They are busy days for Prince Pieter I. The city prince of Skôn Orregat (Oirschot) enjoys carnival to the fullest, although the season started less cheerful for him. In November he lost his wife Annie, two days before it became known that he was the prince this year. “My wife would not have wanted me to stay at home.”
The atmosphere is good at it, Sunday afternoon on a crowded market in Oirschot. Prince Pieter I looks back on an eventful period in which he lost his wife and yet decided to let his carnival tasks continue.
“We’re just going to do it”
“Now you touch a sensitive chord,” says the prince when we start about what happened in November last year. A few days before it became known that he would become the prince, he lost his wife Annie. “I said then: we’re just going to do it.”
The main reason for Pieter to come to this decision? His wife would have wanted it that way. “Everything was already arranged, and I am sure my wife would not have wanted me to sit behind the geraniums,” he says emotionally.
Bracelet
“After her death with our prince, Andy, I called and explained everything. He said, Should we order it?” That was not an option for Pieter: “I said no, I don’t want that. And I know you are going to do it in an appropriate way.” That is also what happened. A minute of silence has been held, and the association has shown a film about the life of Pieter’s wife.
So there was no real doubt, but with the first few activities at the start of the carnival season he had a double feeling. “The party must continue, but I never forget her.” And far away she is not for Pieter: “I feel she is there, I now have a bracelet around with her ashes, so she is always with me.”
Maps and gifts
The support that Pieter has received does him well. “If I think back to it, that gives me a very warm feeling. The cards I received, the gifts from all associations, that was heart -warming,” he says.
“The grief is no longer as intense as in the beginning, although it is there. But I am a very religious person and I feel she looks at from above.” Pieter certainly does not regret his decision: “If I sit in my chair at home, then I am alone. What good is that? She will not come back.”