Wenceslas Square
The last time I was in Prague is described in Getting Emotional, and although I was alone, I had to go and stand there.
I will probably do this every time I go to Prague.
Getting Emotional
Since the last stroke, I sometimes get a bit emotional. When people ask how I am and they say nice things, sometimes it can make me cry. But then I’ve been through a lot with the death of C and our youngest son and the strokes haven’t helped.
But then I’ve always been a bit like that. This piece is from the book I wrote about life with C.
There are quite a few people, places and events that have radically altered the way that I think and how I conduct my life. One event was the death of Jan Palach in Czechoslovakia. He committed suicide by setting himself on fire in Wenceslas Square on January the nineteenth, 1969, as a protest against the Soviet invasion.
I swore to C that one day, I would stand in Wenceslas Square in a totally free and liberated Czechoslovakia.
With the coming of Go, British Airways low-cost airline started by Barbara Cassani, Prague was suddenly a short flight away from Stansted. I should have gone earlier, as the Velvet Revolution that had ousted the Soviet-backed Communist regime had been ten years before.
But I hadn’t and I regret that.
We stayed at the Hoffmeister, which has all the charm and service expected of a Relais & Châteaux hotel. It was seriously good and from reading reports on the Internet, it still appears to be.
The weekend was our thirty-third wedding anniversary, but I have no recollection of where or what we ate on the seventh. All I do know is that the food and wine was excellent throughout the time we were in Prague.
But it was to stand in Wenceslas Square that was one of the main reasons that we had gone to Prague.
I cried!
And I cried buckets!
Will I ever be able to do the same in Harare, Rangoon and the many other places in this world, where people are oppressed and murdered by the state?
I wrote that in probably about January 2008 soon after C died. Do I feel the same now? Perhaps, I actually feel stronger about the last statement, as there are other places I could add to the list.
I sometimes wonder how C felt about Jan Palach! She booked that trip and she knew how I felt. But remember too, than he was only 15 days older than she was!
Perhaps I should return to Prague? I will only do that, when there are no more demons in my mind, dragons to slay and goals to fulfil.
In other words, I never will return!
The Anonymous Widower 