This is a post I had no intention of writing.
It’s about my uncle. His name was Frans.
Was. As in ‘he died last week’.
Nonkel Frans was not someone I had a lot of contact with. We went to visit him once a year
when I was a child. Later, I talked to him on just a handful of occasions, usually family affairs
that I couldn’t avoid.
He wasn’t a particularly nice person.
So why is his death affecting me so much ?
I’ve found myself going back to a memory from when I was a child.
On one occasion, I was allowed to enter his ‘studio’. My uncle was a
company employee by day, and a painter by night. His house was located in the woods.
The sunlight in his studio that day, was flickering and bedazzling and magic.
There was a desk with drawing papers and pencils and pastels. There were rows of paintings
standing on the floor, leaning against two of the walls. There was a canvas
on an easel with a painting he was working on. And the studio smelled of oil paint and terpentine.
I have never again in my life visited a place that felt like this, that made such an impression on me. It was like … a revelation of some sort …
I don’t know why this memory is so strong, and why I cannot stop thinking about it since he died.
I wish …