Twenty years

I have mentioned this often times before :

on December 2 1973, it seems like yesterday, my father's mother Rosalia Margaretha Ravijst died in Ghent. Almost exactly twenty years earlier, on December 4 1953, my paternal grandfather Pieter Jozef Timmermans had passed away in Ninove.

My mother, Margaretha Felicitas Neukermans also survived my father Petrus Joannes Timmermans by twenty years. My father passed away on April 20 1980 ; my mother left this world on September 26 2000. Both died in Ghent.

My mother survived her own mother Maria Antonia De Vidts by fifty one years and a day. My maternal grandmother died on September 25 1949 in Okegem. My mother and her mother were the only ones to die in their own home.

I include the name of my maternal grandfather Joannes Franciscus Neukermans, who died in Aalst on July 1 1961, and thus come to remember the six most painful days in my life. The six days in which I lost the six most important persons in my life.

But I also recall the sea of fond and happy memories which my parents and grandparents left for me. And I remember their unending love and the sacrifices they made for their children and grandchildren.

On this day, those memories are particularly important to me. May they all rest in peace and eternal happiness.

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