Can someone, frantic smoking a pipe, smell the scent of a perfume?
The day after her departure, my friend Janus and I went to the cemetry to have a look at the condolation-room, because we wanted to have a look, how we could display the photo's and paintings. After that I took him to the place where she would be buried. She had choosen it herself together with me and her sister, exactly a month before her burial. Arrived at the place I could not believe my eyes at first, so I thought I did not look at the right place. But than I realised that, proven by the flowers laying on the grave, they just had buried there somebody else. I made some noises that could have been heard in other parts of Holland. And just as I did that, the daughter of the deceased and her boyfriend arrived at the scene. I immediately realised how painful for them, but nevertheless confronted them with the problem. My friend Janus did the one right thing and grabbed me by the collar and dragged me away gently. I could make a very long story about it, but the end was that we got offered a forrestgrave. Just as Annemarie wanted, but was not chosen because of the pricetag on that. Afterwards we giggled about it that she had arranged it herself from the afterlive.
Here is my youngest daughter, 13 years of age on this picture, with a lump in her throat, as she said afterwards, playing a violinconcerto of Haydn, on her mother's funeral. Friend Skip accompanied her on the piano. Teaches piano on the Rotterdam Conservatorium. I was and still am so proud of her. She played on the Polish violin we bought a little more than a month before, that was a gift from her mother.
This is the picture I made from a photo also made at the terrace of the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. I had it printed on several T-shirts. I did wear one during my speech at the funeral, and I wore the rest of them since last 4th of December to remember her and try to let go of her and start the end of my mourning period. I hoped I realy could end it, but realise now it 's the signal of the start of the ending period. I now want to stand in the middle of life again and will use all of my powers to reach that goal. Kiss and bye my love, I'll keep you safe in my heart.
Annemarie on her most beautiful. In our beginning days on the dutch coast and on our last summerholiday on the terrace of the Guggenheim museum in Bilbao. That's the kind of open beauty I miss so much about her. I see it on someone else, lately.
Never had so much shit in our lives, but neither had so much fun and laughter in it. Living on the edge. We had some quiet moments in our wreckyear. From going to Terschelling right after the first operation until beginning of March, we gained back on life. Annemarie even dared to go painting alone in a studio, in a artist-studiocomplex in the centre of Amersfoort, which she could use from a colleague, who paints besides her job. Knowing that the fits might occur made it a little anxious, but the zest for recovery won the battle about that conflict. After three weeks the fits started again and occured several times.
After the summerholiday time, which passed our door, and the second operation, Annemarie and family thought I should take a short break. I had to get used to the idea and wanted to rent a motorbike for a weeks trip. Told a friend about it and he surprised me, after he checked with his insurance and raised that, with the proposition, that I could lend his Harley. Wow! Due to a little more work, It became a 5 day trip with the Harley and I visited friends in Frankfurt. Had a wonderful time with good weather and finally had time to loose some tears along the road. The kind of a devastating effect the disease had on my baby shocked me more deeply, because I was out of reach of her powerful shiny eyes. Which kept on shouting > "Life!!!!!"
Not though on the picture above. Contiguous booked a holidayhouse on the coast, to have a short break with Annemarie. We are near Castricum on the northern Dutch coast. We just had a bikeride on a tandem and she is too exhausted to keep on shining on that moment. But as she told me some time later that year, she had just enjoyed herself like crazy, because I tried to amuse her the way I did and was talking the ears of her head while pedalling in front of her.
This picture is taken when we visited a holiday house in Sealand (province in Holland) which we could stay for free in, owned by a foundation especially to let families like ours take a small vacation. For me this picture gives me shivers, for it shows me and let me feel how close we were than. Everybody was alright that week, only my back hurted as if it was broken. Two days I could not move without a stick.
After the first operation the radiation started half february. Here you can see here being strapped into the molded mask with the radiation scheme drawn on it.
She gradually started to loose her hair and desired something to cover it when going in public. I favoured caps or hats, but she first wanted a wig. We had a shop very near by. Luckily she did see how much more you look like a tumorvictim with a wig on. And I went out and bought a dozen of caps and hats for her to choose from. See below. See also how she smiles to me. Sigh.
At the end of the radiationperiod her arm started to lame and her moving started to get troublesome. Much sooner than the darkest forecast, she had a second mandarin in her head.
After the emotions yesterday and all that jazz, I would surely want to be able to lay my tired buzzing head at rest on her comforting and warm bossom. Hearing the reassuring ticking of her presence/heart. Yesterday walked away at the cemetry with a shovel in my hands which I used to dig a hole to plant the beam in. I walked up to the exit together with my oldest daughter and she started it. On this cemetry you have the normal graves in a row beside a path, but also you can have a grave random in the forest, like Annemarie has. My daughter saw him first, a man was standing aside of the path shaking out a white sheet. She suggested he dumped another body in the grave of his wife, I said it could also be possible that he had dressed up as a ghost, in order to trying to scare his wife, to pay her back for scaring him off by dying so suddenly.
This is a picture of Annemarie on her last second Christmas day (Boxing Day) of her life. The medicin that she had to limit woundfluid, causes people to be very eager to eat. Crying out loud hungry, even. That's why she looks so dissolute, with the tea-towel hanging in her sweater causing to lower it and revealing her shoulder and bra, and her sensual look, in search for food and fun.
Today we ( my 2 girls, Annemarie's best friend Ankie and her sister Bep) went in the afternoon to the cemetry to remember Silverlock. The picture above was taken round 2.00 PM exactly two years ago, one hour before she died. Her face swollen from medicin trying to limit the effect of woundfluid round the tumor that would make the suffering worse. She was eager to go. Enough was enough. My oldest daughter even said it. What it must have cost her to say that I can't imagine even being so close to her. Because she was like two hands on one stomache with her mom. She and I were the only ones with dry eyes when she finally put her weary head at rest. Never would have thought in advance it would happen like that. That your mercy with her was bigger than your own grief.
I made it this week. A wooden beam which stands up right in the ground. The two big sides are made red and blue. On the red side I copied the text, that was written on a ribbon that her tennisfriends ordered with the flowers they put on the grave. "Bye sweet Annemarie". On the blue side I wrote a sentence that according to me most fitted my woman. "Clear blue eyes With the power of the sun." On one small side I made it painterly green, where I put her name, birth and death time and place. You can see that side on the second picture from the left. The other small side I did leave wood, not painted and no words. To point out that you always have room to add thoughts and words to it and it never needs to be said once and for all. Click the picture to get it much bigger.
And here you can see her right after the operation, mangled between the enormous feelings, but already with a little spark of hope on her face.
Around Christmas, a little more than 2 weeks after leaving the hospital, we went to Terschelling, one of the "Wadden" islands in the North of the Netherlands. Here you can see my girl having her spirit back.
This is my Silverlock. Here name was Annemarie Klootwijk. Sunday it will be two years since she died. This was even before she was diagnosed, 2 years and 1 month before she died, the blooddisease MDS( Myelodysplastisch Syndroom ). She already felt very bad. I thought she had a Burnout.
Do not know if that is a saying in English as well. I'll try it > "Standing out from the grass/ground level."? We the Dutch are known for not liking people who really want that. Be normal, act normal or more postive said > Be yourself. As if being normal/yourself should exclude standing out from the herd. By the way, I do not think it bad in principal. If you want to stand out it has to be because of your own desires/passion. Do not expect to be put on a pedestal and admired because you want to stand out. But, hey, ofcourse I'm very Dutch and ofcourse that is why I tend to feel that way.
Sticking one's neck out. For me it's natural to picture the authority as a matriarchy. For the most hurtfull moments in sticking your neck out is when you are a very sensitive boy, trying to develop your personality and your striving for the recognition of your individuality. And "she", the Mama, punishes you for that. Is it different for girls?
Sometimes I get amazed by my own drawings and it gives me a kind of feeling, or sense of being on the reasonably side of good. But better not let the result boost my ego, I like it better to enjoy the beauty of this. Even more realising when I really have to intentionally make something like this and my ego get's involved, I would never have got it like this sensitive.
For a tear-off calendar. About stories. It's from a part about taking risks, and this one in particular about going/walking on the edge.
We've been to Maastricht for 3,5 days. Changed houses with the mother of my friend Janus. She could be near her grandsons for a couple of days. And we could be together and not at home in a difficult time. Two years ago were the last weeks of my love's life. First year you share the thought with a lot of people. Second year you finally find yourself more and more alone with your grief, everyday wanting more to start with a new life, but getting consience in reocurring steps that you have to accept the pain within yourself and thus being able to see in every step more air/room and light in your existence. Aren't they beautiful, these two sisters, so different and so fond of each other.
My Caterpillar says: "My uncle Art is a guard. He always has at least one eye open for the situation."
Dutch readers can click the image for a bigger version. And now for the English readers:
They can add a particular beauty to the landscape and ofcourse are very present in my wet country. Wickers of a willow are in Dutch the toes. Wickers need to be cut off, toes need to be manicured. Seems to me a different kind of treatment.
