Memory moments

 

Goldie at the highest waterfall in the Netherlands

We’re staying in the Netherlands again, drinking in the warm weather and Dutch food. It’s been more than a year since staying as a family. I have been a couple of times by myself, just to see my parents, as my mother has been diagnosed with health problems.

Staying in the Netherlands is always filled with memories. Like taking my children to the huge outdoor pool, joined by my best friend and her children. We used to go to this pool when we were teens, and we agreed that the noise and smell is still exactly the same. The area around the pools has changed a little, but when you close your eyes, you can hear the same shrieking voices, the splash of someone jumping off the highest diving board and the chattering voices of hundreds of people. If I were to write a book about swimming pools, that would have to be the essence of the setting.

I spend a little time with my mother one afternoon. We walked along a smooth path to the highest waterfall, then sat on a bench and took in the smells and sights of the forest. My mother quoted a bit of De Herdersfluit, a beautiful poem, and my phone helped to find the rest. It is written by Jacqueline van der Waals, and my mother mentioned the little book of poems they had in their bookcase. Dementia is a dreadful thing, but there are these glimpses of normal. Of the way my mother always sat and stood.

 

It is hard to see her, and not see her as she was, energetic, making stacks of pancakes, or cycling home with several cartons of milk, plenty of bread and one and a half kilograms of cheese (The usual chunk of cheese she would order, and no one would try to give my mother 1,600 grams instead, not the way her eyes would watch them cutting off the piece...). She was the fastest walking shopper I have ever met, and could clean a house to within an inch of its life before it was time for coffee. She still does some token cleaning on good days, a minute fragment of memories that felt permanent.

This morning we were looking at holiday pictures, from when I was two. I remembered little bits, so we got the old albums out. My mum knew, and still knows, exactly where we went and in which year, whereas my dad might have remembered the holiday from one year ago if you were lucky. For once, my mother was the one with the facts and names and funny stories, smiling when the albums proved her right.

Each day is a gift, even when it doesn’t feel like a welcome one. But this week has made me more determined to use each day to honour God and to live through Christ, because some days might feel empty and pointless, futile and unnecessary dark if our aim in life has disappeared. And new memories bring fresh smiles, ready to help lift darker days.

Maressa Mortimer is Dutch but lives in the beautiful Cotswolds, England with her husband and four (adopted) children. Maressa is a homeschool mum as well as a pastor’s wife, so her writing has to be done in the evening when peace and quiet descend on the house once more. She loves writing Christian fiction, as it’s a great way to explore faith in daily life. Because of her interest in writing, Maressa is part of Creativity Matters: Find Your Passion For Writing, an anthology encouraging people to write.

Her debut novel, Sapphire Beach, was published in December 2019, and her first self published novel, Walled City, came out in December 2020, followed by Viking Ferry, a novella. Beyond the Hills is the second book in the Elabi Chronicles, and was released in 2021, followed by stand-alone novel Burrowed, released in 2022. The third book in the Elabi Chronicles, Downstream, has just been released. All of Maressa’s books are available from her website, www.vicarioushome.com, Amazon or local bookshops.