A warrior. This is how Vanessa characterizes her mother Ria Fonken from Tilburg. As a baby born much too early, she had to fight for her life and when it later turned out that she was hearing impaired, she also had to learn to deal with that. At the beginning of 2022, Ria was told she had cancer, but she did not give up and fought for two and a half years. Until she finished fighting on June 18, 2024 and had to throw in the towel.
“My mother was a very beautiful woman,” says Vanessa. “And she was not only beautiful to look at, but also beautiful on the inside. Yet her hearing loss caused an inferiority complex. People talked about it behind her back and that made her very insecure. It didn’t matter to my father. When he met her in 1976, he fell head over heels for her. And she for him. So all those other men who were after her were left behind.”
Walther Fonken, born in The Hague, and Ria Fonken-Jaarsveld from Tilburg were each other’s great love. One look was enough and after ten months of dating, Ria thought it was time and during an evening out she suggested they get married. Vanessa: “That’s a nice story. Because the night she proposed that, they had already had quite a few drinks. So my mother asked the next morning if he actually remembered what they had talked about. Well, he remembered that very well!”
Everything was negotiable: smoking, drugs, boyfriends, as long as we were honest
Vanessa was born in December 1979 and her sister Verona six years later. “We were – and still are – a very nice and close family. But also tough, we can argue with each other but we can always talk it out. Everything was negotiable at home: smoking, drugs, boyfriends, as long as we were honest, that was the most important thing to them. They made us watch films about drug use, so that we saw what the consequences were.”
The Fonken family’s door was open to everyone and Ria kept things running. “My mother was the center of our family. She was home when we came home from school and was indeed the mother who waited for us with tea and cookies and listened to our stories. Our friends liked to come to us because there were few things that were difficult to do. A lot was possible.”
“My father was quiet and could sometimes be strict. For example, he wouldn’t let us play outside as punishment. My mother wore her heart on her sleeve, could be fickle and was lenient. When my father was sleeping after a night shift and therefore didn’t know anything, she would say: go ahead, just go outside. We have experienced that so often, that he would not allow us to do something and my mother would look at us like ‘it will be fine’.”
Vanessa has fond memories of all the Sundays when they visited their grandmothers, of camping De Couwenberg in Netersel and camping De Leuvert in Cromvoirt, where they went as a family every weekend and during the holidays for years. “We never went abroad, but I didn’t really miss that. We had a great time at the campsite, knew everyone there and could do what we wanted. What more could you want as a child.”
The neighbors had heard me crying all night, my mother had noticed nothing
Mother Ria’s disability certainly did not stand in the way of a pleasant family life, but it did have the necessary impact. “My father was still working night shifts at the time. One morning he came home and the neighbors told him that they had heard me crying all night. My mother had not noticed anything. Then, until I was older, he started working as a window cleaner so that he could be home at night.”
It also meant that the girls, especially Vanessa, were wise and independent at a young age. “I answered the phone when I was three and explained to her who had called and what. I helped her with everything and learned early on how to deal with her hearing loss. It was just something we had to take into account. But she was such a sweet mother that you did it with love for her.”
When Ria discovers a spot under her breast in January 2022, she initially receives painkillers, but the pain remains. More tests follow and the diagnosis is inexorable: lung cancer. Vanessa: “It was immediately clear that they could not operate, so that was a big blow. But thanks to her fighting spirit and the immunotherapy, she still lived for 2.5 years. That therapy was really a miracle cure, she felt so good, super good even, unimaginable.”
In that ‘extra’ time, Ria still enjoyed her family and especially her three grandchildren, the apple of her eye, Vanessa says. “She was such a sweet grandmother. My two daughters and Verona’s daughter loved her and were very close. Perhaps they miss their grandmother even more than we miss our mother.”
“My daughters really wanted a photo shoot with their grandmother and the rest of the family. We did that in October 2023, after we heard in January that the cancer had spread to her head. Which was of course a very bad news. The shoot was beautiful but also very emotional. We knew it would be the last family photo with her.”
She became so terribly ill, she didn’t want to do it anymore, it was over
Ria still doesn’t give up and she starts chemotherapy to get rid of the metastases. “But after the first treatment she became so terribly ill. She didn’t want to go anymore, it was over. Then we arranged everything at home in such a way that she no longer had to go upstairs.”
During the last weeks of Ria’s life, Vanessa cared for her full-time, also because her father could not manage it alone. “Together with home care Cura Excellent. It was tough, but above all very nice that I was able to do that for her and my father. Her great wish was to die at home with us around her and that’s how it happened. She passed away peacefully on June 18, 2024.”