Farewell to my father

By Paul Vrolijk

Paul Vrolijk recalls the last two months of his father’s life and the two months that followed his funeral in Farewell to my father.
His experience included the emptying and selling of a family home that had been in the family for half a century.
The book serves as a touching account of familial love, memories from youth, doubt and faith, God’s love and faithfulness working in and through all things, and the love and care of a village community. Moreover, it’s a celebration of gratitude.
The author’s story encourages readers to think about what it means to die well, as well as what needs to be said and done when someone comes to the end of their life. It also serves as a helpful guide on what to expect if you’re preparing for the death of a loved one.
The book serves as a bold proclamation that “nothing can separate us from the love of God.” In fact, God is always working even amid suffering, dying, and all the practical details that must be considered when someone dies

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Sep 15, 2023
• ISBN: 9798385001149

Paul Vrolijk

Paul Vrolijk is a Dutch Anglican priest currently living and working in Brussels, Belgium. He is also an ICF accredited coach. Paul is the founder of Christilience.org, a nonprofit that helps people find clarity and strength for their journeys. Paul is married and has four children, two of which are still living at home. Paul is passionate about helping people reach their God-given potentials for Jesus Christ in full. For more information, visit www.Christilience.org.

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Farewell

to my father

Paul Vrolijk

Copyright © 2023 Paul Vrolijk.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson & Zondervan

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture quotations are taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

ISBN: 979-8-3850-0112-5 (sc)

ISBN: 979-8-3850-0113-2 (hc)

ISBN: 979-8-3850-0114-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023911191

WestBow Press rev. date: 09/14/2023

Nothing can separate us from the love of God.

—Based on Romans 8:38–39

In loving memory of my father

Gerrit Dirk Vrolijk

Dick

Scheveningen, 11 July 1937

Sassenheim, 12 October 2022

This book is dedicated to all who loved and cared for my father. You will find yourselves on the following pages. I write this in tremendous gratitude to you!

Contents

Introduction

A Blessed Hello and Farewell

Before You Read On

Home

Coffee

Gratitude

Struggle

Prayer

Hospital

Open Skies

Hospital

Open Skies Once More

A Funeral Commissioned

Hospice

The Wednesday Visit

The Saturday Visit

The Sunday Visit—Downhill

The Last Wednesday Visit

In Between

A Blur

Nearly Home

Hotel

Back in Church

The Last Stretch

Heaven

The Very Last Stretch

Sausage Rolls and Coffee

The Days After

Day with My Sister

Coffee across the Road

Home for Sale

Day with My Family

One Month Later

Emails and calls

Advertised. Shown. Sold.

Last Visit to the House

Sunday Afternoon

Final Days

Thursday Evening

Afterword

Closure?

Appendix A: Readings

Appendix B: Hymns

Appendix C: Places

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Introduction

A Blessed Hello and Farewell

Welcome to a farewell. I hope you will join me for a brief journey that took only a few months but that lovingly brought a life together and to an end—the life of my father. I write this in thankful memory of him. It all happened fairly quickly. It took a mere three months from the moment my father was admitted to the hospital, and then hospice, his death, his funeral, and the sale of the house. When I started writing this, I had no idea whether this would be a few pages or a book. It did not matter. I intended to stop when the flow of loving memory in ink stopped. The loving flow of memories in my heart will never cease.

The idea to write came days after my father had died and was buried. My relationship with my father has been a really good one. I realize how blessed I am. I do not think my father understood everything about me, but that did not matter. He questioned some of my choices, but there was never any regret. He always supported me and always wanted the best for me. We loved one another. We can fully love without fully understanding. Love surpasses understanding, a bit like peace.

Like all of us, my father had some interesting quirks. When they appear on these pages, they are lovingly remembered. In my family, we can make fun of one another, but always in love. It helps not to take oneself too seriously.

I also want to salute my father’s care in preparing various things for when he would not be there anymore. These were mostly very practical, administrative things. Some of these preparations he started to plan many years ago (e.g., saving for his grandchildren), and some took place in the closing days of his life. There has been much here to encourage me in preparing for my own death. When that day comes, I hope I will be as prepared as my father was. I hope this will inspire and encourage you to think about your own death. That may strike you as odd, but pondering our deaths can be great fuel for living well—a bit of resurrection power flowing back into this side of life.

Whatever the best efforts of my father, a good death is a gift from God. I want to thank our Heavenly Father, who brought everything together in the closing weeks of my father’s life. The faith strand in this story is an important one—probably the most important one in lovingly stitching the different, seemingly boring, pieces of our lives together. For my father, with some of his struggles in faith and loss, God graciously worked for the good in all things. I can really say that, even from a position of limited understanding. I would call that invisible divine touch miraculous. It wove the glorious into the mundane, the sacred tapestry of life. If you are reading this and your relationship with your earthly father has been difficult, compromised, or nonexistent, I hope that what stands out from these pages is that you have a Heavenly Father who is watching over you and who lovingly cares for you. If you doubt the possibility of that, just read the story of what took place and allow what is hidden on these pages to seep into your mind and heart.

Writing has given me much joy. It has allowed me to remember my father again, and it has also allowed me to ponder the deeper lessons of his departure. I hope this book will bring encouragement, comfort, joy and inspiration to you who will be reading this. Maybe there are some ideas on how to prepare for your own departure, or maybe a gentle reminder to discuss certain things with your father or mother before that moment comes. Take and receive what is useful for you.

I feel the need to add some disclaimers here. For those who seek brilliant theology, I need to disappoint you. What I have penned is very down-to-earth, simple stuff. I do not apologize. For me theology needs to be practical anyway. It needs to help us to keep it all together in order to help make sense of life and God, without losing hope, life, beauty, or mystery. Our thinking, writing, and speaking about God should never be a mere vanity project. This certainly isn’t. Names of people and places have been mostly omitted to make it easier for you to engage with the story. That’s my hope. For those who cannot live with such ambiguity, some place names have been provided at the end of this book.

May the Lord bless you and keep you! You are loved and cared for. The elements of your life are being lovingly stitched together. I hope and pray that in your journey you may perceive how all things hang together, and that you may see glimpses of the One at work through it all.

Joyfully in Him,

Paul

Before You Read On

It might be handy for you to know a little bit about my family. My father was born in 1937, and my mother in 1940. They both lived through World War II as children in the occupied Netherlands. They grew up in the same village and married in 1962. In 1964, I was born; and in 1968, my sister joined the crowd. In 1970, we moved to the village and the house where my father would live for the next fifty-two years. I married in 1992. My mother died in 1993. My sister married in 2000. We are both still married and have children, all of them teenagers or young adults. My father died in October 2022.

Home

Coffee

I walk up the driveway. My car is parked around the corner. There is no sign of life. My father is probably busy in the kitchen preparing coffee—coffee which had become weaker over the years, though Janine and I did not want to mention that to him. We had tried various schemes to improve this aspect of our get-togethers. We’ll make the coffee when we arrive! Don’t worry. But my father had firmly resisted and insisted he keep doing it himself. My father was like that, which we had come to accept, and at times even love. It certainly was good material for sibling debriefings. I walked past the kitchen window, and there he was, bent over, preparing the coffee we were about to share. White-haired and smaller, he was peering into the coffee filter. My father had grown old. He was eighty-five now, still living in the house we had moved