Mirta’s story about Ana

Ana was always in the mood for humour, black humour, if possible. She loved the cinema, movies and the theatre.
Whenever I was in the mood for a movie, I’d ask her for her opinion and recommendation. Besides, Igor owned a video shop so she really was quite the expert.

She loved to play sports. She played handball, and we took boxing lessons together. She told me how she would get on a treadmill in Šibenik and run until she was exhausted.

She used to crack me up… When she was hooked on to infusions, transfusions and other strange things she would send me messages saying she would get in touch when she was “unplugged”.

She loved good food… especially octopus ispod peke, baked slowly under an iron bell.

There was never an ill thought in her mind and she never complained. When she became ill, we all started to see the world through her beautiful eyes.

If any good has come out of all that’s happened, it’s the fact that now we all know how fragile life is, what is really important in life, and what isn’t, how important are our families and love – and that it is not worth getting upset about things at work, for problems of that kind exist one day and are gone the next.

She loved to travel, and she lived for that. We were planning to go to Cuba together this spring. When she was diagnosed with leukaemia again I told her she had to hurry up and get well soon because spring was right around the corner and we had a trip to take. She told me that she was always thinking about Cuba and that that kept her going.

She wasn’t much of a talker.

During her recovery period she had trouble going up and down steps. Whenever we went for a walk around New Zagreb, we would take the longest route possible just to avoid using underpasses.

When my father died, there she was, at my doorstep, ringing my doorbell. And I lived on the fourth floor, with no elevator in the building.