While cleaning out Mom’s home, we came across my father’s baby book. Those who read his story will know, but for those who haven’t, Dad was born in the Belgian Congo in 1933. His father worked as an accountant on the Capetown to Cairo railway. His mother was the daughter of a wealthy woman who lived in the Netherlands and a vaudeville artist who lived in Indonesia.
Why is this important? Because my grandparents were, to put it bluntly, ignorant. You see, my father, Frits, was born with a hereditary hiatal hernia that meant he had lots of acid reflux even from birth. He cried—a lot.
His parents had no idea why their baby was so unhappy, but they noticed that Frits stopped crying when held upright. Ha! Obviously, in their minds, he just wanted attention. They had no parental support and no one to ask, so they strategized a solution between them. They decided to teach him what was right. So, from six weeks old on, they spanked him when he cried and then put him down again to cry himself to sleep. When he awoke from pain and cried, they spanked him again. And so the days and nights went.
Child abuse, anyone? And yet…they were doing what they thought was best for their baby.
Roll on 25 years; Frits and his wife had their first baby, me! Now, my mother, Meta, whose book you may have read, had seen her mother raise her baby brother. She was also blessed with some maternal instincts. Furthermore, my father thought I could do no wrong. So, they cuddled me, took me for long walks in the baby carriage, and more. I still cried from pain but not from being spanked.
Unfortunately, the offending condition is hereditary, and I eventually saw my grandchildren suffer. Some were given Zantac; others were carried upright against their mom’s chest. My daughter and my daughter-in-law are connected with both me and an entire church where they could get advice, not to mention physicians who know about acid reflux. For those reasons and others, from birth, my grandchildren felt secure in the love they received.
Did Frits ever recover from this early treatment? Honestly, I don’t know. But I am consoled by a memory from the last week of his life—just over eight years ago. The hospice nurse told us that when his breathing alters, the end is near. I assumed it meant within hours, not days. So, when I heard the change, I called my mom and siblings to his room, where we all sat with Dad, assuring him of our love. After 15 minutes of this, Dad had had enough. “Yes, I know, I know! Now let me sleep!”