{"id":158697,"date":"2023-09-12T14:55:30","date_gmt":"2023-09-12T12:55:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=158697"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:26:58","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:26:58","slug":"carly-lost-her-mother-the-day-after-she-heard-that-she-had-passed-her-degree","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2023\/09\/12\/carly-lost-her-mother-the-day-after-she-heard-that-she-had-passed-her-degree\/","title":{"rendered":"Carly lost her mother the day after she heard that she had passed her degree"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carly van den Bos (23) doesn\u2019t want to hide her grief. She wants to talk about mother, although she doesn\u2019t really know where to start. While Carly was in the final stages of her bachelor\u2019s degree, her mother had bad news from the doctor. \u201cShe told us how much she loved us, and how proud she was of us.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The photo of her mother has a place in the cupboard, the grief over the loss has not yet calmed down. Carly wants to be smiling in the picture anyway, because the memories of her mother are beautiful.<\/span><\/p>

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It was eighteen months before it became clear why Keetie, Carly van den Bos\u2019 mother, was always so tired, why she always felt so unwell. The doctor always said something different every time she went. It\u2019s just menopause, it\u2019s all part of it, stress, take things easier, burnout, do less. At the fourth appointment, Keetie demanded a scan. The results of the scan came in mid-May, when Carly was busy writing her bachelor\u2019s thesis. Her mother had a 9 centimetre tumour on her liver, the doctors said it was incurable and gave her two years to live. <\/p>\n

Hope, until the last day<\/h2>

\u201cI found it really hard to focus on my studies\u201d, says Carly at her new flat in The Hague. They spent months painting and doing DIY. Taking it slowly, because things had been so intense. The deep green wall makes the lounge cosy. Even the wall decorations, LPs in this case (including Dire Straits and Earth, Wind & Fire), are already up. There\u2019s a photo of her mother on the shelf. When Carly looks back at the past few months, she sees that what helped her get through those difficult first months was distance and hope. \u201cI had so much hope. My mother was 56 years old, still fit and medical science is always making new discoveries \u2013 who knows what could happen in two years\u2019 time? I remained hopeful until the very last day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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\n\t\t\u2018I remained hopeful until the very last day\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

Carly wasn\u2019t always a good student. At secondary school she played truant and her grades were not good. \u201cOne teacher said to me: \u2018You\u2019ll have to learn how to learn. At some point there will come a time when your logic alone is not enough.\u2019\u201d The teacher was right. During her Bachelor\u2019s in Law Carly is learning how to learn effectively. \u201cOnce I\u2019m in the quiet study area in Sanders I can concentrate for hours. From 8 o\u2019clock in the morning to 5 o\u2019clock in the afternoon is not a problem for me.\u201d The result is clear, because from year 1, Carly has been an honours student. <\/p>\n

\u201cI was way ahead of schedule on my thesis. Which was lucky, in retrospect, because I feel like I had to rush things and couldn\u2019t perform up to my standards after getting the news about my mother.\u201d Studying on campus was like studying in another world for her, away from the grief at home. \u201cAt home, I couldn\u2019t focus on my studies. When I started thinking about everything that was happening, I just couldn\u2019t concentrate. On campus I was distanced from things. I hadn\u2019t told anyone about the situation, so no one asked me about it. Because I had really trained myself to concentrate, I could study for hours. When I got home to the reality of the situation, it really hit me.\u201d <\/p>\n

The day she passed her degree<\/h2>

On 11 July, Carly was expecting a phone call. At 5 pm she would find out online whether or not she had passed her Bachelor\u2019s degree. While she was waiting, she did a few odd jobs in her apartment in The Hague. She and her partner Emma had got the keys back in April and Carly\u2019s parents and parents-in-law had come round to celebrate them moving in. <\/p>\n

Carly didn\u2019t know that her mother, Keetie, had now been taken into hospital and that it was serious. Her father wanted her to have a normal day, doing jobs around the house, enjoying being together in their new place and celebrating passing her degree. Clearly, they celebrated her success. But that same evening her day changed completely. The doctors called: things weren\u2019t going well. Her father, Carly and her two brothers sat round the table. They held each other\u2019s hands tightly while he told them \u2018there\u2019s a chance that mum won\u2019t see out the day\u2019. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she continued: \u201cWe spent the whole of that evening and the next day with my mother, together with my aunt and my grandparents. She told us how much she loved us, and how proud she was of us \u2013 and how she wished that things could have been different. That evening she died. It was a huge shock, because I remained hopeful till the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

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At her new home, Carly has a garden. The moving date was delayed due to her mother's illness.<\/span><\/p>

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Lessons<\/h2>

Carly says it\u2019s too early for her to feel \u2018it\u2019s better this way\u2019, or \u2018she\u2019s no longer in pain\u2019. \u201cI don\u2019t know how to deal with this grief\u201d, she says. But she says has already learnt some lessons from it. That you shouldn\u2019t wait to do things in your life, for example. \u201cMy parents took us travelling from an early age, the five of us made lots of memories together. If I ever have children, I\u2019ll do the same. You mustn\u2019t wait until you\u2019re retired or till it\u2019s the \u2018right\u2019 time to enjoy yourself, you have to enjoy yourself all the time. Life is fragile. Sometimes you have to experience something bad in your life to make you see that that\u2019s the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

She doesn\u2019t blame the doctors for what happened, there\u2019s no point in focusing on those sorts of negative emotions, she says. \u201cBut what I do know is this: if you\u2019re worried that something isn\u2019t right with your body, ask for or demand a scan. I will definitely do that in the future.\u201d <\/p>\n

Happy to talk about her mother<\/h2>\n\t
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\n\t\t\u2018I hope that I can be like her in some way\u2019\n\t<\/blockquote>\n\n\t<\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n

While she was in the final stages of her degree, Carly couldn\u2019t talk about her mother\u2019s illness. In mid-August, however, when she was typing a report on her final project on her laptop, she made reference to the death of her mother. \u201cThe grief has become part of me, why should I hide it?\u201d, she says, having since started her Master\u2019s in Criminal Law. \u201cNowadays I\u2019m very happy to talk about my mother, it\u2019s just that I don\u2019t know where to start,\u201d she says. Her friends sometimes find it difficult to know what to say when they find out that her mother has died. The message on LinkedIn did help, however. She now has the support of some 1,500 people and a message from a student who is about to start the same Master\u2019s degree in Amsterdam who has also lost her mother. She and Carly plan to go for coffee together.<\/p>\n

If you ask about Keetie, Carly answers by describing what her mother was like. \u201cShe was extremely curious, I know she will have found a way of keeping an eye on us all. She was extremely thoughtful and vivacious, she remembered birthdays and when neighbours were going on holiday or had an interview. She wished people luck or wished them well on their travels, or asked how their birthday had been. I think that was one of her great qualities. I hope that I can be like her in some way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t

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De redactie<\/h2>\n\t\t\n\t\t
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