The Garage

The diagnosis of pancreatic cancer meant that I hadn’t much time to live anymore.
I was retired after a good but also very eventful life.
My doctor recommended me to contact her for nutritional advice and said that she did more than just writing a diet-prescription.
My son asked me:
“Why are you consulting her because what can she do for you?”
I said:”You don’t know half what she means to me.”
I could not say what it did to me that someone only had attention for me and the only time that I felt  warm was during the consultations.

I had always been there and with love for everyone.
My schedule was to retreat slowly but surely from the people around me.
So I said goodbye to my grandchildren before the worst decline began.
During the last consultation I felt that she knew it was the last time.

Already I had told her that I would send an email by Petrus if I couldn’t come anymore.
She made it easier by confronting me with my situation.
She asked me a last question:
“What have you missed in this life?”
I told her: “A garage, I’ve never had a garage.”

What I appreciated was that she, even at the farewell, was never emotionally.

I got an obituary of his family with the invitation to be present at the funeral.
He had never talked about the fact that he had the highest Dutch military awards.
I didn’t go to the funeral because I had been and continued to be there only for him.
Many times on my way to work I came along his house:
A corner house without a garage.