Healing
Thou hast made me known to friends, I knew not. Thou hast given me seats in homes, not my own. Though hast brought the distant near and made a brother of a stranger — Tagore
This site is ordinarily about prostate cancer. I usually try to share perspectives in an outright and honest yet optimistic manner. I try not to dwell on what happens when cancer wins. Not today.
Proost, Ina. Dankjewel voor je vriendschaap. Bedankt voor alles.
Yesterday, our dear friend of 15 years, Ina Broens, lost her battle to brain cancer–a glioblastoma diagnosed slightly more than a year ago. When our mutual friend, Neil, first contacted me and issued the Dutch word gliome, I paused. This was the same cancer that took Ted Kennedy’s life in just fifteen months. I knew the outcomes for this type of brain cancer are rarely good. We hoped and prayed optimistically that Ina would be an exception… that this day would never come. But, she wasn’t and it did. Now the world is less one loving soul who touched our lives with beauty.
When we moved to The Netherlands in 1995, Ina opened her door, her home, her family and her heart to us. We fast became friends with Ina and her husband Hein-Jan. In no time at all, we felt like longtime residents of the quaint town of Son en Bruegel and honorary Nederlanders.
We watched our son Jordan and their youngest daughter, Geanna, tear up and down the Krophollerstraat. With Geanna’s older brothers, Jan-Willam and Alexander, and the rest of neighborhood kids, they played and romped through the garden behind our houses–all to the loosely restrained horror of our neighbor, Joke, who believed the plant life had the unfair disadvantage. Today, those plants are still there remembering days gone by. It is Ina who has been harvested from the garden of our hearts.
The pure joy of having known Ina makes our physical loss that much harder to bear. She will always be with us and we will always be there for Hein-Jan and their children in friendship and love.
Ina, through the years MaryEllen and I have shared numerous kopjes koffie and glasjes wijn as well as countless late nights awash in friendship. With our shared good friends, Neil and Rachel, we formed a mini United Nations, bonding and growing in cultural understanding and unraveling the political mysteries of our birth nations. We’ve celebrated and supported each other. Your dinner table was always an open feast whenever we returned to visit. We will miss your lekker eten.
Thank you for your patience as we struggled through our Dutch. We can still hear your enouraging laugh when we slaughtered your native tongue and appreciate the gentle guidance you provided. We were thrilled when you greeted us at the door with a slice of birthday vlaai, teaching us that in your country, it’s cake immediately upon arrival, gift, drink and THEN dinner. To this day we still laugh when we remember the first exercise and how we abruptly left after the first three acts, leaving your entire family wondering what had been done to offend those new Americans! We had our koffie afspraak (coffee appointment) etiquette confused with our family birthday celebration protocol.
Thank you also for sending Hein-Jan over with our first Dutch Kerst boom (Christmas Tree), giant root ball and all. It was so much more gezellig than buying it at Home Depot (our version of Praxis) like we do here.
And then… only at our farewell party, did we learn how you loved to dance! You were on my dance card at every event thereafter. We will always remember how, in 2005, I broke my foot in four places while chasing you across the dance floor for a dance at Carnaval. Hein-Jan later joked that it was a hard but important lesson never to chase a woman. Truth be told, I would break my other foot if it meant another opportunity to dance with you just one more time.
But, life is unfair. I won’t chase after you this time. Our next dance will have to wait. Until then, we are ever grateful that our earthly paths crossed and hope that you are at peace and dancing through fields of gold.
Farewell and tot ziens,
Dan
This site is ordinarily about prostate cancer. I usually try to share perspectives in an outright and honest yet optimistic manner. I try not to dwell on what happens when cancer wins. Not today.
Proost, Ina. Dankjewel voor je vriendschaap. Bedankt voor alles.
Yesterday, our dear friend of 15 years, Ina Broens, lost her battle to brain cancer–a glioblastoma diagnosed slightly more than a year ago. When our mutual friend, Neil, first contacted me and issued the Dutch word gliome, I paused. This was the same cancer that took Ted Kennedy’s life in just fifteen months. I knew the outcomes for this type of brain cancer are rarely good. We hoped and prayed optimistically that Ina would be an exception… that this day would never come. But, she wasn’t and it did. Now the world is less one loving soul who touched our lives with beauty.
When we moved to The Netherlands in 1995, Ina opened her door, her home, her family and her heart to us. We fast became friends with Ina and her husband Hein-Jan. In no time at all, we felt like longtime residents of the quaint town of Son en Bruegel and honorary Nederlanders.
We watched our son Jordan and their youngest daughter, Geanna, tear up and down the Krophollerstraat. With Geanna’s older brothers, Jan-Willam and Alexander, and the rest of neighborhood kids, they played and romped through the garden behind our houses–all to the loosely restrained horror of our neighbor, Joke, who believed the plant life had the unfair disadvantage. Today, those plants are still there remembering days gone by. It is Ina who has been harvested from the garden of our hearts.
The pure joy of having known Ina makes our physical loss that much harder to bear. She will always be with us and we will always be there for Hein-Jan and their children in friendship and love.
Ina, through the years MaryEllen and I have shared numerous kopjes koffie and glasjes wijn as well as countless late nights awash in friendship. With our shared good friends, Neil and Rachel, we formed a mini United Nations, bonding and growing in cultural understanding and unraveling the political mysteries of our birth nations. We’ve celebrated and supported each other. Your dinner table was always an open feast whenever we returned to visit. We will miss your lekker eten.
Thank you for your patience as we struggled through our Dutch. We can still hear your enouraging laugh when we slaughtered your native tongue and appreciate the gentle guidance you provided. We were thrilled when you greeted us at the door with a slice of birthday vlaai, teaching us that in your country, it’s cake immediately upon arrival, gift, drink and THEN dinner. To this day we still laugh when we remember the first exercise and how we abruptly left after the first three acts, leaving your entire family wondering what had been done to offend those new Americans! We had our koffie afspraak (coffee appointment) etiquette confused with our family birthday celebration protocol.
Thank you also for sending Hein-Jan over with our first Dutch Kerst boom (Christmas Tree), giant root ball and all. It was so much more gezellig than buying it at Home Depot (our version of Praxis) like we do here.
And then… only at our farewell party, did we learn how you loved to dance! You were on my dance card at every event thereafter. We will always remember how, in 2005, I broke my foot in four places while chasing you across the dance floor for a dance at Carnaval. Hein-Jan later joked that it was a hard but important lesson never to chase a woman. Truth be told, I would break my other foot if it meant another opportunity to dance with you just one more time.
But, life is unfair. I won’t chase after you this time. Our next dance will have to wait. Until then, we are ever grateful that our earthly paths crossed and hope that you are at peace and dancing through fields of gold.
Farewell and tot ziens,
Dan