Today at 12:00 • Updated today at 12:51
Ingrid van Breemen from Bladel was only 13 when her father Bertus died in 1979 at the age of 53. A hammer blow for the nice, happy Van Rooij family. Ingrid’s mother Ida almost died, but stayed upright. Yet she also died much too young in 1998. She was only 66. The sadness can still overwhelm Ingrid, but she especially cherishes the beautiful memories of her parents.
Ida and Bertus met through a friend and they actually hit it off straight away, says Ingrid. “My mother immediately fell in love with my father, she once said to me. He was a sailor at the time and looked good with his brown head and sturdy body. She couldn’t take her eyes off him.”
They married and had five children, two sons and three daughters. Ingrid was the youngest. “We were a large family, there were seven of us, and that brought a lot of fun, with my father as the pacemaker. We were very close and things were cheerful at home, and I have only fantastic memories of that.”
That had everything to do with Ida and Bertus’ attitude to life. “They loved parties and were very hospitable. A lot of my friends and my brothers and sisters stayed with us. And they liked to dance, especially my mother. When I came home from school there was always some music on and I could hear her singing along. Then she would grab me and say: ‘Come on, let’s have a dance’. And then we would dance around the room together.”
“I was allowed to paint his nails and put on lipstick, he thought it was all fine”
As the youngest child of father Bertus, Ingrid could break a sweat, although he could also be strict, Ingrid knows from her brothers and sisters. “I was perhaps a bit of a daddy’s boy indeed. I was allowed to paint his nails, paint his lips and do his hair, he was all fine with it.”
“My father was crazy about pigeons and also had his own pigeon loft at home. He was a great animal lover anyway and always brought all kinds of animals home with him: bantam chickens, turtles and even a goat. As a child, you obviously love that.”
While mother Ida took care of the family, Bertus earned a living in the coal mines and later at Heineken. They were doing well and were simply a nice, warm and loving family. Until disaster struck.
“My mother was only 47 and my father 53 when he was diagnosed with liver cancer. That turned everything upside down, also because it all happened so quickly. I was not there when he died and I was not able to say goodbye to him. That still bothers me to this day. I was on holiday with my nephew when I got a call from my eldest sister. He was no longer there.”
Ida could not cope with the loss of her Bertus and became overwrought, an intensely sad and difficult time began, says Ingrid. “My middle sister and her boyfriend took care of everything at home and my older brother took me under his wing. I am still very grateful to them for what they did then. But it is a period that I don’t like to think about.”
Ida recovered and although she continued to miss her husband very much, she thoroughly enjoyed her children and grandchildren.
“She couldn’t believe her luck with those little ones”
“My mother was an incredibly sweet, caring, open-minded, special woman. She was my best friend and we shared a lot with each other. And just as she cared for us, she also did the same for her ten grandchildren. She couldn’t believe her luck with those little ones. The sadness was great when two of her grandchildren died at the age of 19 and 24. She was completely devastated by that.”
In 1998, disaster struck again. Completely unexpectedly, the Van Rooij children also had to say goodbye to Ida. A cardiac arrest.
Ingrid: “You could say that sadness and having to say goodbye have haunted our family and perhaps that is true. It has not been easy for us. But I hold on to all the happy and beautiful memories, the warmth and love of my parents. I will take that with me for the rest of my life and no one will ever take that away from me.”
