There are no more may bugs

When Ilse was young she and her father would in spring walk out on the fields to collect may bugs. Although they were all the same breed, Ilse and her father would distinguish may bugs into millers, bakers, chimney sweepers and kaisers.

A miller would be a may bug with a strong and white fur that seemed lighter colored. The same description went for the baker. Then the chimney sweeper was a may bug without fur, so this particular may bug was a darker type. The kaiser was a very rare and unusual type of may bug: It had red-coloured wing covers which reminded of the purple coloured capes kaisers and kings used to be wearing in past times.

The most valuable may bugs would surely be the kaisers, now as an adult Ilse remembered the appreciative feeling she had when she and her father caught a kaiser. It was an intriguing feeling as a child to experience the joys of finding a living sample of something as subtle as a kaiser. Hardly anything later in her life compared to that very feeling, so it was when Ilse turned 87 years that she went out on the fields of her childhood to search for those may bugs. It was over half a century ago that Ilse had gone out to look for the may bugs one last time and she felt a wave of poignancy coming up when the thought of her long passed-away father came up.

The appearance of the may bug was strongly in her mind. She could almost feel the clingy feet of the tiny creature on the palm of her hand. It arose some sort of a feeling of nostalgia and she craved so very much to find one of these creatures so that she could get out of her head and actually see them for real.

There was a memory that came up in her mind. On one successful day in the very past, she had collected an entire shoe box full of may bugs. She had taken the shoe box to her grandparents place and there an urge overcame her to release the bugs from the shoe box. She walked out to the balcony and opened the shoe box. The may bugs that had been trapped inside the shoe box felt the breath of the wind and off they flew. What a sight!

As Ilse walked as an old lady through the fields of her childhood she found not a single may bug. She couldn't get rid of the image in her mind; the image of a gracious but petite, calm and friendly brown bug. But there were none to be found. She couldn't help thinking that it was the same with dear Sammy, Joan, Bronwyn and Kather - images of loved ones stuck in her mind forever that she couldn't get a hold of in the outside world.