October / November 2002
Pfff. For three weeks I have been tossing and turning in my bed. I really want to stay and live here on Crete. Life here seems to suit me better. More spontaneous, less regulated, freer, more humane. I love nature, the sea, the mountains. Clean air, a clear blue sky and when I look out over the sea, the past is literally behind me, in the north. Never thought I’d love the mountains so much. I didn’t even knów that Crete had so many mountains. It is my third visit to this small village in one year. This time I came driving my car from Amsterdam to Crete, together with my dearest friend Zelda.
Zelda
Zelda and I met in the mental health resort where I was admitted at the start of my depression. Now, seven years later, we laugh a lot again, are good friends and my depression has been dealt with. She sleeps in the apartment next door to me. Our apartments are located directly by the sea and in the morning we drink our coffee and eat our breakfast together on her terrace. It is November and we are outside dressed for summer!
Hendrik – father of my children
I can stay away for about six weeks. My contract with my last employer has not been extended. Libby and Leo are with Hendrik, who regained my respect and is my beloved ex-husband. They have actually been living with Hendrik since the spring break. I divorced him eight years ago.
Like a bomb hit
Just before the spring break, Hendrik was told that the disease that underlies his tingling feet and drop-foot will paralyze him over time and eventually kill him. The doctor can’t give him a time frame, it varies from person to person. The news hit us like a bomb and we talked for hours and hours on the phone. Hendrik has already had melancholic periods, especially in the winter, so it is now quite a chore to stay cheerful and not slip into depression. He is anything but stupid but I repeat this mantra regularly,
“Sweetheart, focus on what you can do and not on what’s getting harder. You can continue to work or teach, what you always wanted. That is also possible from a wheelchair and you are not there yet. You are still walking!” But that is easier said than done, I realize that very well.
The question
Two months after the spring break I went on vacation myself. The kids would then go to Hendrik, who lives in the same neighbourhood. At the divorce that was a conscious choice from us so that the kids could just drop in between the regular weekends. In practice, there is not much of that. Hendrik has a busy job as director of a trading company. Except for Leo, who sometimes goes into hiding at his dads’ house when in an angry mood.
At the end of the spring break, Hendrik called me:
“Honey, I want to ask you something.”
“Okay dear, tell me?”
“You know, it’s good to have the kids around me. They give me structure, a reason to get out of bed, distraction and it’s just fun. It helps me not to focus on my future too much.”
Libby and Leo, the kids
They are respectively 16 and 14 years. Libby is calm, smart, introverted but social. She has many friends. Leo is aware and deep thinking, always has been. As a toddler, he was always telling entire stories when he was playing. Sometimes I said in despair, “Honey, I don’t always have to hear you.” He is quite a challenge for teachers. He says what he thinks and does not shy away from confrontations. Up to now, there are not many teachers who can handle this very clever visual thinker. I am therefore regularly summoned to school to discuss his attitude. I discuss the attitude of the teacher.
He is the child I worry about, and at the same time not. I recognize many things about myself in him. At the moment he seems to have found his place in a special setting where he is ‘the good example’, instead of a bother.
Family dynamic
We have our own family dynamic and do not experience him as a bother at all, because we are all smart and visual thinkers and accept it when the children hold up a mirror to us. If they are right, they are right.
A good father
“Would you have problems with it if Libby and Leo also stayed here between the spring and May holidays? In a while, you will go on holiday to Crete again. I would really like it if they stayed in between.”
I had no problems with it. Why would I? Hendrik is a good father, has much more to spend than me and has a lot to offer. Their presence lifts his spirit. Our view on upbringing was never a point of discussion. We are on the same page and, even though we are divorced, I have never ever had to have a parental conversation without Hendrik.
A strange guy in the house
After I came back from the May holiday, the kids also stayed with him. This was partly due to the fact that my new love, a Greek man, was staying at our house for a while. Something that my daughter, in particular, was not happy with. A strange guy in the house. Son of mine found him interesting, even if it were for his unconventional way of life.
But even when he left again in August, they stayed with Hendrik. Conversely, the weekend arrangements as recorded after the divorce are not carried on. The kids come when they feel like it, otherwise not. I don’t like it, but they are growing older and have minds of their own.
Impact
What impact would it have on Libby and Leo if I leave Holland to live here? I don’t think about taking them with me. Far away from their father, their friends. They do not speak the language and Greece cannot offer Leo what he needs. Ok, I am their guardian, but that doesn’t mean I can do whatever I want with them. I think they are at an age where they also have a right to speak. It is a huge dilemma for me. The fact that they are so happy with their father that they do not even come during the weekends hurts. It doesn’t feel like they need me. I am disappointed that Hendrik does not insist on it either.
And so I have been tossing and turning in my bed for three weeks now.
end part 1