Jacques and Rika celebrated quietly their 20th wedding anniversary. Only his 72yr. old mother Anna spend the day with them at their residence above the shop in the Steen Street, Arnhem. Towards 9.00 in the evening when light started to fade, Anna decided to go home, her daughter’s place at the Paasberg suburb. Her son Jacques wanted to bring his elderly mother home, but she rejected his offer with a lofty motion of her hand, telling him in an absolute voice:
‘Ik heb geen lakeien nodig’, ‘ I have no need of any footmen’. The tram stop was as far she allowed son Jacques to accompany her, where she duly boarded the tram on route 1, direction Paasberg.
No problem getting on and off, but she failed to see the kerb, stumbled and fell, cracking her hip.
Not only her bones were hurt but also her pride, under no circumstances was she to enter the hospital.
‘If a doctor was any good, he could see her at home and take all his instruments with him’.
Many months mother Anna spend in bed upstairs at 25 Adama van Scheltema Avenue, being looked after by her daughter Jo. She was not a difficult patient, but let we say, a rather unruly old crock.
One particular evening, the family got together for a boisterous game of cards. Upstairs in her lonely space, Anna, hearing the animated sounds below, couldn’t stand the sight of the dull patterns of the wallpaper any longer. With a painful stretch, she managed to pick up a shoe and banged the floor once, twice, four times.
The daughters and son-in laws raced upstairs, cards hurriedly left on the table below, expecting to see Mum grimacing in pain. However they were confronted with a dejected cry “Tel ik niet meer mee”, “Don’t I count anymore”?
Feeling guilty, the ‘deckchairs’ were quickly re-arranged upstairs and the game continued in an even less orderly fashion. Her son-in law Herman van der Wal sat on the edge of the bed, close to her, watching his given hand full of hearts and spades. Mother Anna watched her hand disappear into Herman’s trouser pocket, where his packet of fags was slowly embezzled. A while later our bed stricken ancestor who never smoked in her life, was sending her first smoke signals over the flabbergasted heads, playing havoc with their concentration.