R.I.P my grandfather -

Today it was exacty half a year ago that my grandfather died of cancer. He was 80 years old at the time.

My grandfather was a Protestant vicar. I don't know much about his past exept that he used to be a vicar in the Dutch army during WW2, that he was caught by the Nazis and put in a concentration camp and that he's been a schoolteacher for some time.

He had four sons. No daughters. He was very sorry for that.
I'm his oldest grandchild. I was born in 1986. When my mother announced she was pregnant my grandfather stood on her doorstep the same day holding a stuffed owl in his hands. He pushed it in my mother's arms, grinned and bluntly said: "It's for your daughter." My parents hadn't done any tests to find out about the gender of their child, but I did turn out to be a girl. I still have the stuffed owl. I called it Jodocus.
My granddad was over the moon and when I was 4 I went to a school that was opposite their house. (I was living in a village some 5 kilometers away from there) I'd frequently stay over there and my grandparents would play with me, read with me and bake me pancakes. My grandfather also liked to walk around town with me.

I've always been his favorite grandchild, probably because I'm a girl. I've also been my father's favorite child because of that. Even when I screwed up at school my granddad would not get mad at me. He even gave me a key to his house so I could drop by whenever I wanted.

In April 2007 he became sick and doctors found a large tumor in his colon. He was sent to hospital where they removed it. I lived at my grandparent's home with my grandmother, who was in a state of silent panic. That she was beginning to develop Alzheimer's only added up to that. I did what I could to cheer my grandmother up and even skipped some tutorials at university.

When my granddad was sent back home he was doing much better and appeared to be fit again. But not all of the cancer had been removed and it came back.

In Januari 2008 he began deteriorating. He was in a lot of pain. After a few months he appeared to get a little better, but at the beginning of March he deteriorated very quickly and it became clear that he was dying. I raced over to his house, fell of my bike three times (the chain said "CLANK", worked as a slinshot and I bumped my shin so hard into the pedal that I'm still impaired today) and arrived at his place to find the house full of family.

I entered my granddad's room together with my Mom. He greated her with a "Hello, Tien." and when he saw me his face lit up, he smiled and said "Hey, Jammetje!" (His nickname for me). The next time I'd see him he'd be dead.

He died on Saturday the 15th of Match 2008. My mother called me to tell me. She was at his place. I hung up the phone, yelled "Grandad just died!" to my brother who was playing Guild Wars and went to read. I didn't cry.

Now this may come across as cold or indifferent, especially to people from the US, where showing your emotions is more part of the culture than in the Netherlands. But I'm neither cold nor indifferent. I have a built in emotion-stop. I can turn off my emotions the way Spock of Star Trek can. It doesn't alway work, but when my granddad died it did.

The next day I went to my grandparent's home and granddad was lying in his study room on a bed. His face was very yellow. He was wearing the toga he used to wear when he was holding a sermon and he had his hands folded on his belly. He looked very serene and peaceful, though he had not died in peace. The last thing he said was: "I'm not done with this yet!" He fought till the end.

He was to be buried in the family grave on Thursday. I took a day off from university. First the undertaker loaded his body into a limousine (we call them "corpse cars" here) and then a long line of cars followed the limousine that followed his six assistants that slowly walked over to the end of the street. After that they got in because it would be about 20 kilometers to the church where the service was to be held and that would be a helluva long walk.

When we arrived we followed them again and held the service. I didn't really like the vicar who gave it. He kept talking about "Dominee Oosthoek" ("Dominee" is the Dutch word for "vicar", it means "master"

and he called my grandmother "Mother". Very impersonal.
A very small choir consisting of 4 people (my father is part of it) had come over to the funeral to sing the piece Jesu meine Freunde ("Jesus, my friend"

. Though my grandfather hated Germany (a result from WW2) he loved that piece. My uncle joined the choir. They performed so well that I began to cry. I don't know what it is, but music is able to unlock my emotions.

When the service was over my granddad was carried into a room where everbody got the chance to pay his/her last respects. There were so many people. I don't know most of them, but there were also people there that I did not expect, like the vicars of our own church (my granddad has a bit of a hate-love relationship with one of them), our neighbours, one of my teachers and a black man from our church I had never spoken to before, but he came up to me, stroked my arm and began a story about how my grandfather had helped and fought to improve the neighbourhood they were living in. I never knew that. The man was crying as he told me about it.
My other grandmother and an aunt were there too and they helped me a lot by that.

My grandfather was lying in his coffin with a beautiful bouquet on top of it (it had many colours but not too many). It wasn't until when they prepared to close it that I dared to touch him. I had never dared to touch a dead body before and it felt.... empty. I'm not religious, but I do believe there is something like a soul. My granddad felt and looked like an empty shell.

I had a hard time when they closed the coffin, because I then realised I would never see m grandfather again.

The coffin was loaded into the corpse car again and we headed to the east of the country, a ride of about 2.5 hours. There's the Oosthoek family grave. I know I will never be buried there, even though I'm an Oosthoek. My brothers, though, will be buried there. They're boys. I'm a girl. Therefore I'm not fully part of the clan. I became bitter and felt like an outsider when I heard that. My father felt sorry and I think that if I were to die tomorrow he'd try to get my in there anyway. Though I'm not a boy and technically not the first born of the family (no matter how many older daughters you have, the boy will always count as the first born) he keeps calling me his first born and his oldest child.

When we arrived there we walked over to the grave and waited for the casket to arrive. It was lowered into the grave and we did the Onze Vader (Our Lord's Prayer). It had begun to rain and luckily the grave had been covered with a sheet, or Granddad would have landed with his back in the mud! When we were done the children (including me) were sent away and some of the adults (excluding me, though I was 21 at the time) stayed there. After that we gathered at a small house at the center of the cemetery where I seriously bored my GUTS out. The adults were talking to each other and the more conservative part of the family was praying. The brother of my Mom suddenly popped up, gave me such a pat on my pack that my shoulderblades ended up between my ribs and declared: "This fucking sucks." and he was very right.

When we wre done there we went to drink something at a café and nearly considered staying there to eat, but the adults decided it would be too expensive before they had even seen a price list. e went home and ate fries, if I'm not mistaken.

That night I went to bed and slept like a log.

---------------------------------------------------------------

My grandfather loved my grandmother with all of his heart. He adored her and worshipped her. If she were to be away for too long he'd search for her, asking people if they had seen "his better half". They cooked and did the household together when granddad stopped working as a schoolteacher and spent some less time on his vicary work. They had never been separated for even a single week.
Granddad had one wish he could never fulfill. He wished grandmom would die sooner than him, so she would not have to mourn over his death in case he should die. He has never been able to give her that gift. He died sooner than her and it seemed like grandma was going to break and fall apart, but she's doing remarkable will, in spite of her Alzheimer's.

She cannot remember everything any more and when you explain something to her she most fo the time forgets about it. She asks me three times a day how I feel and five times in a row if I've already had a drink. She's very lonely. I'm going to stay over at her place so she won't be that lonely any more. I'm worried about her.

I'm sorry for my grandfather too. If there is something like heaven he's probably up there missing my grandma very badly and pissed that he had to leave her behind. I would not be surprised if he went straight to God's throne to "have a talk with Him" about it as soon as he arrived.

I miss my granddad. I hope he's happy even though he is without grandma.