Together

I spent the morning with my grandmother. We went grocery shopping and like all the million other times I’ve been grocery shopping with her we arrived at the store before it opened and chatted with all the other early birds. We also took care of some last minute arrangements for the funeral on Monday, read my grandfather’s obituary in the newspaper, and caught up with more family members who stopped by during the day.

I got to pick what was for dinner and I choose a simple and very Dutch meal, which I’ve had many times in the past. My grandmother cooks the best potatoes in the world and her meat is always so tender, and only she can make a salad taste the way she does. Dinner was delicious, and so different from Japanese food!

I’m not particularly fond of Belgium, but I do love their ice cream! It’s way better than Italian ice cream, and it’s almost impossible to get in the Netherlands, and totally impossible in Japan. So I got very excited when I heard the ice cream truck’s chime, and even though I was still stuffed from dinner, I knew it was now or never. So Djamo and I ran outside to stop the Krijmboer (Cream Farmer) and my sweet brother treated my grandmother and me to a delicious treat. I may have slightly embarrassed him with my over enthusiastic behavior at the truck, but he easily explained it away with “She lives in Japan…”

After dinner and dessert Djamo wanted to play some chess. I’m not sure who Djamo’s usual chess opponent is, but he was unpleasantly surprised (see his face below) when he was playing against me. He underestimated me and lost the game, poor guy. He took it like a man, but I’m not sure if he ever wants to play me again.

It was nice to see my other family members but the best times today were when it was just Oma, Djamo and me. Of course, we’re sad that Opa died and we try to comfort Oma as much as we can. Yet somehow we spent quite some time laughing together, and it was so good to finally catch up after so many years. Coming home was a good decision.