What I said for my sweet mother in law, Reny

On March 5th, 2020, Reny's memorial was to be held at her church in Kirkland, only a couple miles from the Covid19 ground zero. The funeral was officially cancelled but the mass was to be celebrated anyway for the family. Some die hard catholics attended, but this or an approximation, was said to a mostly empty sanctuary. Reny deserved better. We all deserved better.

Hi- I am Jim, I am married to Laurie, Reny Enkelken Maassen was my mother in law.  I love Reny Maassen and I am not sad. I know where she is. She was more like my second mom, she was a wonderful person. Meeting Jules and Reny for the first time about 37 years ago, I only remember being nervous and that the house in Redmond was so quiet. I am pretty sure we drank tea. As she sized me up, a gangly kid batting out of his league, as a new suitor for her daughter I could tell she was a force to be reckoned with.  I guess I passed, or at least didn’t fail too miserably. Reny had a very formal side that masked the kind and gentle person beneath. That facade could be formidable, (at least to a 22 year old boyfriend of her daughter) but it wasn’t really her. As I got to know her and after a short while started calling her “mom”,  and  I found out about the struggles of her childhood during the war in Indonesia, her family’s departure for Europe, her years in Holland and her immigration with Jules to the relative safety and security of  Fort Wayne Indiana, the loss of a child, only then some of the wall she built seemed to make sense.

       She was accustomed to in charge and to be right. Over our many years in discussion, never do I remember changing her mind on an issue. She changed mine on a few, and I have reason to believe that I may have caused her to reconsider, but her opinion rarely wavered in our conversations. It wasn’t boastful or know it all- it was just a physical law of the universe. Sometimes I thought there was a loneliness in that certainty, as long as there was Jules it never fully showed itself. When Jules left us, I was sure of it. But don’t think that made her cold because I would never see her in that way. Reny loved her family- her children, her grandchildren, but sometimes at an arms length. She was not the type of grandmother who showered people with affection- not that it wasn’t there, but in her reserved nature, she expressed it in different ways. She was not a Disneyland and cheetos kind of mom. She was a mom who instilled in her children an unambiguous christian faith and set of values that were clear and ever present. 

Her relationship with Jules, through all the years and hardships and joys that any marriage endures  was a great comfort to them both. With that example, it’s easy to see why all four of their children have had such successful long term relationships- all four have marriages of over 30 years- thats over 120 years. I guess thats something to be proud of. Mom missed Dad terribly after he left us. A light went out. While I do not doubt for a minute her certainty that they would be together again, I know she deeply missed Jules’ physical presence in their lives. It hurt to see.

         What will I remember about Reny. One thing is her skill with a hard boiled egg. The Maassen’s have an easter tradition that I had never seen before I was allowed into their family; the easter egg fights. It was pretty simple - at the post church brunch table, take the traditional dyed hardboiled easter egg and each person chooses an egg, and two people square off and and smash their eggs into each other. The winner- with the uncracked egg moves on. The loser eats a hard boiled egg and watches glumly from the sidelines. It is sort of a double elimination two tiered collegiate level final four match to determine egg fight champion of the year. For being such quiet people, these Dutch folk take this seriously, and nobody brought their A game more than Reny. In thirty or so years of egg fights, she won, I would guess, twenty of them. It got so I thought she had a pastel colored egg shaped piece of granite that she would sneak into the match, but it was just skill. If she had a jersey number for egg fights, we would retire it.

I miss Reny.  She was my last parent, and I really felt about her like my own mom. Being accepted into her family will always be one of my greatest joy. I love you mom. See you down the road.