A Non-Sentimental Piece About the Passing of a Peer

Leading up to the 17th of July, I had death on my mind. A few days prior, I was informed about the sudden and tragic passing of my mother's husband's brother, and with 7 hours a day by myself on a bike, I was presented with the opportunity to overthink a thing or two. One of the topics that came to pass that day was my own mortality. You can say what you want about the hobby to cycle around Europe in your days off, but it can hardly be sold as healthy. Many a car or truck in area's where the emancipation of two-wheeled carriers is still to take off, might mistake my panniers for a hit-me sign, and that would be that. The grim reaper drives a lorry.

I thought about what I would write in my will, and which of the things I owned would even be welcomed by those around me (I could see my brother's concerned frown when hearing the testamentary executioner read: “And all my books will go to my brother".. imagine all those trips to the paper bin or the local opp shop). I concluded that for the moment, those left with my earthly belongings would find a way. Later that day I heard about a Malaysian plane laving from Amsterdam having crashed.

The day after, people I would speak to in Poland would mention the accident. When the guy I was staying with (no internet) mentioned that 200 of the people in the plane were Dutch, there was a faint flicker of panic when I realised: I might know some of them. But the actuality took over, as my mother was burrying her brother-in-law. My thoughts were with her and the family.

Another half a day I cycled until I opened my email. There I found, between the updates about the crash that were sent by my newspaper, a message by my Amsterdam based basketball club with the heading: “A sad message”. Now I knew I knew someone. But with the message still closed, I could try to charm the truth. Schroedingers cat. The person in that message was, and wasn't anymore. There I sat, sweaty, greasy, in my unbecoming bike gear on and with my laptop in my hands on a Polish railway station, knowing and not knowing. All of this happened in a second.

I opened the message. The shitty internet connection of the Polish Railways made the message load slowly enough for me first to make out the name Laurens van der Graaff, before his picture confirmed the verdict. Fuck man. Laurens. What a shitty deal.

What I knew in that instant, but what will take me a few lines to explain here, was the intimate knowledge of this guy that years of playing and practicing at the same basketball club had built up. Playing in the 2nd team, Laurens was my direct adversary, as our 2nd and 3rd team play in the same league. Every season half ends with a derby, and Laurens had been posting against me in quite a few of those. But that wasn't all there was to remember in that instant. I knew about Laurens' ability to write beautifully, his sense of humor, and his presence at the club's social activities. Laurens was one of those guys that everyone likes, and who likes them back in return.

The defense mechanism I have encountered in a few other occasions kicked in straight away, and I frantically read the text again, trying to find a different meaning: it was someone who Laurens knew that was on the plane, anything but this. Even though I try to tell students in my cultural studies classes again and again that you can read a text differently and that there is not one meaning, reading the passage over and over, the message remained the same. The shocking detail that his girlfriend was with him started to do it's work. Fuck, fuck, fuck. The world is unfair.

Within a few clicks I was on Facebook. There I found the expected madness: post after post, some directed at Laurens, some directed at the other visitors of his page. Different in content but similar in outcome: ... it is impossible to fathom that our sweet friend, colleague, teacher, cousin, and friend is no longer alive... Jesus fuck, what a horrible situation. And there I sat, and I read and I read and I read.

And by reading, I learned. It is this experience in a case of mourning that I have so far found most distressing every time: it turns out there are so many details worth knowing about someone that suddenly come to light, at a time when it is too late to fully appreciate them, since that person has ceased to be.

It happened to me in the days after my friend and lover Krishna died in 2010, it happened when my good friend's girlfriend passed away in 2011 and it has happened in the last few days. And with Laurens the proof is going through the roof: even though I knew Laurens from a medium distance and harboured a heartfelt companionship, I have dealt myself a bad hand by not knowing him better, by not appreciating all those sides of him that now make up a bright three dimensional picture. And the tragedy of it burns: all of that potential has come to an unfair halt.

Laurens will be missed. He will be missed by me. He will be missed more by his direct team mates, and by the team he coached. He will be missed by his rowing friends, his students, his co-editors, his family. And all of them will miss him even more because of the evidence they give each other. In its final form, distance cristallizes the image of a person. And what an image it is.

When I read the gruesome details of Olaf Koen's report at the scene, the day after th crash, I became irritated with his use of words. He was mentioning 'bodies' and 'torn open stiffs' (lichamen en 'opengereten lijken'). These were words that did not fit the image that all those memories and odes of Laurens added up to. It stung, as it stung before in 2010: so much greatness in life, but in the end; a crushed body stuck in a car, a torn open stiff in an airplane seat.

So when the international tug of war about rebels, bodies, cooling wagons, identification teams and disaster investigators started taking centre stage, I had a hard time staying distanced. It was building into an anger that fed the pumping motion of my legs while riding. Those bodies were people. The main thing this should be about is the people whose lives were cut short. Let the image of Laurens' greatness shine bright next to the inexplicable tragedy of his passing. Let his unknown sides be narrated, shaped and shared and put on view for all those grieving.

This has not turned into a non-sentimental piece about the passing of a peer. But I can live with that.