What dogs can do.

Together with my mom and Joke, the three of us visited my uncle Joop this afternoon.
He's not a real uncle but I've known him all my life and I've always named him "ome Joop" ("Wat is er joh!"  an ancient inside joke)

He and my dad were best friends their whole life, since kindergarten in the 1940's and his wife, my aunt Janny, who passed away in July 2022 was best friends with my mother since they were young.
So, my parents and uncle Joop and aunt Janny, spent huge parts of their lives together, for over 75 years.
By now, my mother and uncle Joop are the only ones left. And they hadn't seen each other since the funeral of aunt Janny last year.
Both have been going through a lot in the past few years.

The fact they hadn't seen each other for so long didn't feel good, so together with Joke and Hans and Marc (their sons) we arranged a visit today.
When we arrived the first things we saw were 5 adorable Golden Retriever pups crawling around the lawn. Uncle Joop now lives in a small house in the garden of his youngest son Michel, and he breeds with these dogs.

Immediately these little fellows took away all the nervousness Joke and I had. What would happen when mom saw Joop again? Would she recognize him? Would he recognize her?? Both (in their own way) are suffering from dementia. 
But all that went surprisingly well, also thanks to the lovely dogs.

We went inside and we had quite a nice afternoon together. Dishing up old stories and memories. Back in the 70s we went on holiday together several times, to Denmark. Lots of stories from those holidays came by.

It felt good that mom and uncle Joop were together again.
It turned out both had been dreading their first encounter again the past year, and both are now happy that's over. Uncle Joop promised to visit my mom again soon. At one point he repeated almost the exact the words he spoke when my father died. "Lammert was my best friend and it hurts me a lot he's gone." At that moment I had to swallow some stuff away...

But all and all this afternoon wasn't the emotionally charged afternoon I thought it would be.