Janny van der Wal

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Janny van der Wal, ~1950

Janny and Kees, ~1950

Nov 6, 1999
Dear Mom,

So much time has passed since you died, some 26 years, and I hadn't thought there was anything left to say to you or complete with you.  I carried no resentments, my life has turned out great, and both Jan and Dick are in great shape.

But recently I received a set of photographs of you from your brother Maarten.  They covered a period of time before any of us were born, a period when you were young, enthusiastic, active in sports, and glowing.  Even in the pictures taking during the Nazi occupation you looked vital and happy.  In the last of the pictures you are together with my Dad, clearly in love, and with your whole life ahead of you.  The pictures totally belie our joint notions that you didn't have much of a personality and that you lived your life essentially in the shadow of my Dad.  Please forgive us for having held on to that notion for so long.

I have just myself passed the age at which you died, and my youngest child is 8 years old.  I can now appreciate more fully what it must have been like for you to know that you were going to die and having to entrust your son Dick, at 9 years old, in someone else's care.

It was so great meeting your brother Maarten in Holland last summer.  He is now 70 and he is our only link to that past.  We spent so much of our time with him asking him questions about you.  And you know what, the most obvious part of it only dawned on me yesterday: how much he loved you.  He was totally delighted to have the opportunity to presence you for us.
I promise that I will presence you to my kids, as much as they can hear.

Thank you for my life.  My life is great.
Love,
Bert