Time

Do we have time, or does time have us?

It is unbelievable how many things have happened since I wrote my last "post".
Many new exciting things, like meeting finally for the first time with some people of "my" freshly started "museumclub", finding a job-!!!- a little bit unexpectedly- being invited by friends in France, where I have lived a few years and then....
boom...., time does these things to us. Throws us back , wandering what it is all about.
On this monday-morning I took the plane tot he south of France, where my friends were waiting for me on the airport. The first thing that happened to me when I sat foot on the ground I started crying....I didn't want to, but it happened.
Was this because it reminded me of these other times when I , all of a sudden- had to fly on my own to this country, without the man I had loved and had been with for about 35 years? And with whom I had had this dream of "living the good life" under the French sun?
Anyway, I decided to come to grips with myself and be happy and cheerful with my friends. The sun was shining, they were smiling and so was I!
At the end of my second day with them I received this phone-call of my oldest brother with the tiding that one of my brothers had died, that same evening.

Because this brother had been in a bad medical shape for years, I suppose you wouldn't call this an unexpected death, but still... Only 62 years old, and leaving a wife and two daughters, married, and three little grandchildren. "Too young to die", is what we say then. But who decides that?
For my brother I was ,kind of, "happy" that his suffering was over, but of course for those who stay behind time is going to be tough.

I took the plane two days earlier than had been planned and on saturday-morning I and all my other brothers and sisters- stood by my brothers coffin, and guided him on his "last journey".
And I was happy that this brother had been so aware of how he lived "on borrowed time" and made the most of it, every minute that had been given to him, these last 2,3, years of his- short- life.

So, time played its "trick" on us, as it does more often.
And of course it doesn't mean we should stop "planning" things in our lives, but it absolutely makes you realise how relative everything is, and especially time.

I hope to see all of you "next time".

Ik wil verbinding met de Hemel,
gewoon, met een heel lang snoer,
eventjes bellen om te vragen,
hoe is het nou met mijn broer.

Ik wil bellen met daarboven,
maar wie wil dat eigenlijk niet,
want zij die ons zijn ontnomen,zijn boven
en wij blijven hier achter met veel verdriet.

Ik wil graag bellen met daarboven,
waar veel mensen zijn waar ik omgeef,
ik wil ze zo graag vertellen
dat ik van hen hou zo lang ik leef

Dag lieverds, tot later

Bij de dood van Ben,

Overleden 9 oktober 2007-10

* 1 september 1945