Lynn. I am still happy with the name my Dutch parents gave me. That’s right, my Dutch parents. Their names are Celine and Philip. Fortunately very international names and therefor they wanted to give their new daughter, who they adopted from Indonesia, an original international name as well. So Lynn it was. My mom is very fond of music, so she wasn’t a woman who had lots of books about baby names. No, she would search through her music collection until she found the best name for her new child. Then she found out the fifth of May would be the day she will meet me. As this is the independence day in the Netherlands, she called me Lynn after the singer Vera Lynn. I know it’s a bizar story and it’s the truth. You will be convinced as soon as you see her collection music albums. She didn’t stop with collecting records when the CD’s came out, nothing stopped her and now the house of my parents has a great wall with numerous records my mom collected through the years. Really amazing. Next to her wall, you won’t believe it, is my fathers wall full of books of old and new philosophers. My parents are one of a kind and I never cared whether I was adopted or not their biological child. They gave and still giving me an amazing life with music and literature. So, they will be very artistic people you will think. Well no, my father works as an accountant and my mom is a physiotherapist. She worked parttime when I went to pre-school and later on she developed in her work in healing, acupressure, yoga and all that kind of spiritual stuff. And me, to everyones surprise I decided to study journalism. Even for me it was a surprise and I didn’t expect to be accepted at all, but I did. I studied journalism in the strangest time. In my second year 9/11 happened and later the assault on the Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn. Those two happenings motivated me more to continue this study and I discovered my love for writing, research and politics. This discovery was not what my parents had in mind for me at all. They weren’t the kind of parents who had everything figured out for their girl, but letting her go to a foreign country in war and conflicts was way out of their expectations. It wasn’t the war I was focused on, more the conflicts and the unfairness in the world. There’s too much and I wanted to be the one to report this with my writing. I wasn’t someone who could solve the problems, but I could write about it and let the public know what I witnessed during my time abroad. This is what I discovered during my internship and after graduation I really put my mind on being a foreign news reporter. But that never happened the way I had in my mind. The same month of my graduation my mom was diagnosed with cancer, breast cancer, and everything shifted. Everything. Nothing was important, because my world experienced one of the greatest battles many people endure in this world. The battle against cancer and that was all that existed and still exists for me.
‘Lynn! Come here, what are you doing over there?’ From the front door my mom is waving at me to come in. Of course I come in. Where else will I be, where else have I been, where else do I want to be?
‘Just making a picture mom!’ I make a quick picture with my camera and I see my mom laughing. Thats what I started to do, making pictures. Luckily I also followed a minor photography during my study, so I could use my own pictures with my writing. Apparently, that’s how it supposed to be. Because I started working as a freelance photographer after my study and this has been my rescue to continue my career and take care of my mother when she needed me the most.
‘Stop that’, she shouts grinning and holding her hand out to me.
‘Hi mom.’ I kiss her cheek.
‘My love.’ She holds me longer than normal and I know what’s gonna happen. The battle is not over. It’s back.
‘Why?’ I ask.
As usually she doesn’t have to say anything. I know already. By the way she talks, the tone of her voice, her smile, her laughter and her eyes. Even though I am not biological hers, I know everything about her and she knows everything about me. We are the same.
‘Lynn! Come here, what are you doing over there?’ From the front door my mom is waving at me to come in. Of course I come in. Where else will I be, where else have I been, where else do I want to be.
‘Just making a picture mom!’ I make a quick picture with my camera and I see my mom laughing. Thats what I started to do, making pictures. Luckily I also followed a minor photography during my study, so I could use my own pictures with my writing. Apparently, that’s how it supposed to be. Because I started working as a freelance photographer after my study and this has been my rescue to continue my career and take care of my mother when she needed me the most.
‘Stop that’, she shouts grinning and holding her hand out to me.
‘Hi mom.’ I kiss her cheek.
‘My love.’ She holds me longer than usual and I know what’s gonna happen. The battle is not over. It’s back.
‘Why?’ I ask.
As usually she doesn’t have to say anything. I know already. By the way she talks, the tone of her voice, her smile, her laughter and her eyes. Even though I am not biological hers, I know everything about her and she knows everything about me. We are the same.
