Pietertje is crying…for the tree that fell

What now? Growing problems? No definitely not. The breeding is actually going very well, fertilization and hatching % is very high, so the health of the pigeons is good. Here and there some damage from eggs that have rolled out of the shell or a fight, but that is almost unavoidable and unfortunately just part of it. The kites are now coupled, I did this year for the first free coupler and I really liked it so far.

No, the sadness is that I had to bury my mother last week. After a period when it actually seemed to be getting better again, on December 17, the unstable balance of her health was so disturbed that she could no longer recover from this blow. When I first saw them in the hospital on Sunday December 18, I immediately felt that something was wrong. My mother also felt this, because when William visited her on Wednesday, December 21, she said to him: “The tree will be felled Will”. A combination of heart, brain and lung problems ultimately killed her.

I had a good relationship with my mother, to be honest I was clearly an example of a mama's boy. I loved (especially until I was 15^e) sopping on my fingers to crawl into her lap, I didn't care what the outside world thought of that. It was my mother who caught me when I was 12 when I was smoking while fishing. With shaky knees I went home, knowing that something would swing when Dad came home in the evening. However, my mother confronted me about this behavior, to this day I don't know if she ever told my father. I have never said goodbye to someone in such an intensive, but also value and honorable way. We watched over her from Thursday afternoon December 22 and she was no longer approachable. Yet she reacted with an accelerated breathing when I said goodbye to her at night and indicated that I would be with her again early the next morning. When I got into the elevator of the hospital the next morning, I did this at the same time as a couple whose woman was going into labor. It couldn't be more typical of life for me at that moment, they went upstairs to welcome life, I to say goodbye to it. Shortly after I had relieved my sister, she passed away peacefully in my presence on December 23. In addition, together with Petra, I was able to give her the last care and I carried her to her final resting place with my brother, my sons William, Manuel and Jonathan and cousin Mitchel. How special we thought it (Petra, William and myself) that a couple of pigeons flew over the cemetery again, just like my father when we had to bury him more than 7 years ago.

Life will never be the same again. No more driving past her after school (she lived in the same town where I teach) No more hearing her take an interest in our children whether it be about school, work or their daily activities. She was my most loyal pigeon supporter from a distance. When I brought the results to her, her standard comment was “(You may) You may not grumble again”, which I often disagreed with 😉

But the opposite of “never again” is “always again”. And those are the good memories and the gratitude for everything my mother meant to us.