Mom

Mom

By John W. Vander Velden

 

Born one of nine children, in Holland, born in 1925.  By the time she became aware of anything her family was in the depression.  Fortunate to be a family of Taunders, that is truck farmers, they had food though little else.  When at last the depression ended they found their country occupied, and again they had so very little.  Even when the war ended their country ravaged by the war…there was nothing…absolutely nothing.

Though I would remember Mom and her life we must also remember dad, for their lives are so intertwined, as two strands of one fabric, so bound together.  It is not really possible to speak of one without the other.  They did not attend the same school, though they grew up in the same neighborhood.  They were in families that knew each other.  Both families were truck farmers.  They would marry in 1948, young, too young their pastor told them.  They were twenty-three. 

But they were driven by dreams, filled with ambitions and a lack of patients.  For they found themselves in a time, a time when there was no opportunity.  Their older brothers and sisters had begun their lives.  Later their younger siblings would have their chance.  But mom and dad found themselves, in the donut hole, so ready to begin their lives and denied.  So they came to United States.  They came with dreams, hopes, ambitions, and incredible pent up energy.  They left their home and the only life they knew,  coming to this country with two card board suitcases, a hundred dollars and little else.  But they brought with them a faith.  A faith that with hard work they would succeed.  A faith in themselves, a faith in this country, a land which they knew so very little.  A faith in God, cornerstone of their lives.  And later faith in the new family which they built. 

Crossing in a steamship, imagine people that had never been a hundred miles from home, crossing the ocean.  Mom became so ill.  The room felt so hot to the newlyweds.  Dad opened the window, that is the port hole, only to be balled out by the room steward.  I really doubt dad knew what the steward said but he never opened the porthole again.   Imagine the situation, nearly alone in a strange land.  For though dad’s sister and her husband had arrived a few months earlier they knew no others.  Though they had taken English lessons in Holland they soon found out what they had been taught was not quite English.  Actually it was not English at all.   Yet young, perhaps naïve, bold with incredible courage the newlyweds began a new life in a new world. 

That was the beginning of the great adventure that was their lives together, and like all great adventures it was not always pleasant or joyous.  There were many disappointments and setbacks.  Working for others, moving to Florida, and coming back to start all over again.   Yet with years of hard work and sacrifice they achieved their dream.  They at last had a place of their own… Their farm here in Walkerton. 

And all the while they raised their family, the five of us.  We’re all tall perhaps but each very different with lives and dreams of our own. Lives and dreams they did not always understand.  Two that with boldness and daring came to this country, five children, ten grandchildren and five great grandchildren…and so it goes on…

Just when they should have begun to enjoy the fruits of years of hard work and sacrifice, dad’s illness changed all their plans.  He was only fifty-seven when he was diagnosed with MS, only fifty-seven.  Mom worked hard all her life. She knew nothing else.  She understood nothing else.  She cared as best as she was able for her children, and then she cared as best she was able for dad.  Twenty-three years dealing with his MS, with all its ups and downs until at last it took him in 2005.  Suddenly she was alone for the first time in her life she was alone.  Living with her family, going directly from her father’s house to her husband’s, then after nearly fifty-seven years of marriage…alone.  Focusing on others she never realized that she too had become old.  She was strong, always strong, yet suddenly without purpose, the purpose that had so long been her life, she was to deal with the most difficult years of her life. 

I could spend all day speaking of memories, of how mom with her thick Dutch accent taught a brother how to correctly say chimney…the word has no “L”.  Of New Year’s Eve parties at my Aunt and Uncle’s, of trips to the beach at St. Augustine, and I remember when Mom received the phone call that broke her heart; when word came of her father’s death.  There are so many memories.  Are all my memories happy ones…no!  But all my memories are important ones, and I will cherish them always!  

 

We were taught respect for others, respect for our parents, and respect for God.  If I would speak of the home we as children were given.  It would be best said.  There were always clean sheets on the beds…food on the table…cloths on our backs…and love in the home.  In reality…is there anything more !!! 

(902 Words)  8-2015