My mother and I often talked about death. When I was little, she already read books about life after death and spirituality. I eagerly read along. When my grandmother died, my mother asked for a sign. They had agreed on that together.
Once, my grandparents were walking on the Albert Cuyp market in Amsterdam when a woman collapsed and the police rushed in. My grandparents stood there, shocked, watching it all happen. They told us the whole story in vivid detail when they came home. It turned out to be a staged scene for a recruitment ad for the police, and the two of them were standing right in the middle of the photo. It appeared for months, large and bold, in all the newspapers.
Years after both my grandparents had passed away, my mother and I were sitting on the couch reading the newspaper when suddenly she threw the paper away with a cry. There it was again — that same advertisement — right after she had silently asked my grandmother: “When will I finally get a sign?” That photo hadn’t been in the papers for years, and suddenly it was there again.
Anyway… my mother died, and she and I had made our own agreement. Right after her passing I was overwhelmed by waves of love. It was so intense that I had to pull the car over to take it in. It felt like warm waves of water moving through me with such force that it took my breath away. It was blissful. One lamp kept switching on and off for hours. Even when I turned it off, it would still flicker. My ex, who is very down‑to‑earth, was impressed too. When I was on the phone with someone my mother adored, the lamp went crazy for the entire hour — and stopped the moment I hung up.
About three months after her death, I went to a gathering of spiritual people when one of them asked if she could give me a reading. Always curious, I agreed. And yes… my mother — it couldn’t have been anyone else. A woman with dark, high hair was practically jumping with impatience to get in touch with me, so she wasn’t going to miss this opportunity. The medium told me so much about my mother that I later typed out three full pages. Everything was spot on, and the things I didn’t know my father later confirmed. She even saw that my father and I had eaten a huge, strange salad somewhere. That was true… I’m used to unusual salads, but my father was stunned by the enormous macrobiotic salad we had eaten at De Bolhoed on the Prinsengracht. I could go on and on, but I’ll spare you.
A few years later my father called me, completely upset. “Marja, my shirt was buttoned up over the chair this morning, and I never do that… I always hang it over the back, unbuttoned!!!” He was about ninety‑three by then, so I thought he must have forgotten. But he insisted he hadn’t. My father had done everything the same way for years, without a single exception. Even if he was watching the most wonderful program and enjoying it immensely — at 10:45 the TV went off and he went to bed. Everything had its place, always the same way, at the same time. I definitely didn’t inherit that from him.
The night after that, I was home alone. My girlfriend was traveling, and around one o’clock I was lying in bed thinking about what had happened. Of course he must have pulled the shirt over his head without noticing. I couldn’t imagine my mother’s spirit fiddling with all those buttons. At that moment I heard knocking on the wall right next to my head. I looked up and thought… it must be the neighbor. A moment later it happened again — but more forcefully. My heart started beating faster, but again I reassured myself: the neighbor, old house… A few minutes later the light in the room switched on at full brightness. I jumped out of bed and shouted into the air: “All of you, get out!!! Let me sleep!” My heart was racing and it took a long time before I fell asleep. The next day I called the medium I had met earlier.
She told me that my mother had indeed been trying to make contact… she hadn’t buttoned my father’s shirt, but she was doing everything she could to get a message through. She didn’t want to do it through the medium — she wanted to reach me directly. “How?” I asked. The medium said I could meditate and open myself, or try automatic writing. I had learned that once, but nothing much ever came out. That day I did everything to open myself, but nothing happened and I grew impatient. I called the medium again and asked if she could do a phone session with me. She lives near Breda, quite far from Amsterdam. We agreed to talk the next morning at 10:30. I was sitting in my garden office and hadn’t gotten dressed yet. Who would see me?
The medium told me that my mother had been with her since seven in the morning and had said: “Just a little patience — I have an appointment with Marja at 10:30!” My mother stayed close by. She had never been patient in her life. In June I would already get my birthday present because she couldn’t wait until August. At six in the morning she was fully dressed, and by 7:30 the house was spotless, just in case someone might drop by.
The medium said: “Your mother says you should do your hair… and that you still need to shower…” Yes, my mother never liked it when someone slept in or didn’t look presentable in the morning. Then she asked if I had recently coached a company director and used my mother to make a point. The man had been very upset. I thought about it… it had been a while since I coached directors, and I couldn’t remember anyone being that shaken or me using my mother as an example. She added: “The man has a very long beard!” Oops. The night before I had been in a café with a friend who is a company director. He and his wife got into an argument, and I had said: “If you keep going like this, you’re just like my mother — you won’t stop talking, and your wife will stop saying anything… you’ll grow apart!” He was very upset and didn’t say another word that evening. And yes… he has a very long beard.
Well… I do use my mother often. She gave me so many stories and examples that I still use her in lectures — the wonderful things she did and the less pleasant ones. I asked the medium what she thought of that. “She loves it! As long as you use her… she wants to help you with your work. She says she became a caricature of herself in life, and now she has insight and overview.” When she was alive, I would never have wanted her involved in my work. She often said, a bit dismissively: “What you do, I’ve done for free all my life!” Now I love that she’s involved. She used to sit on benches in the park and often met people who were depressed. Then she’d say: “You, depressed? What should I say — I lost thirty family members in the gas chambers. I’m positive, and if I can do it, so can you! Stop it… go buy flowers for someone who needs them and go travel with your money!” Her directness and stern appearance had quite an effect on people.
Once, when she accompanied a friend to her job at a psychiatric institution, she said to one of the residents: “Easy life, isn’t it… not having to take care of yourself. No responsibility. Do something — go live your life! I would’ve straightened you out.” The woman replied: “If you had worked here, I would’ve been out long ago.” Yes, my mother didn’t mince words.
So I could understand all of this. But why had she contacted me now? It turned out she was keeping an eye on my father. He still lived alone and insisted he was doing fine. But she saw that he was barely managing and pretending to be strong. She wanted him to get more care and an alarm system in case he fell, so help would come immediately.
Of course I arranged that, and he got more support and an alarm. My father admitted that things were harder than he had let on. A year later he fell while I was in France, pressed the alarm, and the ambulance took him to the hospital. My mother still rules.
My father has passed away too now. He wasn’t afraid to die and knew, in the end, that the soul leaves the body and that my mother was waiting for him. Naturally, we made an agreement. I asked him to let me know he was around — but not in a way that would scare me. Three months after his death I suddenly saw him on the street, floating right in front of me. Young and radiant.
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