In Memory of Mayke Hesselink

Last pictures of Mayke

June 2009

At "the Pot Kiln", a favourite Pub in the UK. Taken at midsummer 2009

Mayke's last resting place

August 2010

Mayke’s ashes were scattered in The Nieuwe Ooster, Amsterdam at 1.30 pm on Monday 9th August 2010 with a small gathering of family and friends. The Garden of Remembrance is on the South East side of the Park. Mayke rests in the shade of trees, on the side of the Garden most distant from the Crematorium, about half way along and several meters in front of the seat.

sunny lunch at Hannover

may 2008

we went from breakfast to lunch to dinner is there anything imortant in between?

tired of shopping

may 2008

There is always time for a relaxing drink on a hip spot at the end of the day

Koninginnedag

April 2006

Brouwerij 't IJ

August 2004

It’s amazing how one year can feel like yesterday and 10 years ago, all at the same time.

Mayke, I still can’t believe you aren’t with us anymore.

I think of you every time I go away and there’s a Unesco World Heritage site, how we laughed about the ones we saw in Portugal. Why was it so funny? I don’t even remember, but something about it had us in hysterics and I want to SMS you every time I pass one. Every time I’m at Schiphol, I think of you when they scold someone in an announcement, “Will passengers Coen and Hesselink please proceed to the gate. You are delaying the flight. We will proceed to offload your luggage.” I remember the look we gave each other when we heard that, and how it wasn’t really enough to get us to stop our chatting and rush to the gate…

I think about all the nice meals we had at your apartments over the years. In fact, you would be amused to know, I cannot eat nice cheese without thinking of you. Which means I think of you a lot. And the more awful it smells, the more I miss you and the more clearly I can picture your smiling face and bright eyes.

I think of you when I hear the Dandy Warhols. How Tony was so excited to go to the concert and loved it, even though the sound wasn’t the best at Melkweg that night. How we ran into Mark who was at a different concert, also at Melkweg. What a fun and loooong night we had.

I haven’t been to the Bird, the wine bar or Cafe Stevens without you. I haven’t been to de Koe, where we were a permanent fixture in the front corner of the bar by the newspapers, back when they played great music before the redesign. Nor have I been to the brewery followed by a sushi dinner, our favourite outing. I used to think those places were so great – but really, it was the company.

So many things have gone on this year and I miss not having been able to tell you about them; to celebrate my triumphs, to commiserate my losses and to provide unyielding support and perspective on the challenges I face. I miss your friendship very much.

I die a little inside thinking of all the things that should have gone on this year for you that didn’t.

But mostly I manage a smile and a chuckle when I think of all the good times we had.

A white christmas.

December 2001

We had a snowball fight that night. It was wonderfull. Especially at christmas time she is inbedded in my thoughts like she is in my heart the whole year through.

almost a year

20 June 2010

‘It’s because life’s most disturbing intensity is death. It’s because death is so unjust. It’s because once one has tasted life, death does not even seem natural. I had thought - secretly I was certain - that life goes on and on.’ (Philip Roth, Everyman)

‘It was too strange to think that she was dead and no longer part of this world. I couldn’t absorb the truth of it. I couln’t believe it. I had heard the nails being driven into the lid of her coffin, but I still couldn’t adjust to the fact that she had returned to nothingness.’ (Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood)

Berlin

March 2008

A Favourite Poem

6-4-2010

It always suprised me that Mayke could recite quite a number of poems in english, this was one:

One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
But came the waves and washed it away:
Again I wrote it with a second hand,
But came the tide, and made my pains his prey.
Vain man, said she, that dost in vain assay
A mortal thing so to immortalize!
For I myself shall like to this decay,
And eek my name be wiped out likewise.
Not so (quoth I), let baser things devise
To die in dust, but you shall live by fame:
My verse your virtues rare shall eternize,
And in the heavens write your glorious name;
Where, when as death shall all the world subdue,
Our love shall live, and later life renew.

Edmund Spenser (1552–1599)