Oma

Yesterday I learned that my "Oma", my grandmother, my father's mother and my children's great-grand-mother had peacefully passed away in her sleep. She was almost 95.

This picture of her hangs on the wall; it was taken in December 1997 when we visited Holland with Caelan when he was 4 months old. Four generations in a picture.

I remember....

I remember staying with my grandmother as a kid. I remember how the morning sun shone through the yellowy-grey curtains with the funny patterns. I remember using a little burner-stove and cooking apples cut in tiny pieces. I remember that she bought me a present one day, we went to the department store (seemed so huge!) and bought this doll set with tiny white cups and tiny white plates and I loved it and promptly lost half the pieces.

I remember lying in the back of my parents car driving back from a visit to Grandma (before seat belts were mandatory and when kids could still ride where now only dogs can sit), lying on my back watching the street lights flash past. The keDONK keDONK keDONK sound of the wheels as they bounced on the concrete slabs that was the major road connecting Heerenveen and Assen - the road built by the Canadians for their tanks.

My dad tells me they'll play a recording of my choir's recording of the Kyrie of Dvorak's Mass in D at the funeral on Monday. They'll play a piece of my uncle Frans' jazz trumpet recording - uncle Frans passed away a few years ago. So we will be there, in a way.

Peace, grandma.