Jaap Kiewiet (69, draftsman, constructor) died on July 20, 2014 from the consequences of a brain tumor. His wife, Ellie Kiewiet (68, customer service Albert Heijn) died three weeks later, on August 14, 2014 from the same illness. They had two daughters: Simone (now 50, primary school teacher) and Rachèl (47). Simone is married and has two daughters aged 18 and 15 .
Simone: ‘On King’s Day 2014, the royal family paid a visit to De Rijp. We were the first village where the king came and it was very lively here. All associations wanted to organize something. My mother was very active, she was a member of the Eilandspolder choir, which mainly sings tearjerkers. Such a King’s Day is an immense organization, everything in the village is cordoned off, you should not think that you can have a nice walk around. When the bus arrived and the members of the royal family got off, there would be a row of children with bouquets in their hands. Our youngest daughter Nienke was chosen to present a flower to Princess Beatrix. We as parents could not be there, we had to deliver our child a few hours before. But my mother’s choir would be there to sing to the family when they got off the bus. My mother could then see her granddaughter hand the bouquet to Beatrix. It was a nice prospect for my mother, who had been through a rough time.
A year and a half before that, my father had had an epileptic seizure while babysitting the grandchildren. At the hospital we were told that he had a grade 4 brain tumor, which is the most serious, incurable form. He was still able to undergo surgery and receive treatments to prolong life. He really wanted that, because he wanted to stay with it as long as possible. My parents were vital sixties, they were in the middle of life and very active. They played an important role in our family life: one day a week was Grandpa and Grandma Day. Then they would bake pancakes with our children and sail for a while to eat those pancakes somewhere in a meadow.
Weeds
During the surgery they removed the tumor from my father, but they also told us to think of it as weeds on a gravel path. You see something here and you pull it out, but somewhere else it comes up again. And so it went. A few months later, we saw in new photos that it had suddenly come back in a different place. And then it was no longer operable. My father gradually became sicker and weaker. We often made puzzles from the newspaper together and when we were doing a sudoku, he said, “I just can’t think of it anymore.” His motor skills also deteriorated rapidly. At one point he walked with a walker and was almost unable to climb the stairs. My mother had resolved to guide my father as best as possible to the end. She put her heart and soul into making it a worthwhile time. Their mentality was: it is what it is and we will have to make do with it. Not in denial, not even angry, rather resigned. My mother had thought that when Daddy was gone, she would get a dog. Such a puppy, which you take home for a year during the training to become a service dog.
And then it was the day before King’s Day, the day my mother had been looking forward to so much. At night the telephone rang, it had been lying next to the bed for months. I shot up: oh dear, Daddy, now it’s time. But it was my father’s voice, who said, “Mama is not well, can you come?” I was there in five minutes, they lived four blocks away. My mother had vomited and was lying on the floor in the bathroom, my father unhappily in bed. He couldn’t do anything. The next morning the doctors came to the hospital with the pictures of the scan: ‘Madam, we have very bad news, your head is completely full of tumors.’ My mother’s prognosis was a few weeks or maybe months. I said: ‘That is impossible, because we already have something bad, my father is dying.’ We were totally upset, you can hardly believe it. I remember calling my work in the hallway upset: ‘My mother has the same as my father!’ Then the worst came: my sister and I had to tell our father. That’s the worst thing I’ve ever had to do. He collapsed and began to cry terribly. My mother was calmer, she didn’t say ‘why me?’, but ‘why now?’ She had wanted to bring my father well to the end and that was beaten out of her hands. On King’s Day we took my father to the hospital, where they watched on television how their granddaughter handed the flower to Beatrix.
Bizarre months
Fortunately, they both had a care indication, so we could get a lot of home care, in the end up to seven times a day. The entire living room was converted and two hospital beds were installed. The beds faced the garden so that they could look into the garden side by side. There was something cozy about it, the way they lay there together. Then followed three bizarre months; they had the same symptoms, the same drugs, and the same life expectancy. The only question was who would go first.
After my mother’s birthday on July 11, they called one Sunday evening: ‘Simoon, can you come over, we want to discuss something.’ They said they had decided they wanted euthanasia: ‘The point has been reached, it has been great, we will get out of it together.’ I got it and thought it was a good idea. It was Sunday and the SCEN doctor couldn’t come until Friday. The conversation with the doctor went well, the euthanasia was to take place the following Monday. But after that conversation, my father deteriorated really fast. He sat in his chair for the last time on Saturday, and he passed away on Sunday afternoon.
While my mother was due to have euthanasia on Monday, she suddenly said: ‘I don’t want it, now I’m going to finish it too.’ We thought: where do you get the power from? She couldn’t really sit up anymore. She has practiced all week to be able to sit in the wheelchair.
Meanwhile, she tapped whatever she wanted on her iPad. You could tell that her brain wasn’t working properly anymore, because it was half-sentence full of language mistakes or suddenly it was all in capital letters. But she was in charge, determined what should be played, what the flowers should look like, and the grandchildren had to decorate Grandpa’s coffin. While I was addressing my father at his funeral, my mother was sitting in the wheelchair in the front row. From the moment she came home she has only been in bed. She passed away peacefully three weeks after my father.
I don’t know what she would have preferred in hindsight: to go with him or finish it herself. What I do know is that my parents were the epitome of human resilience. They have made the unbearable bearable for me.’