“You placed your arms around me,
And I could plainly see,
That all the love in your heart
Was there just for me”
My Oma started off as my very own Oma.
All to myself.
I was the first Grandchild!
Pretty soon my little brother Luke arrived.
Then came baby Timmy and later kleine Eva.
Oma was overjoyed and we were happy to share her between us.
But the four of us were never going to have Oma to ourselves!
Oh no…..Cok had just too much love.
It spilled out of her, like a draw stuffed with her many, many scarves!
So many of my friends, also Luke’s, Tim’s and Eva’s
Also called her Oma.
Even when they had their very own Oma’s.
A few of them even secretly confided that our Oma was better than theirs!
We sort of knew that, but were modest,
as Oma would have been, had she heard such glowing compliments.
On one occasion, my flatmate Heather spotted Oma across a busy London street and shouted ‘Oma, Oma’….
Much to her amusement, Oma Cok couldn’t even travel though a big foreign city without being spotted!
But she wasn’t just “Universal Oma”….she was merely continuing and extending her role as a beloved mother and mother in law, of course.
And beyond that she was an Epic Tante too!
If fact she was a Tante to way more people than bloodlines actually flowed to.
The wonderful speakers before me have told us so movingly of the woman Cok was
and what she meant to them.
Some of words that have been used to describe her in recent days are familiar to us all when we think of Cok.
“A Force of Nature”, “Strong” and “an inspiration”
“One of the coolest people I have ever met”….
This came from her innate skill in listening, offering sage advice, bestowing love, remembering Birthdays, sending cards, buying treats, presents and trinkets.
Making our favourite meals - always remembering everyone’s likes and dislikes.
To embracing new technology so she could stay in touch with ALL her loved ones.
But these are not the only qualities of a fabulous ‘model’ Oma.
An Oma is there to teach you how to behave as you grow older. If you are lucky she will teach you how to age with grace and dignity.
How to cope with life when it both flows your way and flows against you.
She taught us to understand what life had to throw at us, to learn from it and then move on.
To accept that “Life never turns out how you expect it to”.
This was borne of the hardship and pain that crossed her path in life.
The tragic and early loss of her brother Horrie.
Living through the hardship of Occupied Nederland.
The loss of her childhood sweetheart and husband Arie, my Opa, who died in her arms.
Then in 2011 the most tragic of all for a parent,
the loss of her only daughter, Margreet.
Cok dealt with each of these blows with dignity but also acknowledgement of the pain they caused.
There was no stiff upper lip, but also no wallowing in grief.
She picked herself up and focussed not on the loss, but the fact that she had enjoyed the good times.
Living the motto “We must not cry for what is no more, but be happy for what has been”.
Words I know helped her through those darker times and especially more recently as she lost so many of her special friends and support network, to illness and death.
Yet, she always considered herself a lucky person.
Oma Cok always talked about the positive in life and collected “dagen met a gowe randjje” / days with a golden edge.
She made a mental choice to cherish joy and forget pain and sorrow. To love no matter what.
So that brings me back to the poem I started with.
Love radiated out from out from Cok, like the ripples of a pebble dropped in a placid lake.
Washing over everyone she came into contact with.
As Mother, Mother in Law, Oma, Owe Oma, Aunty, Tante, extended family, friend, neighbour, colleague….
even as a Client or Customer!
She made EACH and EVERY ONE of us feel that she gave us ALL her love.
That, is a VERY SPECIAL kind of talent
LONG may that LOVE LIVE ON…… Sleep tight Oma.