Ode to Hiltje Hettema | Let me die in a bed of cow parsley

I like to pay tribute to Hiltje Hettema. A very high-spirited, adventurous woman, hospitable and very poetic.

She was born in Schoorl to Frisian parents. Her father was an architect, her mother a teacher. Both rather anarchistic. She came from a red nest without alcohol and with a mother always barefoot.

Because her father liked the architecture of Betondorp so much, they moved to Betondorp, to Zaaiersweg right across from the Nieuwe Ooster. After an interlude in the Bijlmer, Hiltje later moved back to Betondorp.

I know Hiltje mainly from the writing club the Amsterdam Reading Club, of which Hiltje was a member for half a century. The club is part of writing club the Klus in Oost, which was founded in the 1970s by Simon Vinkenoog.

I called Hiltje every month to remind her of our new meeting because she hated the Internet. We would have whole conversations.

When it was her turn to be hostess she welcomed us very hospitably with delicious vegetable soup without balls but richly spiced. Or in her cozy little house at Zuivelplein, where the rope was still hanging out of the door, or on the little square outside.

Hiltje herself often wrote music to accompany her poems and sang them in her still Frisian-sounding dialect. She also wrote stories and columns, very expressive. Hiltje herself often organized music and film evenings and also had her own writing club.

She played many musical instruments: piano, harpsichord, flute, saxophone and accordion and we enjoyed her performances.

Hiltje was a true autodidact. She had little education but was very well-read. The whole house was full of books. By profession, she was a family caregiver and nurse. In her spare time she did all kinds of things. In 1966, for example, she took over the job for the NVSH as a saleswoman of condoms and lubricants from an old communist. The "raincoats" were mostly picked up on Sunday mornings, which was less to her husband's liking. The buyers were often very shy and asked her for some extra 'tools' instead of condoms.

Hiltje had three children with a man I never saw myself; they lived separately. She outlived two of her three children. A week before her death a year and a half ago, her son Fedde died. Hiltje had four grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

She was very adventurous. When she was 80, she was still cycling by herself with a tent on the back to Poland to visit Auschwitz. When she was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, she simply went into town for months to De Balie where she went to the movies and pretended nothing was wrong.

A year and a half ago we had to take her to the Nieuwe Ooster by cargo bike. She was really worn out by then, 85 years old. Hiltje was a wonderful woman. Friendly, hospitable, creative and very lively. I end with a beautiful poem of hers from her very last, self-assembled collection. I will never forget her.

Jaap Kamerling, May 2024

Cow parsley

Let me die in a bed of cow parsley

Then when I close my eyes

O'hopefully that will be in May

No anonymous rooms in a hospital

A final makeover, fiddling with my body

No hard steps of modern clogs in the hallway

With a soccer game in the background

For how long

No! Please!

Let me die in a bed of cow parsley

Only mine will they keep

And hopefully in May