Luky;
SOME YEARS AGO I RECEIVED A LETTER FROM MY MOTHER in which she told me that one of my father's brothers had just died - from cancer, as did my father and a third brother.
This uncle was a priest in Holland, and I know little about him, since I last saw him on the day when my brother first received Holy Communion. A thing I noticed about him was the beautiful way he pronounced his words, far better than his big brother, my dad, who like myself spoke in the rather flat Amsterdam accent.
"Papa", I whispered, "why do you hit that uncle on the back? He's a priest! And won't you try to speak posh, the way he does?"
My father roared with laughter. He called loudly over the heads of the guests; "Hear what my daughter says, Nick? She reckons I ought to come to you for speech therapy."
When my uncle threw back his head and laughed, there suddenly remained no difference between him and my father. He just looked like a younger version of my dad, and just as down-to-earth and kind.
We seldom saw my uncle unless it was at a big family gathering, since his parish was in another province. All I remember of those occasions were the looks of love and pride my grandmother would keep sending in his direction.
When my father mentioned him, he often told this story:
"Nico was three years old when my mother sent him down the street to the shoemakers. When he came in with his bag of shoes, almost as big as himself, the shoemaker said jokingly: "Well, young man, are you going to be a rich baker like your father?" "No sir", answered Nick, "I'm going to be a poor priest."
"Right through school he only yearned to go to the seminary. There was a boy who knew what he wanted to be - ever since the age of three!"
In 1971 when Joseph and I went to Lourdes for the first time, I stayed at the pilgrims' hospital in the grotto grounds. Arriving early in the morning, I was shown in to breakfast with a group of pilgrims. Having travelled all that night, I was too tired to take notice of them until their chaplain got up to lead the prayers after meals.
Recalling my school French, I prepared to make the sign of the cross: "Au nom du Père, et du Fils, et du Saint Esprit." To my surprise he said instead: "In de naam van de Vader en van de Zoon and van de Heilige Gees."
At once I felt less homesick, realising that I had inadvertently joined the members of the national Dutch pilgrimage. I correspond with some of its members to this day.
After prayers, the chaplain strolled over and patted Joseph on the head. He was delighted to find I was Dutch, although I had come from far distant South Africa, and asked whether I still had family in Holland.
"Plenty", I replied, "My mother came from a family of eleven, and my father was one of nine children. In fact, one of my dad's brothers is still a priest in Holland."
"What was your name before you were married?" he asked, and I told him.
"Well, I never", he exclaimed, "you much be Nick's niece!"
It's a small world, as you discover when you've come halfway around it to meet someone who's on first-name terms with your dad's younger brother.
Although I never knew my uncle well, the thought of his death haunts me. Thinking back I recall him and those of his brothers who also died from cancer as men in their thirties, full of life, health and laughter. I seems strange to think of them as having gone forever from this world - but we'll meet again soon. And when I think of the small domestic trials and tribulations which take up so much of my valuable time and attention, and recall the painful deaths of these people, I feel that I'm wasting the best years of my life in deploring trivialities.
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