Dad on that Sunday afternoon, showed us how to kick a ball. ’See you don’t need a big space so long as you kick straight’, he boldly demonstrated. We tried hard to keep the ball on the narrow and straight with mixed success. ‘No, no, no, give it a real big kick like this’. Whoosh… there it went...far and high...my much-prized ball, but oh la la, where did it land?
Right among the thick bushes and undergrowth of the hilly part of the old spooky Jewish cemetery.
All the frantic searching ended in vain and with the sound of Dad’s promise of a new ball the next day the tears dried up while we dragged our legs homeward.
That ball was not just an ordinary ball it was given by Sinterklaas and it was a beauty otherwise I wouldn’t be able to tell what it looked liked six decades later. It was about 25cm in circumference, had rectangular blocks of silver grey, yellow and black, and it shone.
Six hours later that Sunday night, July 17,Antoon rose from the bed to refresh himself at the washbasin in the bedroom and without a warning collapsed, moaning and grabbing his head. Mum managed to drag Dad back into bed, don’t ask me how. It must have been a dreadful experience for her, all alone with an unconscious husband and five little children sound asleep in their rooms, unaware of the drama unfolding.