Anneros Valensi's Blog (21)

Life is filled with peaks and valleys. It is filled with ups and downs. Good times and bad times. Whether you are dealing with physical or mental pain, there are times when you can joke around and laugh despite everything, and there are times when you simply feel like crying and you just had enough of it. Life will not always be on the upswing. So, enjoy the peaks whenever you can, and learn to appreciate them. During down times, you should also remember that those dark days would…

Know what an opportunity looks like? Most people don’t. Opportunities often come and go without us knowing. The problem is, we don’t immediately see opportunities for what they are. There are no blatant signs telling us “Hey! Big opportunity here!” We have to discern it ourselves. To be able to see an opportunity when it comes makes a big difference in the path we take in life. http://bit.ly/1Rykc7M

Lemons are sour. It’s unpleasant just like the difficulties and adversities we face in life. So, what do you do when life gives you lemons? Make lemonade.

The proverbial phrase "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade" is used to encourage us to keep a positive attitude in the face of adversity. The lemons are sour, but you can use them to make sweet lemonade. This phrase reminds us that in spite of the problems we face in life, we can keep our chins up and march through…

My mother was a strong woman. There is no doubt about that. Looking back, I would often wonder how Mother managed to take care of me and my siblings. That was no easy task especially during the difficult times during and after World War II. She did all those without our father, who was drafted into the army and was missing after the war.

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Everyone has a story to tell. In my book “Where is Home? “ I shared my experiences of living through a war and eventually coming to the United States. What about you? I’m sure you also have a story to tell. Everyone does. So, what’s your story?

You don’t have to be famous to write a memoir. Anyone can do it. In fact, I encourage people to do that. Writing a memoir is very cathartic. It’s therapeutic for the writer. However, remember that your memoir is not exactly therapy. So…

Adversity is our greatest teacher in life. Adversity can teach us many things that they don’t teach in school. In fact, I believe that the worse moments in our lives actually make us who we are. Everyone must face adversity at one time or another. We all go through painful experiences. The only difference is each one of us face adversity differently. We deal with the challenges differently. One person could get through the challenges while another may break.

As mentioned on a…

How can someone handle the feeling of losing the home you grow up in? How will you feel if you lose the home where many of your most cherished memories took place?

When you lose your home, it feels like you are losing someone you love. In a way, you also go through the five stages of grief: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

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I have come a long way from the shy little girl I was back then to the confident woman I am today. However, getting over the trauma of an unsettled childhood was not easy. Surviving the hardships I faced before took a lot out of me as a child.

One thing that I learned early on during my childhood was that things change and will always change. You just can’t resist change. You have to accept it and move on the best that you can. You have to learn to adapt. I have survived upheaval and…

When nations go to war there are no winners. Well, certainly not the civilians who are caught in the crossfire. These civilians want nothing to do with wars. To them war is just an unwanted baggage. They just want to live in peace. The common folk don’t care about  the propaganda their leaders are pushing.

People nowadays don’t understand what it was like during those years. War is now glorified by the media. As someone who has experienced this first-hand, war is not glorious at all.…

In 1961, I had left Germany for London to discover the world. Now it was five years since I had lived in England, but I didn’t see a future there. Every year I had to re-register at the Home Office with a letter of employment. It was unsettling. It did not make me feel secure.



Even though I loved flying on the STC company plane, I knew that I needed to move on. America looked like a possibility, so I decided to apply with PAN AM and TWA (Trans World Airlines) for flight attendant…

In 1964 Mr. Grey suggested I might want to visit New York to get a glimpse of America. His office helped me to get a visitor visa and I bought a flight and hotel package with TWA. I had dreamed about America, the skyscrapers, the opportunities it offered and the different life style people lived. I was full of anticipation. - See more at:…

One Sunday morning, Mr. Grey was looking up from his newspaper. “Would you like to see Texas and work as a Stewardess?” he asked me. There was an ad that says an airline in Texas was hiring new girls for their airline. He suggested I send a letter and see what happens, and I did. I received an answer and was invited to fly to Texas for an interview. I felt I wasn’t ready for such a leap, so I didn’t pursue this opportunity. I was only twenty-three at that time and I needed time to evaluate…

I had been working at St. Mary’s hospital in London for some time when an opportunity came knocking on my door. A private patient, Mrs. Grey wanted to see me when my shift starts. I was on night duty. She was a cancer patient and had surgery. I wondered what she had on her mind.



We would talk whenever I came to her room and I had mentioned that I was preparing to go back to Germany to take up further studies.



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I vividly remember the ferryboat trip from Calais, France to Dover, England. The boat was quite basic and uncomfortable, wooden benches everywhere. There may have been sleeping cabins, but I didn’t know and would not have been able to afford one. We, the young people, spent the night on deck. I found a sheltered spot near a chimney to keep me warm from the cold and windy weather. I still feel the rocking and creaking of the ferry and hear the wind whistle. - See more at:…

I graduated from nursing school and became a full-fledged registered nurse. I had the dream of traveling to other parts of the world and see what lies beyond my home. We didn’t have money to travel after graduation to see some of the world and to decide what to do with my life. Such luxury did not exist in Germany. Everyone took a job to help support the family. The lucky ones continued with University studies. I may be a nurse now, but I wondered what else I could do with my training. I…

The day finally arrived for me to leave Winterberg and see what lies beyond this small community I had spent the past few years in. In September 1956, I left the quiet town of Winterberg and headed to Mannheim to study to be a nurse. I was eighteen and I had just graduated from high school. It was an exciting time in my life.



My mother had decided to take me to Mannheim in person. We could see my father, who lived there, but my thoughts were about my new beginning in a new city.…

It was winter 1955 and newly fallen snow glistened in the sunlight. As I was about to head home after class with other classmates, I noticed a group of young men coming out of the school building. They looked older and more mature than my classmates and I was curious who these students were. I learned they had come from Bochum, an industrial city in the Ruhrgebiet, and they were staying in the dorm in our school building during winter recess. -  The rest of my story here at…

In the 1950s the Red Cross was working hard to reconnect families, and they actually found our father. I didn’t remember much about him at that age, I was about fourteen. Many German men were drafted into the army during the war, and our father was no exception. I must have been five, when I last saw him. I only recall him being home for a few days and then gone again. That was it. My memories of him were so few that I was wondering how to handle the situation. It was strange meeting him…

Despite my newfound perspective, self-doubt still clouded my mind. I still felt isolated, like being a stranger not belonging there. My mother’s overprotectiveness didn’t help either. My life was school and home and caring for my two younger sisters. There wasn’t any time or opportunity to make friends.



Speaking of school, in the 40s West Germany was Catholic and Lutheran and our public school was Catholic, and we were in the minority being Lutheran. Unfortunately, out pastor didn’t…

The war may have been over, but nothing had changed. We still had no home to return to. We didn’t know where to sleep, where to get food, where to be safe. We had lost everything. I often found myself wondering:  “Why don’t the Russian leave so we can go home?”



When we were ordered to get off the train in Winterberg, West Germany, I didn’t know what to think. I was too tired and weary, and still afraid. Fear was a constant companion of mine ever since the day we were evacuated from…