Today is your funeral. Some of the nicest, funniest, most beautiful and caring people I have ever known will be there with you. I desperately wish I could be there too, to share in the empty space left by your death, to cry with people whose friendships have lasted through long partings and to share in memories and laugh and cry some more.
I first met you when I was 13 when I started taking tap classes, the dance form closest to my heart. Strange for a wee white girl, but I could follow in the footsteps of wee white girls such as Shirley Temple – with whom I had nothing else in common. You quickly paired this wee white girl with this wee white boy and created a truly cute double-act that danced their hearts out in little sailor’s outfits in the cinema theatre in Sandvika. Ine and Henning. Man, we were cute! I still remember most of the steps.
Over the years we and the rest of this dedicated group of tap-dancers performed in countless dance shows, and some of us even went on to teach at your school – you were a brilliant teacher, ever meticulous about the technique, and your teaching system was infallible, near perfect.
You also taught us to sing – you were my first singing teacher – and your home formed a base, an HQ, for this group of friends united in dance and song. Your house, a big, white house, had a history, and some of the cupboards in the living room had sliding walls where, during the early stages of WWII your family had helped hide people from the resistance and smuggle them over to Sweden before you and your family eventually had to be smuggled out yourselves; the Gestapo were on to you.
I remember the first time I saw your bed. A big elaborate four-poster that took up most of the room. I so wanted that! And you had a grand piano where we had our singing lessons. Oh, and you had a swimming pool in your garden! Almost unheard of in Norway at the time. An unheated, deep swimming pool. It was just freezing taking a dip in that. The house was so big it had been divided into two, and some of your students lived in the other half for a while. So then that became the HQ with trips across to your bit whenever opportunity bid.
I still remember one of our summer parties in the ‘student-bit’ where we’d all collapsed in little heaps on mattresses spread out all over the floor. I woke up to an overly cheerful ‘gang-member’ and resident who’d briefly gone to a dinner party and had just arrived back, still in his dinner suit, with the bow-tie dangling, holding a tub of discarded, melted pistachio chocolate chip ice cream and half a bottle of red wine with bits of cork floating around in it. I was the only one who woke up on his return and we shared the melted goo and the wine with extra fibre for breakfast while he told me about the brilliant food he’d been served at this posh dinner he’d been to. Later that day we went over to your part of the house and spent the rest of the day freezing our little butts off in the pool and singing and talking some more about the apparently brilliant food our party-buster had been served.
Our parties could last for days, and parents sometimes had to drop by just to remind themselves what we looked like. I guess it was more like going to summer camp together. And you – you were the glue that held us together.
Now, so many years later, some of us still keep in touch with each other. The magic of your glue; what on earth did you use? I hope many, many people come to your funeral – you deserve a proper sending off! And Vibeke, Henning, Gyrid, Petter, Øyvind, Arlene, Ingrid (and Charlie – let’s not forget Charlie, the Ultimate Party Cocker Spaniel!), Anette, Henriette, Kjersti, Kristin, Inger, Anne, … give each other a hug from me in memory of all those memories.
I miss you guys. I miss you, Jenny.
MidgetViking 