9 and a half years

It was a beautiful summerday, at the end of July in 1984. The sun was shining and invited you out to eat some ice cream, and the ice cream vendor drove by all the streets in Leuven-Heverlee. Also on the busy Tervuursesteenweg. He took his time to sell his wares. But on this day, time would come to a brutal stand-still in the family of Richard and Maartje Mommaerts…

Richard grew up in a not all too harmonious family. Alcohol played too big of a role in it. Drink made tongs hang lose, as well as hands…
His brother died and his father committed suicide.

All the things that happened during his childhood didn’t make him wish for children after he got married. But when his daughter Nicky was born, it did not take long for her to become papa’s buddy. The good years had finally come.

Until that fatal day in July ’84.

“I crossed the street to buy ice cream” Maartje remembers all to well. “Nicky, then 9,5 years old, ran after me. I warned her to look out well for cars, and in the assumption that she would keep following me I went on. But Nicky turned around and ran back…right under a car.”

A year later the doorbel rang. Two young men from the organization Operation Mobilization came by to evangilize. They were foreigners: one from Schotland and one from Ireland. Although the conversation was not very fluent because of the language barriers, the message came through.

Richard remembers: “I was searching, and I wanted to know if there was a God. I had already looked into Eastern religions, but those came down to comforting yourself. I wanted to meet God at that moment, because I didn’t think life was worth living anymore. A short time later we received a bible from somebody, and in two weeks I had read it from cover to cover. “

Maartje was frightened that Richard would accept anything that was said to him, since he was so depressed. She was also scared that they were getting involved in a sect. Still, both Richard and Maartje slowly came to the conclusion that this was real truth. The change in Richard pulled Maartje over the line:

“It was seeing that he changed so completely. He was still depressed, but the inescapable was gone. He was making steps forward.”

When Richard was still in his depressed time, out of his despair he asked God the question: “Do you know how much it hurts to lose your only child?”

Richard: “I got an answer, quietly, in my head. “yes”. And the only thing I could think was: I shouldn’t have asked that. I should have known. God gave His Son to the world. He knows what it means. His Son died, nailed on the cross, for our sins.”

The processing of grief for Richard and Maartje, is first and foremost an issue of sense and intellect.

“If you don’t come further then the feeling, you will stay depressed. You will continually be confronted with death.
Your mind has to guide the feeling. By knowing God intellectually the feeling is also healed. By understanding, I received healing.

Richard agrees: “If I had not gotten to know God, I would not have made it. I was not strong enough to make it, intellectually. Not rational enough. I just thought, ‘those people who still want to live, well, they can go ahead and do that. I’m stepping out of this.’ “

29 years have passed since the tragic accident that pulled Nicky away from her parents. But when Maartje and Richard talk about it, it seems like it happened yesterday. And yet, a lot has changed. Thanks to God who gave this couple a new goal in life.

Richard: “I still feel it, but now, it is manageable.

I’ve known Richard and Maartje since I was 8. She was my Sunday school teacher, and they were the magic behind the Christmas program in church. Behind almost every child-related thing in church. He’d build decors, she’d sew costumes, and make me dance to an Elly and Rikkert song. (I stubbornly stood like a stiff stick, while Herlinde’s daughters tried to make me move from behind)

Richard, I know as a quiet person, a rock in the background. Maartje is a busy bee, always helping out and organizing.

Every birthday, we’d look forward to getting the birthday card she never failed to send. Mom would save it and give it to us at the traditional gift-giving moment, which consists of our entire family walking around the living room coffee table, singing of key and way to loud to all the birthday songs we know. One gift we were always sure of: Richard and Maartje’s homemade card.

I loved hearing their story of how they got to know the Lord. They’ve always been there, but I never knew how they’d got there!

You can listen to ‘Nine and a half years’ on ?October 20, 2013, after the news of 20:00, on radio 1.

This article was first published in their magazine by?erts.org

This post is part of my 31 days series ‘More like My Father’.

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