Our Inspiration

My grandparents are my greatest inspiration, the founders of a loving legacy for my family and my strong foundation.  The greatest gift they left me was two things, work hard and be nice to people, it was a simple motto but now that I am the older one I have truly come to see has the biggest impact in life.

They were immigrants from Holland and gave everything all grandparents do. Unconditional love, kindness, patience, comfort, and the best lessons in life with their Dutch roots strong. 

 They were straight with people, the debate continues on whether the Dutch forwardness is considered “rude” to Canadians but they just didn’t have time for excuses or lying. They always expected the truth from you and never judged when you vented, only gave you understanding.

They were stingy and taught us to always save for a rainy day, but they believed in always being fair and equal and never got worked up about what people thought about them.

They didn’t say sorry all the time, even after all those years as Canadians, they were always polite sometimes to a fault but they believed the word sorry should be said only when you mean it and not just in conversation to build trust.

They never fretted and believed the quality time was out biking with the children and enjoying the sun and just having fun. My Opa never missed an opportunity to remind us the phrase LOL we use on text literally means “fun” in dutch - I try to not laugh but I still do each time.

They had confidence, or what we called “Dutch Courage,” they believed in hard work and never quit something they started or allowed you to.  They always said they were never successful unless their neighbor had food on their table too, a quote I grew to understand much too late in life.

My Grandmother’s beauty was in her smile and eyes. She shared it with everyone she passed.  She still never missed a Friday morning hair blowout and loved shopping for a new Sunday dress always.  With her faith strong she’d always tell me to dress like it's the best day of my life, and never forget the jewelry.

They believed in simplicity, garden food, singing while cooking, natural cures passed down from generations.  As a kid I hated always picking peas and strawberries, digging up potatoes from the enormous garden they had, and then blanching everything for the freezer for the winter months.  As an adult, I miss this simplicity of this life so much and realized I need to introduce my children to a slower pace of life, more natural options in today’s environment, and share the generations of knowledge.

Legacy has so many different meanings but I think my grandparents would want their history to become the future.  In the end, it’s the love that one generation can leave another that is the greatest gift.  The memories I have of these two remind me for a moment the world is a little kinder because of them and I can only hope to continue leaving that legacy for the next generation.

“Our grandparents give us a sense of who we are and where we came from”