My grandfather was an alcoholic… He was also a sailor, and it was at sea where he developed this condition. What else is there to do than to drink fortified wine and talk to the fishes in the darkest moment of the night. We used to hide the booze when he came over in case he might drink it all…
I loved him dearly though… He was along with my other grandfather, a super hero.
He was big and strong. Had tattoos all over his body. And around his neck there was a tooth of a shark that he caught somewhere along one of the eastern African coasts. It must have been the Red Sea or the Gulf of Aden, because I found papers of my dad passing through the Suez canal, who was on that very same boat.
After me and my family had to leave our house because we had to run for our stepfather because he did something so horrendous we just had to leave. It was at my grandfather it was where I stayed the longest. My sisters went in one direction, my mother and I in the other.
We left everything… And took nothing more than the most important things. Clothes, some little memorabilia, my bicycle made it. My uncles helped us out moving things as quickly as possible.
I don’t know how many places we stayed until we finally had a house again. But it was weird, and I was still relatively young. We stayed at my uncle’s for while. But when I finally stayed at my grandparents I could sleep at the place where I always slept when there was a sleepover.
Read the comic books of the Red Knight, and daydreaming away when I was playing at the attic. I loved daydreaming… I still love it so much… I could create imaginary worlds out of nothing. He also had one book that was about boats, and when I opened up the hardcover it was full of mythical sea creatures that fisherman saw when they roamed the world seas…
One day we got into an argument. I just wanted to draw on the dining table. But my grandfather was grumpy and I didn’t do what he wanted. He was always grumpy… I don’t know if it was because of the bottle, his tough sailor nature, or it was because I was invading his space… Could even be all of the above…
It was not a good time for all of us… My grandparents didn’t have much money either, and since he stopped going to sea because he was to old, they were at that time living on their pension check. Yet they kept us around because there simply was no other place to go. It was there or the streets…
He did tell me plenty of bedtime stories though… About his adventures… When he was still at sea. He went everywhere… If I could only see those places he saw… He was my real life Indiana Jones…
He was also an amazing artist… He knew how to draw… And every time I asked him to draw a monster or a dragon, or whatever… He drew it! I didn’t know anything about art back then. But at those moments he was like van Gogh or Vermeer. It was the most magical thing I have ever seen…
My daydreaming was on overdrive! What if I was on a boat!? And if I could find those creatures! How amazing could this be! Or a knight! Yes, I want to be a knight…
I don’t have that book anymore… Or one of his drawings… It would have been amazing though. But there is not much left of my childhood anyway. I do have his old sea maps, which I keep in a safe place to create something beautiful out of them one day.
We had to leave a lot of family photo albums behind anyway… And whatever happened to the rest… No one knows… It eventually became one of the many reasons why I believe printing is so important.
He taught me other valuable lessons as well. Like hard work, never giving up. And another one, was being inventive. He had a knack for making things just work. Because when there's no money, you have to. There is no quit. It is either go, or not having anything. That became very relevant for us later in life.
My grandparents said goodbye to us when we finally got a house. It was in the worst neighbourhood you could imagine. It was a small apartment on the 4th floor. I had my own bedroom, but my sisters had to share one. All of our furniture came from the thrift shop. And our first television we had was not much in comparison to what we had before we had to leave everything. But we had a VHS of the moon landing, and that was all I needed to provoke my daydreaming and creativity.
My mom made money cleaning houses on a holiday resort for tourists. That was definitely not enough to raise 3 kids on her own. And it explained why my piggy bank miraculously sometimes was empty and full again. Only to know that if that didn’t happen there literally wouldn’t be any food.
I didn’t know how we survived that time. Shootings, stabbings, and junkies in the basement. My sisters and I dropping water bombs from the balcony on drugs dealers because we thought it was funny. Little did we know. They laughed, sometimes looked puzzled, we laughed as well.
After school I would visit grandpa. He would give me advice about bullies, and taught me how to ride a moped. And taught me self-defence. And somehow there were always meatballs involved…
I told him once… That I wanted to be the strongest in the world, like He-Man! He used to draw me He-Man as well, and he and my uncle made me a He-Man sword once.
“Grandpa, I want to be so strong! So so strong… I want to be so strong so I can protect every one that I care about, so they never have to be afraid again! I hate this life… Why are we poor? I never want to live like this again… And when I get kids one day… I will do everything in my power to give them the life I have never had… I just want to escape…”
I don’t know about other kids my age back than. But it sure wasn’t healthy… They must have been obsessed with Flippo’s or other stuff. He gave me some candy and I could look at his boats. He started making wooden boats again. He wasn’t very good anymore because of his old age. But he put his heart and soul into it.
Beside his boats was his desk… And on that desk was an old tube radio with glowing bulbs that would crackle and pop when you turned it on. He would sit in his chair and looking for reception. And when he found a radio station he could sit in his chair and just listen.
He missed the sea… I could tell…
My girlfriend at that time thought it was silly that I wanted to visit him. Friday evenings… Just being there… Enjoying his company… We got into an argument one time before we stepped out of the car when we were parked in front of the door. She didn’t want to go, but I did. I explained that I just feel he doesn’t have much time on this earth left. I can’t remember if she eventually joined me or not, but I went inside… It was the right decision.
Not that long ago he was diagnosed with cancer. Same as my dad, same as my other grandfather… Same same same same same…
I saw the once mighty ship captain with tattoos on his chest, shark tooth necklace wearing, Indiana Jones stories telling, crumble… Crying that he couldn’t walk to the toilet anymore… Afraid. Afraid of death…
He died… And on his funeral I carried his coffin to hive grave… I never cried. I wish I did…
But I picked up where you left off… I became literally one of the strongest, as I said I would. I became my own Indiana Jones… All of that because of your lessons and you as my as one of my two amazing grandfather inspirations. I made myself a good life…
Sometimes it feels that I have to excuse myself that I came this far and feel guilty. I shouldn’t… I know my heart is pure, and my intentions are good. It goes a bit easier now at a later age…
When a place feels like an escape… It always has bad memories. People can be an escape, but also places… Olympic Weightlifting was that escape for me. A way to get away from it all. My exit… And later in life sometimes you just have to flip back the pages a bit just to remember how it was.
I flipped… and I flipped and read every previous chapter. Because I was almost afraid photography was an escape as well… But luckily I realized it isn’t… I just love it. Same as when I was making music, or writing poems… A way to express myself. All my pain but also happiness… I want to make my daydreams a reality…
It is all a bonus though…
Because I don’t have to, but I want to. That is a big difference. It gives me peace of mind… That life I talked about I created it out of nothing… It is real, and it is here… I created my safety net for when the time comes I indeed can take care of my loved ones. And now I am making art with my own mythical creatures. They maybe are not mythical sea creatures… But birds and deer do the trick.
My grandfather was amazing… He was an artist, a strong man, a ship captain. Husband of my gorgeous grandmother… A teacher. An Old Spice wearing scoundrel but in a good way. A knight, and an adventurer.
A inspiration…
And most of all… He was my friend.
And if somehow you can read this… Henk, I fucking love you…
