SATURDAY, April 17 – The volcano in Iceland has been spewing ash and paralyzing European airspace. No end of irritation and inconvenience and yet I find it fascinating. Jenn and I would have shared the experience, in secret admiration for the colossal forces of nature. Not man, but nature rules. Eyjafjallajökull, we love you!
FRIDAY, April 16 – Sports massage at home. G is a fantastic – and merciless – masseur. This time he tackles not only my back and arms, but also my calves. You can’t put anything over on G: my body speaks the truth. He can tell that I once injured my left knee.
Overstretched, I say. The diagnosis was a ‘deranged knee’.
We have a good laugh. He wants to know how it happened and I grin at the thought. My wife once sat down on my knee. I think back to the day she put a torn-out magazine article on the nightstand: ‘Ten positions that will spice up your sex life … with illustrations’. It proved more complicated than we expected, but still fun until my knee ‘gave way’. I cherish the injury, which still rears its head from time to time. The body never lies.
THURSDAY, April 15 – The NOS foreign correspondents are back visiting at headquarters and I will have to address them at some Amsterdam hotel. This is the first time they’ve seen me since last year, and their support from a distance has been heartwarming. The plan is that I’ll start off the morning with a few brief remarks related to Jennifer’s death before we get down to the nitty-gritty of the meeting.
Unfortunately, I’m overcome by my emotions and this despite my rehearsed talk, despite just the few short sentences I had intended to utter. I thank them and tell them how we’re doing at the moment and I tell them I’m looking forward to a challenging program – a day full of debate, but then I choke up. A colleague takes over for me and I sit down.
Why the tears? Because at that moment I realized that a foreign correspondent is only able to do his or her work when the home front is covered one hundred percent. When you can be available twenty-four seven because your partner takes complete care of the children. For years, that was the way I had worked: it was single-mindedness bordering on monomania, because Jennifer had allowed me to. The same is true of the many colleagues who work abroad.
Without Jennifer, I would not be standing there. I knew that and so did they.
WEDNESDAY, April 14 – This afternoon I sent the boys to the park to give Elsa a run. Taking advantage of their absence, I took a quick look inside the mini urn next to Jenn’s photo. Just curious. It’s still a bizarre sensation having Jennifer’s remains here in the house. I shook it, but the ash, a kind of dingy grey grit, didn’t mean much to me. The imprint from my wedding ring is still visible.
TUESDAY, April 13 – Elsa usually poops in the same places. On the bridge, on a stretch of grass near the boat, and always on entering the park. This time she opted for the zebra crossing where Jenn had been knocked down. It was a huge sausage of a turd and she took her time. I had no choice but to watch and wait until she was finished. The adept movement of my hand, encased in blue plastic, revealed my experience with chores like this, but behind the routine procedure there was a paralyzing nervousness on a spot where thirteen seconds seemed like an eternity. Calm didn’t return until we reached the other side.
MONDAY, April 12 – Had a long talk with K. She was worried because of my uncommunicativeness, the vacuum I’ve created around myself, my mourning for Jennifer even though she understands my need to do so. The grief, the profound need to cherish her memory… neither enough time nor enough space for a new relationship. Not yet. It’s too soon. I feel like a bastard and an egotist, but I need to think about Jennifer, only Jennifer. So, I opt for my own needs and we stop seeing each other.
SUNDAY, April 11 – I’m sitting on the couch. Just sitting there. I feel like a lousy father and yet… Earlier today there was a resounding reality check with Sander who stubbornly resisted the ‘fun things’ I’d planned for today. I had tickets for a performance at a children’s theater downtown, but he wanted to stay home and fool around with the computer instead. That was too much for me and I lost my cool. Okay then. No computer for the rest of the day: for him, for Eamonn or for me.
The play was a disaster. It was about the death of an autistic girl, the Holocaust, a biker who had an accident and was beheaded, and machines in hospitals. Given the circumstances, it couldn’t have been any worse and at Eamonn’s request we left early, which was somewhat complicated in such a small theater. His well-being took precedence. Fuck the audience.
Eamonn and Sander fixed dinner and it looked like we’d rescued the day, but somehow things went wrong. Well and truly wrong. Sander kept going on about the computer and the fact that he was bored out of his mind. Eamonn and I were sitting happily on the couch reading. He’d pulled a blanket over our legs, slid his feet under mine and said that he used to do the same with Mom. The height of intimacy.
Sander went on and on. Until I lost my patience and sent him to his room. He stomped up the stairs. When I walked into his room, he came towards me and demanded that I leave. He grabbed my wrists and tried to push me away. I asked him to let go. Sander tightened his grip and glared at me. I asked him again. He refused. I pulled my hands away and slapped him across the face.
He was in a daze. Crying with rage, he threw himself on his bed. I bade him goodnight, after indicating that he’d gone too far and there was no way I was going to tolerate such lack of respect. Later he threatened to call the police if I ever hit him again. I told him to consider his own behavior – to look at himself.
I was, of course, out of line. You should never hit your children, but this time it seemed unavoidable. In some ways fathers and sons are equals while in some matters the roles are clearly delineated from one another. Jenn would have been appalled by this run-in, even if it might have been understandable: Sander and I are so much alike that we’re almost bound to clash. This time I had to take a stand.
Ten minutes later he came downstairs and threw himself sobbing into my arms. We both apologized. I repeated my promise, this time in a spirit of reconciliation: ‘Whatever happens, whether we’re mad at each other, or you don’t understand me, or you live somewhere else, I’ll always be there for you. I’ll always love you and you can always rely on me.’
‘Papa,’ said Sander, ‘I love you so much. And Mom, of course, and Eamonn.’
We were still clinging to each other when he continued, ‘I want you to know that Mom and I talked a lot. Especially when you and I had had yet another fight, I could always go to her. We talked about things you don’t know anything about, things I’m not going to tell you. It was between her and me. I want her back, Papa,’ Sander said. ‘I want her back’.
We clung to each other. We stood there like that for ten minutes. Never mind words, actions, and all the rest: feelings are far more important. And ours were more intense than ever.
SATURDAY, April 10 – Things are going fine. Until you’re pushing your cart around the supermarket and you find yourself next to a young couple. The father had clearly not slept well and the mother, who’s pushing the baby carriage, is annoyed but doing her best to ignore his conduct. He repeatedly reprimands his young daughter, who’s having trouble navigating her miniature shopping cart down the aisle. I’m annoyed not only with them, but also with myself, because I feel a stab of jealousy.
Or am I being overly-nostalgic and sentimental? A yearning for the days when we ourselves formed a young family of four? Father, mother and two young children. The future beckoned: we were building a life together, with expectations and doubts, ambitious plans, and daydreams about the years to come. You gradually get used to the routine of being a parent – the lack of sleep and also from the friction that inevitably arises in trying to establish equitably parenting commitment. Parental care and parental cares.
I feel the urge to wallow in depression and am poised to give in. Most of the articles in the shopping cart are taken from the list that Jennifer always used. I know it almost by heart and every week I end up buying too much food so when I get home, I first have to throw away all the food that’s already gone bad – usually without a trace of remorse.
My culinary creativity also leaves something to be desired. I have great plans and purchase the necessary ingredients, but then I don’t enjoy the actual cooking. I seldom try out a new recipe or surprise myself with some culinary tour de force. As long as the meal is hot and the ingredients have not gone bad, it’s okay by me. Oh, and every week I forget my bonus card. If only that was all…
The same family is now behind me in line. The little girl is sucking on her lollipop, the father contemplates the rest of the weekend, and the mother leans over to kiss the baby. Your average family. One of thousands.
14:00 – I think about K. a lot … but not that much. My head seems to be overflowing. I want to mark time for a while and go back a bit so that I can grieve for Jennifer. Go back to my wife, to the mother of my children. Not only physically, but also mentally. Back to the past and back to the future which are both so much a part of the present. I want Jenn back. I want to embrace that impossible desire undisturbed. And alone.
FRIDAY, April 9 – Initially, I didn’t much feel like going to L’s housewarming party tonight. After dinner I was overcome by a kind of apathetic melancholy. I had only myself to blame after having spent far too much time at the laptop. There were plenty of things I could and should have done that would have given me energy for this evening.
All things considered, it had been a really good day. I went to the new apartment where the renovation is going smoothly. I had a great guitar lesson. I made three appointments with potential movers and then, all of a sudden, I went into a dip. I told the boys I was going to stay home.
That is until the moment when I was changing the beds and I suddenly said to myself: ‘For Pete’s sake, go to the party, meet some new people. You can always leave early. If you don’t go, you’ll only feel worse.’ So I went. It did help – the people there were pleasant and easy-going. L’s new boyfriend has just moved into her boat house and there were German, English and Dutch friends there.
I spent a long time talking to P from Brighton. Good conversation, I dropped her off at her hotel, where we said goodbye with a pleasant, warm feeling – no more than that. A fine evening. So, it is possible. I can be sociable, meet new people, do my own thing and just be myself. Now, off to bed and try to keep to the new course. Positive energy.
In bed I open my laptop. I look at P’s Facebook photo. Suddenly I notice how tiny she is. And that she has short black hair. Large eyes. Just like Jennifer. That gave me a bit of a jolt.
THURSDAY, April 8 – Spent an hour in Oisterwijk, the town where I’d grown up. I had a business meeting in a nearby city and took advantage of the opportunity to stroll through the cemetery. The death of my father was my first confrontation with mortality. Would it do something to me, seeing his grave? Would it evoke forgotten emotions? Provide new perspectives?
Nothing. Nothing at all.
It must be years since I was here last. He shares a grave with his first wife, who was in her thirties when she was struck down by cancer. Pa had been left with three young sons. What a morbid resemblance between our lives, but am I actually conscious of that bond? Not really. I never discussed that time with him, since he died far too young. And now he’s lying here.
I had no trouble finding the grave. Turn left at the end of the path. A simple gravestone with simple lettering. No frills. Not because he was a modest man – he was sick and, in my childhood memory (which is unbeknownst to mental illnesses), he was crazy – but because the grave had to be cheap. You can barely make out his name and the dates of his birth and death are illegible. I felt no urge to tidy up the grave.
Diary of a Widower 