On Saturday, April 8, 2017, the most amazing and remarkable woman I know passed away. My mother, Jacomina ("Ietje") Dolman (nee Berends) died after a seven-month struggle with cancer of the esophagus. She was 84 years old.
The loss, to me and to our entire family, is overwhelming, and I cannot imagine how someone who was always so vibrantly fully alive could now be gone.
Here is a picture of her taken at her dance class graduation. She was eighteen and would, within hours, meet her future husband, Gerrit, who would be her love to the end some 66 years later.
Our mom's life was hard, at times brutally so: she grew up in the Netherlands through the horrors of WWII, and eventually emigrated in her early 20s with two small children to a country where she didn't speak the language, knew no one and had few rights. She served as free labour on the first farms to hire my father in Canada, as a condition of their agreement to hire him. And she would go on to fight and eventually win her battle with alcoholism, dying 28 years sober, something for which I will always be incredibly proud of her for.
In her retirement, Ietje turned her Protestent work ethic towards sharing her craft skills in every way she could think of to help others, including knitting and crocheting countless shawls and hoods for the homeless, and making dolls for orphaned children in Africa. She was also a brilliant storyteller, and, had her life gone differently, I have no doubt she would have been a better writer than I can ever hope to be.
I could list so much more about her here, but it's her humour and her perseverance that will inspire me the rest of my life. She was a survivor. I will miss you forever, Ietje.
The loss, to me and to our entire family, is overwhelming, and I cannot imagine how someone who was always so vibrantly fully alive could now be gone.
Here is a picture of her taken at her dance class graduation. She was eighteen and would, within hours, meet her future husband, Gerrit, who would be her love to the end some 66 years later.
Our mom's life was hard, at times brutally so: she grew up in the Netherlands through the horrors of WWII, and eventually emigrated in her early 20s with two small children to a country where she didn't speak the language, knew no one and had few rights. She served as free labour on the first farms to hire my father in Canada, as a condition of their agreement to hire him. And she would go on to fight and eventually win her battle with alcoholism, dying 28 years sober, something for which I will always be incredibly proud of her for.
In her retirement, Ietje turned her Protestent work ethic towards sharing her craft skills in every way she could think of to help others, including knitting and crocheting countless shawls and hoods for the homeless, and making dolls for orphaned children in Africa. She was also a brilliant storyteller, and, had her life gone differently, I have no doubt she would have been a better writer than I can ever hope to be.
I could list so much more about her here, but it's her humour and her perseverance that will inspire me the rest of my life. She was a survivor. I will miss you forever, Ietje.
No comments:
Post a Comment