Loved without words
Post-war immigrants may not have talked about loving their children, but they had many ways to show it.
I recently read a negative remark about the parents of post-war immigrant children. It said that they never told their children “I love you”; that their children did not receive vocal expressions of love from them.
And yes, it’s true that I don’t remember my parents telling me that they loved me. Nevertheless, I was sure that they did love me. After reading that comment, I felt compelled to write about my childhood in Holland, to show that love does not always have to be expressed in words.
When I was a young girl, Mother would sit quietly knitting in the evenings. Father was always reading. My sister and I, after we had done the supper dishes, had to darn socks and stockings. We did not mind. We were watching the clock; at exactly eight o’clock we were allowed to quit and to read for a while before being sent to bed. Saturday evenings were special! No mending, but instead we would play games. And the highlight of the evening was when Mother put a newspaper on the table on which she dumped a pile of peanuts in their shells. What a feast that was!
How precious those evenings were! We felt safe and loved.
At work and play
Our village had a psychiatric hospital in it. Because my dad took care of the gardens, that hospital played a big part in my life. I loved those grand, beautiful buildings and their biblical names – Bethesda, Ebenhaezer, Rehoboth, Salem, Hebron, Bethel and Zoar. We were allowed to wander the grounds because our dad worked there. The other village children were not. We felt privileged!
We played in the park and at the hospital’s farm where Dad sometimes had to help out. And we were allowed to peek into the large kitchen where huge pots of food were being prepared. We played hide-and-seek between the bedsheets of the patients that hung to dry in long rows next to the kitchen when no one was looking. What fun that was! And in the fall we would gather the beautiful, shiny, reddish-brown chestnuts that had fallen from a large tree that stood in front of pavilion Hebron. These chestnuts were small treasures for us; we had few toys in those days.
We lived beside the “School with the Bible.” At our house there was always the happy sound of children playing! Mother was always home when we came home from school. And Dad was home for all our meals. Dad prayed for a blessing and thanked the Lord for the meal and would also read a short scripture piece. Although Dad’s mealtime prayers were mostly customary prayers, they were certainly not habitual. I always heard a deep reverence in Dad’s voice when talking to the Lord. Today I still know those prayers by heart.
We had no radio, but we had an organ. We made our own music! Dad would play and we would sing. Dad also sang psalms around the house, and my sister and I often sang while doing dishes. When I was a child, singing was a big part of my life. It bonded us together as a family.
At an early age, we already had to do tasks around the house. Besides washing dishes and mending socks, we had to polish our Sunday shoes on Saturday. And another task I fondly remember doing was helping Dad sow beans in the garden. Dad would stick the spade in the ground, hold it sideways and I would drop three, sometimes accidentally four beans, in the hole. But that did not matter, Dad would say, as long as it did not happen too often. Dad would pull the spade up and the hole would close. I found it fascinating!
My dad had a great sense of humour and would sometimes pull pranks on us. Some mornings when he was shaving, he would unexpectedly give us a lick of the white suds on our face and we would scream!
Family days
Sundays were real family days. On Sunday afternoon in summer, after we had been to church a second time, our parents would take us for a walk in the country, along fields with waving, golden grain, red poppies and blue cornflowers. I still see the sights and sense the smell of those fields today. Or, on another Sunday, our parents might take us to the cemetery where my paternal grandparents lay buried. I never knew these grandparents, but Dad would tell us about them. I loved to read their names on the gravestones; my grandmother’s name was Maria Vander Grijspaarde. I thought that was a beautiful name. My sister was named after her and my brother got my grandfather’s name – Frederik. And I remember that I felt left out!
When I was in my early teens, I went to a young people’s meeting every other week. We took turns writing an essay on a Bible story which would be read and discussed in the first part of the evening. After a short intermission, someone would present something lighter, like a poem or a short story. I still kept a few of those essays that I wrote seventy-five years ago!
I also went to catechism classes once a week, taught by our minister. We learned the questions and answers to the Heidelberg Catechism. The first question and its answer I still know by heart: “What is your only comfort in life and in death?” A heavy question for a young girl, but the answer to it always was a comfort, and is especially a comfort to me now. “That I am not my own but belong body and soul, in life and in death to my faithful Saviour Jesus Christ.”
Remembering with gratitude
My thoughts often go back to my childhood in Holland with thankfulness for my parents – for their guidance in life and in faith; for gratitude for my mother who was always home; for the many ways love was expressed by my parents in doing things together and giving us tasks to do, providing us with a sense of accomplishment and preparing us for life. Maybe this was not the case for all children at that time, but it was for me. Life was simple, and love flourished in our house. I did not need to hear my parents say “I love you” – I never doubted it!
Today it’s another world. Most fathers and mothers are both working outside the home. Children are more often in daycare, in after-school programs and in sports. They do not spend as much time with their parents as we did. They spend much more time alone, often on electronic devices, which also keep them from experiencing the outside world and using their imagination.
So, perhaps children now need to hear “I love you” because the language of love in time and presence is not as common anymore.
I have to conclude that I am glad I was a child in the early previous century. And I am thankful that despite the lack of expression in words, I was loved and felt loved.
