Today, Nov. 3, is the day I would call my mom to wish her
another Happy Birthday.
I wish I could do that one more time, but she’s been gone
for some years now.
I’d say: “Happy Birthday, Mom,” but often in Frisian: “Lokwinsken
mei de jierdei, Mem!”
And then I’d sing to her over the phone, across the 2500
miles that separated us:
O wat zijn we heden blij,
Memke is jarig, memke is jarig!
O wat zijn we heden blij,
Memke’s verjaardag vieren wij!
Yes, it was long distance, but for those special minutes on
the phone we’d sometimes feel closer than if we had sat together around the
table with all her children and grandchildren watching her blow out the
candles.
I miss Mem, and I know I always will.
When I think back on her life now, I feel sadness that she was
more acquainted with life’s shadows than its sunshine.
Life was hard in the early years of the 20th
century.
She loved her school and teachers, but she had to go to work
when she was only twelve.
A brother she loved drowned when he suffered a seizure close
to home.
In her later teens, much of the farm work fell on her sturdy
shoulders when she had so much wanted to spend more time with friends.
My thoughts go back to the war years now in Holland, when
this feisty Frisian mother had four children to raise, took on the risks of
giving a hiding place to a resistance fighter wanted dead or alive by the
Germans, took in his wife and baby as well, and showed her mettle by joining
the resistance movement herself as a distributor of underground publications
throughout the area. I will never lose my mental image when I saw her peddling
through town, the saddlebags of her bike bulging with illegal papers.
As a young boy I was afraid for her. But I was in awe too, and felt strongly
bonded to this plucky woman who was my mother.
On this day I remember especially the day the shadows
darkened and dreams shattered when Heit, Mem’s husband of twenty-eight years,
suddenly passed away. There would be no
visit back to the homeland as husband and wife; there would be no sunlit ascent
toward the leisure years when all the setbacks, frustrations, and hard work of
post-immigration would finally give way to some stability and security and
contentment.
She did what she had to do when she was twelve. Now as a widow of fifty-three, with herself
and a young daughter to support, she once again had to go to work outside her
own home.
But what I remember especially this day is her love.
It was love that kept her letters and phone calls coming
when I felt lonely as a sick soldier in an Army hospital.
It was love that didn’t pressure me to become a farmer when
that would’ve enabled her to stay on the place she and dad had worked so hard
for.
It was love that let me go to Calvin College after her
recent loss. She did not lay a guilt trip on me. Instead she hugged me tight; our tears were
the language of love.
That love is my permanent treasure.
Thank you, Mem!
And thank you, God.
Loved reading this Henry. My mem's birthday would have been November 1, and like all of us, she has a story to share. I am so happy to be able to treasure my background and my roots. The first time I heard a sermon preached in Fries was in Grand Rapids. And to hear the Our Father said in my heart language, "us Heit" brought tears, and your blog did as well.
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