An ominous message, yes, but lighthearted: that too. Ted is not the type to be burdened by these kinds of facts. “Death is not necessarily scary, death is more… A given.” His voice sounds cheerful, both in the podcast and here, at his kitchen table in his house, which is littered with his work. He has written more than a hundred books (the award-winning Boer Boris series, for example), for children and adults, which have been translated into many languages. He is also a visual artist, wrote collections of poetry and made illustrations.
Safe way
And recently, on the second floor of his home, in the ridge of the monumental building in the heart of Amsterdam, Ted ‘crafted’ his podcast with his own hands. He did everything himself, the music, the lyrics, the editing. “Art is a safe way to ask yourself questions,” he says. “Many people who lose a family member relatively young will reflect on the moment that they outlive their deceased loved one – that moment when you are older than, for example, your father or mother, there is something… Strange. As if you were hanging on the sword of Damocles escaped. As if you can breathe a little more relief.”
His father’s sword fell when Ted was 7. He had a relatively older father, there was a considerable age difference between his parents. “I came home from school and there was an aunt standing in our kitchen making coffee. That was strange. Further away my mother stood with a tearful face. She told me what had happened, and then I saw all the dejected-looking family members standing in the living room. , they nodded at me amiably. Then I knew: this is a sad matter.”
“And I also remember: I was an asthmatic, sickly child, I always thought: I won’t live to be very old, and I had to go to the hospital every few weeks for a shot. My father also had to go to the hospital, but for his heart. We always went in together, he to the right, I to the left: I never had to be alone. That’s how it was agreed between us. That we would get pain together. A kind of fun. Until he was no longer there.”
2023-11-12 07:29:31
#man #family #lived #longer #Ted
