Sunday, June 19^th, 2016. Father’s Day.

It’s nearly ten am and I’m on the metro with my great friend Rachel on the way to Auvers-sur-Oise; the place where Vincent painted for seventy days, before mysteriously dying. He is buried there. We are on our way to pay homage to him, and his brother, who happens to be buried beside him.

When I left you last... I honestly don’t recall. LOL. What a whirlwind the last few days have been! Let’s see, I will try to remember. I mentioned the bike, leaving the bike with Nathalie and Connie picking me up in Tilburg, I think. Ugh. There is no internet service on the metro so I cannot pull up my blog to check.

Connie and I drove from Tilburg to Breda, another important place in Vincent’s youth. His father preached there for a short time… Anyway, Connie and I made our way to the Centruum and found a nice place to sit and have a beer beside the canal. We overheard a young woman, eating lunch by herself, and realized she was a fellow American.

Kristina is in Breda studying for a semester abroad. She is about to earn her degree in hospitality and has the plan of more fully bringing hostels to the US. A great idea, I think. Especially with the way hostels have progressed in Europe. No longer merely dorms full of drunken university students, the new ones feature private rooms for couples or families, bars, restaurants and even night clubs. I think this could be replicated in the states. Families could find accommodations in the private rooms and maybe even settle for a smaller dorm if there is no availability.

So after a few drinks, Connie decides she wants a pannenkoken and we have to try it too. We begin our quest to find this traditional Dutch dish which is sort of a blend between a crepe and a pizza. We return to the rental car to find we have been awarded a parking ticket for 90 euro! This is utter bullshit. Originally, Connie believing 500 meters was not that far to walk, we paid for an hour and a half of parking. After a beer, Connie decided to move the car closer to where we actually were. She found FREE parking on a side street but left the paid parking receipt on the dash. Some officious meter maid likely saw the vehicle was a rental, noticed the expired ticket on the dash, and decided, hey, maybe these stupid tourists don’t even realize they’re parking in a free zone. I’ll go ahead and issue a ticket. If they pay it, great for the city; if not, what has the city really lost but a small piece of paper?

I took a number of photos to document our case: no Paid Parking signs anywhere on the street, none of the other vehicles parked around us had either paid parking receipts on the dash, or parking tickets tucked under the wiper blades. Connie flips out a bit, but I assure her, we’ll put together a convincing argument in an email and send it off to the city.

We drive to our next destination, less than a kilometer away, which was featuring a carnival, full of rides, games and barkers; and no parking. I convince Connie to park in a no parking zone, smartly replace her new ticket beneath the wiper blade and we’re off to find our pannenkoken. It wasn’t that good, but the company, Connie and Kristina was fantastic. Getting late, it’s time for Connie and I to find our AirBnB. We walk back to the car, which is luckily still there, our parking ticket successfully keeping it safe. And, no other tickets!

Kristina lives nearby so she journeys with us to Ger’s, an architect by day and musician by night. The room is very comfortable, with two beds, and in the back is a lovely terrace, perfect for enjoying a beer in the evening and a coffee in the morning; which we do.

We’re up early as we have to be at the train station by 9 am to collect Margaret; a family friend of Connie’s. Margaret speaks four languages and would prove to be an invaluable guide. I punch in the coordinates to the train station on the GPS and we promptly arrive at 9 am, at the wrong train station. This would seem to be a theme of this trip: getting lost. We quickly figure out where the train station is and pick up Margaret, a retired woman who has recently turned seventy, she doesn’t appear a day over fifty. Must be that good Dutch living. She lives in Haarlem and also Utah for half of the year. I met and briefly dated her daughter, Meike (Annemeika Okamura, which has such a therapeutic ring to it) back in 2004.

With Margaret in the car, we’re off to Zundert to find Vincent’s birthplace. On the way, I tell Margaret all about my research. Which was good because she then had a solid idea of what this pilgrimage is all about. We follow the signs into Zundert and find a parking place near what we think to be the Van GoghHuis; a small museum with all things Vincent’s birth and early childhood years. Exiting the car, I turn around and realized we have parked right next to the church where his father preached when Vincent was born. I was immediately overwhelmed. I have studied pictures of this church for years and now to be standing right in front of it!

Well, we couldn’t figure out how to pay for parking there so Connie and Margaret decided to find a place to park while I went directly to the church. I asked the groundskeepers, a knot welling up in my throat, “Where is the gravestone of Vincent’s older brother?” They nodded, took me around the corner and there it was. The grass had just been cut and there were clippings all over the plate. I bent down, and gently wiped away the freshly cut grass so I could take in the stone in its entirety. I wept. But just a little; not all that manly, you know. I dried my tears and thanked the couple whom had shown me the stone. I took its picture and a few more too. I had forgotten this statue of Vincent and Theo had been erected before the church so many years ago.

I waited for Connie and Margaret to return. When they did, Margaret spoke with the lead groundskeeper in Dutch. She told him about my research and about my pilgrimage. She asked if we might enter the church. He was adamant this was not allowed. This is a place of worship for their small community; not a place for tourists to take selfies. But Margaret did not give up. She told him, “You are a server, and Jared’s quest is to find the servant of God.” Essentially. It was in Dutch after all. He relented and allowed us into the little chapel.

What a feeling to sit in those same pews Vincent had sat growing up as a young boy; listening to his father preach every Sunday to the small congregation in Zundert. Zundert is very close to the Belgian border (in fact, we briefly crossed into Belgium arriving there as this is the way the freeway was designed). When Vincent’s father was a preacher here, the area was largely Catholic. Vincent’s grandfather, fairly high up in the Dutch Reformed church had sent his son, Theodorus (Vincent’s father) to Zundert in the hopes of maintaining a Protestant presence. Theodorus was a kind man. He didn’t care if you were Protestant or Catholic (if you were an atheist, however, which Vincent would later claim to be, well that is another story! And another story for another time). Theodorus would administer to the Catholic farmers as devoutly as his own flock. Later, Vincent would recall his father, with nothing but a lantern in hand, walking through the night to visit the sick and dying; anxious about his return, but so proud that his father would work so hard to bring some consolation to the suffering.

My train has arrived.

Au Revoir for now!
Jared