled with water many times -, my life is uncertain, and you shouldn't be left alone.'

That's how it happened indeed. There were three places in Marosvasarhely, and she got one of them, in the furniture factory.

She had to do practice in the factory for three years, it was compulsory.

During the time she was accomplishing those three years of practice, they were looking for teachers for the timber engineering high school of Marosvasarhely, for the evening classes.

And they called on Juditka as well in the factory, if she wouldn't like to teach in the evening classes - those who attend evening classes.

Well of course, she had such a low salary, she had one thousand and two or three hundred lei salary, she accepted.

And people became attached to Juditka in the school, and they asked her if she didn't want to go there as a teacher, when the three years would be over.

Oh, gladly, with pleasure. She was happy. She felt much more like [being a teacher], of course.

She didn't have to get up so early, I don't know if they went to work at six or seven, and one had to stay in the factory until three or two.

And after three years she accepted the full-time teacher job. In the meantime she started to learn pedagogy, because she was an engineer, but she needed a teacher's qualification too in order to teach.

She enrolled and passed exams. It was settled when she had to go, she was in Bucharest several times, maybe in Brasso too, because she passed her exams there.

So her qualification was engineer and teacher. She had two diplomas. Juditka's husband was called Jozsef Dezsi. They had two sons.

It was destined for me to loose my child on my birthday.

I was born on 16th May, and Juditka died on 17th May, in 1999. That's what fate gave me at the age of ninety.

The 16th May fell on Sunday in 1999. She used to call me every Sunday at noon, and we talked.

On this day the phone wouldn't ring. But my daughter forbade them to let me know she was ill.

I didn't know anything, I was waiting for her phone-call here, alone, astonished. S

omething is wrong for sure. But I wouldn't have thought that she was dying.

And my son-in-law, Jozsika, my grandson and Alpar, my son came after the funeral.

And I open the door, and I thought they wanted to make a joke. I was looking for Juditka.