FROM MY LIFE

Strong Women

Four generations of strong and remarkable women

Strong woman.

When I looked at the image above — an image of me — that was the thought that came to mind. I see a strong woman. As it goes, once you have something in mind, more thoughts followed… thoughts about the powerful women I had and have in my life.

Grandmother

She was born in 1912, and still only a child when World War I happened. But, by the time World War II happened, she had a family, children to protect. The only child that was born after the war was my mom. My grandmother already had a son and a daughter when WWII started, and another daughter was born during the war.

Eight years after WWII ended, they left their home, left their country, and emigrated to South Africa. There they built a new, happy life, until my grandmother lost her husband in 1972. She remarried five years later, to another Dutch man, only to lose him too seven years later. His brother was also at the funeral, and I don’t know how it happened, but my grandmother and this man became a couple.

When he became forgetful, she stood by his side. When he walked out of the house and disappeared, she waited until he returned, or the police brought him back because he didn’t know where he lived anymore. He got violent because of the dementia, but she laughed it away, and kept on caring for him. Health professionals told her she should have him admitted, that she should think about her own health too, but she kept going until he became a danger to himself, and went to a care home.

A week after he moved out, she had a heart attack. She pushed the alarm button, and when the carers came into her flat, she was on the bed and seemed to be asleep. They didn’t want to wake her — if only they did.

My aunt found her the next morning, unconscious. By then, her kidney (she only had one) didn’t work anymore. They tried for two months to save her life, wanting to put a ‘permanent line’ somewhere in her body for the dialysis she would need for the rest of her life. They tried, but the doctors didn’t succeed, and when they wanted to put the line in her neck, she stopped all treatment. She said her time had come. In those last two weeks of her life, she planned her funeral from her hospital bed.

My grandmother was a remarkable woman.

Mother

I have written about my mom before. I don’t think I will ever be without words, writing about her.

As close as I was to my mom, just as close my mom was to hers. When my grandmother passed away, my mother made sure the funeral went according to my grandmother’s wishes. She refused to see her mom in the coffin and only went back to the graveyard once after the funeral to check the stone she had ordered. She never went there again. Never. She never accepted her mom’s passing. The first time I ever saw her cry about my grandmother was when her eldest sister passed away, three years before she did. She never accepted her sister’s passing either.

Mom didn’t have an easy life, but she never complained. She married my father at only 17.5 years old and stayed in the marriage despite him having affairs with his school sweetheart repeatedly. She had left school to marry him, but finally finished got her diploma the year after getting mine.

Back in South Africa, she had worked herself up from a simple clerk to a Financial Manager, and when she moved to the Netherlands, she had to start at the bottom again, but after only a couple of years, she was a manager again.

Mom’s biggest regret and heartache had been that she never married the love of her life. He was in her life (at a distance) until she passed away (even though he never contacted her during those months), and they had seen each other on and off whenever he visited South Africa or the Netherlands, but they had never been a couple the way mom wanted it. Life was cruel to their love.

When mom learned how ill she was, she did everything to convince us she would get better again. I think from the moment the GP told her about the possible diagnosis, she had known how it would end.

We were three months in when I sat next to mom, and she told me to bring pen and paper the next day, as she wanted me to take notes for her funeral. My heart broke into a million pieces, but I didn’t show it. It was a week before her 70th birthday that I sat down with her, and we started taking notes. My uncle — her brother, a minister — helped determine the songs, and he wrote the funeral liturgy.

It was during those moments that mom started crying and said she felt like she was abandoning us. I told her she wasn’t; the illness is just stronger than her. A week later was her birthday, and the week after that — exactly a month before she passed — her body went in shock. Afterward, she said she had wanted them to let her go. She was at peace. Another week later, she stopped getting out of bed. She could barely stand anymore. One more treatment followed to stop the bleeding in her lungs. Two weeks before she passed away, she stopped all treatment.

She was done. Ready to go.

In her life, mom always did things her way, but the one thing that was most important to her was family. Her mom. Her siblings. Her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. She knew what everyone did, knew what was important to everyone, and always paid attention and showed interest in what we told her. Each and everyone of us.

Mom was a remarkable woman.

Daughter

Our oldest daughter, my biological daughter, was born when I was almost 17, still just a child. I did my best to raise her well, but am honest in that I made a lot of mistakes, because of my immaturity. She was the center of my world, a world where I had to find my place, while also caring for her. In hindsight, the choices I had made weren’t always the best, but I had made them with her best interest at heart. I watched her grow up to a beautiful teenager, blossoming into a lovely young woman, and who now is a woman who is the rock of her little family.

Where I admire the woman she has become, the thing that I admire the most is the way she raises her kids. I know if I tell her she’s the perfect mom, she will deny it and tell me about all the mistakes she makes, but if I compare it to myself, she really is the perfect mom.

They diagnosed her oldest son with classical autism. He can’t go to a regular school, and has difficulties understanding ‘normal’ children. The way she has and is handling this is wonderful. He’s in a school where he flourishes, and recently even started football training. She does so much to prepare him to stand his ground in a cruel world, and she does this without losing sight of her youngest son, who doesn’t have special needs, but needs the attention of his mom as much as his older brother does.

I look at her, and I see a powerful woman, a woman with a will of her own, a woman who knows what she wants from life, a woman who loves her husband and children to bits, and who keeps her family close. She has a beautiful soul, without realizing it herself.

My daughter is a remarkable woman.

Me

It’s only when people hear a bit of my life history and say ‘you went through some hard times’, that I stop, look back and realize: yes, I did.

My youth was fairly uneventful — if you don’t count the number of times we moved, and the fact I suspected from a very young age, my parents were only staying together for us, the kids.

Then, pregnant at 16, university at 17, a dropout at 18, and into an office job. Married at 20, pregnant at 21, divorced at 22 (because he abused my daughter), a severely abusive relationship at 26, immigrated at 27, married again at 31, divorced at 35 (this time it was emotional abuse), and then finally, also at 35, I met the love of my life. We moved in together when I was 37, married when I was 38 and the rest is history. At least finally, in the love department, my life has settled down.

Despite my happiness, life is full of difficulties. I miss my mom more than I allow myself to admit, and the difficulties my husband had and has with his health in the past five years are taking their toll on me.

I have not only grieved for my mom in the past years but also for the life we have lost. Our intimate life has come to a standstill first because of meds my husband had to take, then a stroke, and now thyroid cancer.

I don’t mind taking care of my husband. I will also not mind doing it if he ends up in a wheelchair — this is reality, not speculation. I will always be at his side. Will always be there for him, in any way possible.

But this doesn’t mean it’s easy. It’s hard, I won’t lie about it. It’s because I love him so much, because he is the man he is, that I do it with all the love in my heart. I’m trying not to think about what I lost, but to focus on what I still have; what we still have. Life is good, despite everything, because we are together, and I believe we always will be.

Looking back on my life, I see the influence my mom and grandmother had on me. I see how they have formed me, how I have taken on their values, and I also see the influence my daughter has on me. Seeing the woman she is, I know I have done something good, and that makes me proud.

When I look back, I hope I am half as remarkable as the three women above.

If you’re thinking of joining Medium, click on my referral link to support me and other writers.

Find more of Marie on her lists, and here…