The last song

I wrote 'cousin' when I first published this post, but I guess it's 'uncle'. He was my grandfather's sister's son. I always thought of him as a cousin because he was only 10 years older than I am.

I only ever saw R. a couple of times growing up -- some kind of family fued, I think -- but he was there at a decisive point in my life when I was 12 years old. That's a story for another day to tell.

R. got in touch with me through e-mail not long after I moved to Amsterdam. I don't know if he found me or I found him. He needed some web advice, which I gave him.

In return I got stories about my family. My mother, my grandparents. And a lot of that bragging and boasting my family's so good at. It's as annoying as it is, well, 'familiar'.

I did a bit of work for him online but at some point the project faltered and the contact stopped. I never bothered to ask what went wrong and I never got in touch again, because... well, because I never think about such things. It's not exactly laziness -- it's something else.

The last time I saw him was in May 2000:

"Today around half past 3 my uncles R. and C. came and rescued me from behind the computer. It’s 26 to 27 degrees, so they were very welcome. Work can wait. So we had a few drinks at a café on Oosterpark and then drove down to IJmuiden harbour to have dinner at ‘Henk Schoorl’, fish exporters and restaurant owners… had sushi, oysters, sea wolf and a nice bottle of Sancerre. That’s what family’s for."

Tomorrow we'll bury him. That too, is what family is for.