I started my solo-mama-entrepreneur Tuesday here in Thailand by "attending" a youtube live funeral in Australia - the funeral of my Uncle Gottfried. His family and ours were forever entwined by being on the same migrant ship to Australia - the Miesen family from Cologne in Germany and ours from Den Haag in Holland. We settled a 30 minute drive apart in Victoria - the Miesen family in Blackburn and ours in Montrose. Because their daughter, Dorothea, was almost the same age as I and since our English was wobbly and my parents disapproved of the non-Catholic Australian families around us, we were pushed - and became - life-long friends. I had a sleepover at their house every holidays. They came to every birthday, my First Communion, my Confirmation and every important family and religious event I can remember. Uncle Gottfried was also my legal guardian.
Their family, like ours, were arch-Catholics. Definitely with a capital C. Yes, we prayed the rosary every day and watched papal visits on black & white TV with even more enthusiasm than the first landing on the moon. Both Dorothea and I have kid brothers named Paul - in homage to Pope Paul IV. When they got a colour TV before we did it was, of course, a Blaupunkt. Becasue of German engineering excellence and all that.
It seemed so strange this morning, in Thailand, to be part of this funeral via my cell phone while I drove my daughter to her bilingual Thai school. Time zones are as unrepentant as I am, it seems. While the Requiem Mass for the Repose of the Soul of Gottfried Miesen was beautifully done with 3 priests, incense, a Latin-singing choir and the whole shebang, what shocked me most was how much of this Catholic Culture is ingrained in my Being. Despite having been to mass exactly once in 37 years, and that was the requiem mass for my father 12 years ago, also in Australia. No, I didn't take communion and I think my mother prays about it still.
I can still sing the Agnus Dei in Latin.
I still have the words of those hymns (sung again today) etched flawlessly, deep n my memory:
Guard and defend me, from the foe malign
Oh blessed Jesus, make me only thine.
Uncle Gottfried's wife, Tante Hildegard, wore a black lace mantilla for today's requiem mass, just as she has her whole life long.
The mass ended, I was home again after the school run and needed coffee!! All the while still humming, deep in thy wounds Lord, hide & shelter me...
Flipping into Facebook while the kettle boiled, I was advised via the Memories that it is also 3 years today since our friend, Tino, passed.
He chose an assisted passing in Rotterdam at the age of 40, after a lifetime of suffering with a terrible genetic illness, X-ALD.
The first day I met Tino (as he liked to be called), he asked me to assist his transition from this life here in Thailand when the time came. Sadly, that was never possible. 11 years after we met, his disease progressed to the level where it started to damage his brain severely and he had a series of psychotic episodes. Once admitted into the psychiatric system in Buddhist Thailand where even dogs are not euthenased since we have to allow all things to live their full karma, Tino knew his only option was to return to the Netherlands. And so I perjured myself severely to secure the drugs and documents required and organized for his elderly father to collect him and take him back to Holland. Blessings to his progressive Thai psychiatrist who gave us his full support and assistance.
I will always remember our courageous Tino as he was during those last days in the hospital, when he KNEW that his doctor was the Buddha and Jesus combined.
And so today, in my heart and head, Arch-Dutch-Catholicism meets legalized Dutch euthanasia. Both men were loved by me and a significant part of my life, in vastly different ways. But my remembrance is tainted somehow with indoctrination and the forcing of belief on others.
Loving the progressive Hive community which is mature and diverse enough to hold and hear these dichotomies and my rambling thoughts. Honouring my Dutch-Germanic Catholic roots whilst clearly and unequivocally choosing very differently. Loving the irony that my 16 year old Thai daughter intends to go to university in Holland.
More coffee.
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ENGAGEtokens.Strange times we're living in! I've 'attended' two memorial services online and I think you'll agree that this is a good way to connect with family left behind and at the same time say goodbye to someone who once played a big part in one's life.
Tino was blessed to have met you but what a sad life!
The whole online life remains somewhat of a weird feeling to me.
Tino made the best of what he had, lived fully and died with an acceptance that life continues on past this limited form. Indeed WE were blessed to have known him!!
Hope all is well in your corner of the world.
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Hi @artemislives
Some arch-catholic brotherhoods have adapted to the increasing pace that technologies and the internet have provided us with, I sense that the progressive community you refer to in Hive will have no problem with these lines you share with us.
Yours, Piotr