Mum’s and their stories: This is mine about my mum
The sun is just warm enough to feel like a smooth caress on my skin. The breeze brushes over my arms and face, ensuring I don’t over heat. I do have to squint a little as I’m not wearing my sunhat. I left it at home. Silly me. I love that hat. I remember buying it as if it were yesterday. In Workum it was, in the Netherlands. To be really precise, it was in the province Fryslân and along the main street. The shop sold all sorts of holiday necessities. Fishing gear, gumboots, sun hats of all description and lots of bits and bobs tourists go for in wee places like this.
I was with Annette at the time. Annette and I were just playing tourist, well she was for real, being a kiwi holidaying abroad, and me, well I belong to the Frysian landscape. It’s in my blood. We were both just having a few days sightseeing in this part of the Netherlands before sailing across the water and heading into Wales. Two ‘besties’ needing a sunhat each during the summer of 2018. But I digress.
The 1st of May 1923. My mother was to be the last baby my grandmother would bear. The doctor was quite adamant about that. My mum was baby number 9 of which 7 saw adulthood. Four boys and three girls. From tales which I can recall was that mum had a worry free childhood. She became an aunt at 11 years of age. Her eldest sister married and started her family. They lived at walking distance and as the family additions arrived, mum was often engaged in helping out with nappies, washing and other tasks to help complete those mundane chores for the busy young mother.
War broke out. My mum was a teenager. Brothers went to war breaking my grandmother’s heart. Yes, they returned home, but not unscathed. The experiences they had coloured their lives.
Mum’s scholing and subsequent career choice, she trained as a kindergarten teacher, was marred in many ways as a result of that war.
Mum was very close to her 2 year older sister, Evelien ( Eef or Eefie to those who knew and loved her) and as young women they were often in each other’s company.
Marriages happened.
My parents met in 1946, and married 6 weeks later. A whirl wind courtship, again as a result of war. Tongues did wag mum told me. Even then, and maybe especially then, people were suspicious and judgemental.
My dad was due to be sent out to Indonesia and he would be away 3+ years at best. As a married soldier, he earned more, and mum could stay living at home with her parents. A shortage of housing was also prevalent. Many married couples and the birth of children were events that took place in parental homes of either partner. In this case, my eldest brother, sister and I were born in my mum’s family home.
Finally in 1953, my parents were allocated a home of their own. We moved to a ( then) wee place called Dieren in Gelderland. Dad was back at the railway and to help make ends meet, mum sewed plastic items. At home, for a company which utilised home workers. That was ideal for a family like ours with four children and a husband who worked shifts.
I recall it a fine time. Though there were the odd hiccups. After mum had my brother she needed some time out. Also there appeared to be an arthritic situation whereby mum received painful injections from the district nurse. I so remember having to ‘go play outside’ while mum was treated. Apparently the injections were extremely painful. Later she told me, she was scared of frightening us in case she yelled out in pain. Poor mum.
I have always had the idea mum missed being closer to her family as a car in that time wasn’t even a thinkable possibility. So the bonus of dad working for the railway was a gift. We had free travel. And visit family we did. Aunts and uncles, grandparents. It was during those visits we children got to meet our cousins.
A new prospect for a future arose. We were to immigrate to a country so far away it was hard to imagine how one would even get there. Reality also being, once there, there would be no going back. It was 1961. We all needed to learn to speak English, children and adults alike. We had to pack up, de-clutter and farewell all we knew and loved. My parents set us off on a great life changing journey. For my mum, the distance now being created between her and those she loved, must have been heartbreaking. How she kept up her spirits up is a mystery. It must have hurt lots.
The new life was soon not that new. We fitted in. Mum went to work in a factory sewing bras, yes indeed. Dad spent 5 minutes with the NZ railway but that wasn’t a success so he changed jobs a few times before he found his feet. Then, lo and behold, another baby arrived. Mum was 43 at this stage. More drastic changes were afoot in 1966.
We arrived back in the Netherlands for an indefinite time. My baby brother needed health care. Mum left her eldest son behind on the wharf in Auckland. The parting wasn’t to be forever but we didn’t know that then. After a space of 5 years and many ups and downs, we returned to New Zealand in 1971.
Dad died on 4th November 1999 and mum spent quite some time missing her husband of 53.5 years. She died in 2011, just after midnight on the 1st of January. Their ashes are both interred at the cemetery just outside Hamilton, New Zealand.
As I am writing this, hearing birds chirping in the background, the breeze is less, the heat of the sun more felt, I am in awe of all my mum endured. I am sure she was happy - while the aches and sadness must have played a big part in her life too! I do know the immigration was dad’s dream and she helped him realise it. That it didn’t all go to plan I know dad’s philosophy was, “ that’s life”. And another one of his wisdoms was, Life, is another name for The school of hard knocks”! Yet he was a very optimistic person. What mum thought, she didn’t often say, but sometimes she’d nod and say, “just like dad says, that’s life”!
Mum wasn’t spared joys or sorrows, health or sickness. Nor did she breeze through life’s challenges or avoid the struggles. Mum just faced, accepted and took on board all which came her way - in her own way.
And me, I am back in the Netherlands. Somehow being in the country of my parents and my birth is where I need to be. Yet I call New Zealand my home.
Be good - be kind - keep smiling!
