He was only 59 when he was told he was suffering from an early stage of dementia and after the initial shock came acceptance and more. He showed without shame what Alzheimer’s means and above all that there are still so many beautiful things left in life.
“I try to do cheerful decay,” he said in 2015 in the TV program Dutch Affairs. “Yes, I know what’s coming, I’m slowly being disassembled, but I’m not unhappy about that.” In a documentary from 2018, the viewer saw how that cheerful decay went, and also that sometimes sadness was involved. ‘I notice that if I am with others, with healthy people, I can no longer keep up’, he said at the time.
Van Neure was an exceptional Alzheimer’s patient. A man with whom it was possible to communicate well until the very end, partly thanks to his sense of language, says his brother Ruud. Who, thanks to his sense of absurd humor, was able to put many problems into perspective. A man also who, despite the fog in his brain, managed to support his wife Patricia when her daughter became ill. “He remained smart, he always said the right thing,” she says.
To work
Because of his ready knowledge, he was considered an ‘encyclopedia’ by his brothers from an early age; especially nature had his great interest. Eric, who was born in Castricum in 1953, was the second of four boys in the family. His mother had a millinery shop, his father was a manager at Bruynzeel. He attended teacher training and later obtained his master’s degree in Dutch language and literature cum laude. After a career in business, he switched to education. His last job was at a pre-university education in Zaandam, where he particularly enjoyed supervising the most difficult group of students, says brother Ruud.
With his first wife Alexandra he had a son and a daughter, later he also played an important role in the lives of the three children of his second wife Patricia. The diagnosis of Alzheimer’s, in 2012, mainly caused discomfort in the first few years. At first, he even managed to keep working, thanks to numerous strategies that allowed him to hide his weaknesses. Patricia: ‘Every morning, when he got up, he said: get to work. That remained his life motto.’
Eric became more pleasant due to his illness, says his brother Ruud: ‘He opened himself up and talked to everyone. He accepted what came, I learned a lot from that.’
Richer and wiser man
Family, friends and neighbors helped so that he could continue to live at home, but at the beginning of 2018 the care became so heavy that crisis care and a nursing home became necessary. Which finally brought the bars he had always feared. His request for euthanasia was granted and a date was agreed. Just before that, his wife organized a pre-memoriam, where everyone who loved him reminisced about him while he was still there.
Two weeks before the euthanasia date, a place became available on a care farm. The freedom and personal attention there did him so well that euthanasia was cancelled. ‘After that he had another three wonderful years’, says Patricia. “And with his lack of sense of time, that must have lasted indefinitely.”
He passed away on November 23, 2021, aged 68. ‘Whoever really knew him is a richer and wiser person’, reads his mourning card. He was able to smile and be happy until the very end, says his wife. ‘He has lived up to that cheerful decay, also for us.’