Early december

The first days of December are a "special" time for me, full of memories and thoughts of people gone for ever

My paternal grandmother Rosalia Margaretha (Margriet) Ravijst died in the university clinic in Ghent in in the early afternoon of  December 2 1973. She was born in Meerbeke on March 20 1892.

She survived her husband Pieter Jozef Timmermans by twenty years minus two days. My grandfather died on the evening of December 4 1953.  He died in Ninove in the hospital close to the Dender river (there was a second clinic on the other side of the town center but I never could  remember the respective names).  He was born in Meerbeke on September 18 1886.

I still remember exactly where and under which circumstances I learned about their deaths. Together they had seven children, five of which lived to set up their own families.

On December 3 1940 their oldest grandchild was born in Okegem. So my birthday - December 3 - is solidly wedged between the death of my paternal grandmother - December 2 - and the death of her husband - December 4.

Just like his oldest son, my father, my grandfather was a very good, hard working, just and well beloved man ;  just like my father he died way too soon. And, almost just like her mother-in-law,  my mother survived her husband, my father, by 20 years and five months.

The coincidences of fate ...