Dear Ton, my dear, precious dreamer,
Can 47 years of friendship just suddenly come to an end like this? That question just keeps on hammering in my head.
On your thirteenth year, you were placed beside me in the high school classroom and since then, we’ve never lost sight of each other. You even turned out to be my new neighbour, but I did not yet know that.
We rode to school together, went to parties, did our homework and philosophized like crazy. Over life and how it could, or should be. But of course it was never like that in reality. Reality proved many times more complex and nuanced than we ever could have thought.
We had our relationships, our divorces, our disappointments and our new loves; we shared the vicissitudes of our families. Thank God we were also naturally becoming wiser. We loved the wonderful children in our lives, and we loved our work. We discussed wishes, hopes, challenges, fears and biases. We could laugh together and cry together.
We exchanged books, enjoyed concerts, visited museums and talked for hours and hours; we went for long walks and shared our love of Portugal. Ton, we could shine so beautifully together, reflect on the things you actually couldn’t set words to. Glad to have experienced it all with you.
We were as close as possible, without disturbing each other in what each of us actually wanted; we guided each other, guided the lives of others. We were, in a loving way, evidence of this. We simply saw each other as we were and could just leave it for what it was. And if we needed each other, we were just there; obvious right?
You were not only a friend to me – you were a friend to so many, to so many different people and many groups and, once again, from so many different countries. It has always been amazing that my life has been lived “in a square kilometre”, as I called it, and yet my life could co-exist with yours that stretched across the continents. But just as you were once stranded somewhere on a deserted airfield, we could still exchange a message, to let each other know that we are never alone in this world and there is always a connection to someone, somewhere, far away, who cares about you.
Now I just do not know how and if that connection with you can abide. The loss will go on for a very long time. For me, my children and grandchildren and our schoolmates. For my friends, who always found you so nice when they met you, at parties and dinners, at the Reunion Club. And with all the others who love you and whom you have loved.
So many people loved by you, who must now miss you …
Going for a walk on the beach with you – never more
Commenting on a picture – never more
Making the effort to explain to each other, how things can be perceived so differently – never more
After a meeting, having a little snack in the city – never more
Going to your lovely house – never more
Bringing up the memories of our youth – never more
Going swimming in Zeewolde – never more
Christmas in Monte Gordo – never more
Getting a card from you, from some faraway place – never more
That SMS – never more
Sitting with you and listening to music – never more
Absolutely everything – never more
If you were here and alive, you’d say to me, “but how can you know this?”
Who knows I may be there?
Maybe it’s better for me not be there anymore.
Who knows, it may be all so much better, you just never know, do you?
And there are so many beautiful things yet to happen,
So much and so many people to love,
Dear Riet, dear friends, weep now no more, please …
Here am I, the realist, and there you are, the dreamer.
I am from ‘here and now and what there is’, you from ‘there and then, and what may come’
Dear Ton, what a beautiful moment
To step out of your life
There on that boat, with your rowing friends so close
Just simply let go and let everything slip away …
You, who did not think about death and burial
You, who wanted to live life on full throttle
You who wanted to keep on going, past new horizons
You who kept dreaming, because dreams are gentle
Dear Ton, you who would simply not go downhill,
Who didn’t want to hear about sickness.
Death didn’t exist, because it didn’t for you,
And that is, for you, become the reality.
Because you are not here to bear witness of a cold, hard death
Even while you are still so alive, the focus of our sorrow
Ageing is for you out of the question,
And so you are, in our memory, forever young.
Ton, you have become the realist
And I have to continue without you.
I have to learn to dream on my own.
How am I supposed to do that.
I don’t really don’t know yet …
That unbreakable connection became of incalculable value in our lives.
I hope that it remains so, and will remain so, for ever …
What a blessing we were for each other. Thank you, dearest Ton.
Riet de Jong