Going on holiday during the summer or fall, I feel a tinge of regret.  This is the beautiful season in West Michigan.  Especially after the summer we've had this year--unprecedented sunshine, mornings fresh and cool, and an explosion of green even in the city.  And now, as the summer fades into autumn, and the untiring orchestra of insects shooshes the evenings and flowers give their last, brave efforts in the garden, I ask, Why am I leaving this to go and look at another country's beauty?

Well, the airline tickets are bought, and so we are going.  My mother, who is 90, has long had a yen to see the countryside from which her ancestors sprang--the northern provinces of Holland.  My father did not share that desire, though these were his ancestral roots as well.  To him, the Netherlands was the home of the Reformed faith; and the thought of the now liberal and godless Amsterdam gave him pain rather than pleasure.  So he would never agree to a trip.  But now, some years after his death, Mom has finally decided that it's now or never.
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She has been gearing up for this trip.  Early in the morning, before the heat of the San Joaquin Valley begins to rise, she puts on her walking shoes.  Using a hand-me-down walker, she traverses a mile of sidewalks, stops at her church, then heads home again.  This is so she can keep up with us on the blessedly flat landscape of the Netherlands.  The walker (referred to affectionately as her Cadillac) will come with us, of course. It has a nice seat to rest on if the distance gets too long.

Also joining us are my oldest sister, Gayle, and a niece, Jenni, who is working in campus ministry in the Ukraine.  We will stay two nights near Amsterdam, then drive up to Friesland and Groningen for a week in someone's back yard cabin.  From there we will take day trips to wherever we want to go, perhaps a day in Germany, but certainly looking up small towns, farmhouses, and cemeteries.  We don't know a soul in the Netherlands, so we can't invite ourselves to tea or ask to see inside of homes, but we will make ourselves suspicious by prowling around the properties and taking lots of snapshots.

I have been reading up on my mother's ancestry.  She was a Pasma (good Fries name), but her mother was a Vreugdenhil (good Groninger name).  A cousin, Orville Pasma, sent us a manifesto on the genealogy of Mom's paternal grandparents, Klaas and Klaaske Pasma.  Armed with names, dates, village names, and old letters and biographies, we will get to know these two people very well, I should think:

I like how his ears stick out.  And I like the self-satisfied, though perhaps world-weary expression on Great-Grandma Klaaske's face.  I also like that she's the one sitting.

As I clean my Grand Rapids house in preparation for leaving, I look around and wonder if someday someone will knock on the front door and ask, "I think my Great-Grandpa and Grandma Bajema used to live here, a hundred years ago.  Do you mind if we have a look around?"