The years after World War Two

My three children

December the 19th 1976, the five us left beautiful Switzerland, Jacques, Jacqueline, our two cats and I . We slept one night in a small hotel in Alsace-Lorraine after having a real good dinner, the cats had a good meal as well. The next day we drove on through the north of France, we had a good lunch in Belgium and then at last we arrived in The Netherlands, in Terneuzen were both my sisters and their families  lived. My sister Henny has two children and my youngest sister Puck ( Jansje) has two girls and a son.
I could see that Jacqueline was happy being a part of a real family, I had started a new life, this time a family life.

That same year our son Theodore arrived on the 25th of December 1976, our Christmas present. He was very tired and just looked at us as if we came from another planet, he seemed a quite little boy. But when he woke up the next day, I saw that this little boy was very lively and very busy all the time with all his presents he had received from his new family. My mother was also with us during Christmas and New Year, she called Theo her little Javanese boy, although of course she knew that he came from India.
In 1977 Theo could go to school, that is to say to the pre-school kindergarten, that he liked very much and he was indeed a very busy child, quite naughty too.
Jacqueline went to a special school, she didn’t like to study, she was so much behind at school, I could understand her feelings. Jacqueline was very interested in the boys, she was now a real adolescent.

In 1978 we decided to adopt a little girl, in the beginning of 1979 all her papers were in order, but all of a sudden the office in New Delhi didn’t let her go, she couldn’t be adopted. We never learnt why, we were really sad. But New Delhi promised us a new girl.  Our Indian friends found her in Hyderabad in the south of India.
The little girl was found in front of a hospital, there they found out that she had heart problems.  My friends took her to New Delhi and went to a good doctor, it would take some time to get all the papers in order, we also needed a permission from the cabinet of our queen Beatrix to get the little girl into Holland, because she had to be operated when she would be five years old. In September 1980 at last all the papers for our youngest daughter were completed and her journey to Schiphol, Amsterdam could begin.

Jacqueline en Theo came with us to fetch our Angelina on the 5th of December 1980. When I took a crying little girl in my arms, I felt so very happy and rich with my three children, this time I knew that all the good luck on earth was with me.

It was lovely to hear the voices of my children through the house, or see them sitting in front of the TV, or when they came home from school with friends.
My mother came to stay in Terneuzen, so the children could see her more often as well, my mother’s favourite was Theo.  All three my children have always been and are still a part of the whole family.

Alas, my mother died in 1987, always too early.

Jacqueline married Benny when she was 18 years old and they have two daughters, Elize and Sabrina.
Jacques was sick and tired of Holland and went to Greece in 1988, but I did not follow him.

Theo, Angelina and I went to Tilburg in 1989. 
Today Theo is an illustrator and works in Best not far from Tilburg where he lives, I couldn’t wish for a finer son, he is absolutely wonderful.
Angelina studied law at the university in Tilburg, she has a very good job and lives in The Hague but we phone each other a lot and she often comes over to me for the weekends in Tilburg, we can talk for hours together about all sorts of items.
Angelina is my globe-trotter, like me, my daughter loves to explore the world, loves to see how people live in the many different countries of this world, she has been six weeks in Indonesia and she travelled eight weeks through the north of India.
If all goes well then Angelina and I will visit London and Paris next year, just for a long weekend.