The first time I saw her she was walking across the front of the dining room on a kibbutz on the edge of Israel’s Negev desert. She was wearing a leopard skin patterned raincoat, half-length pink rubber boots, and sucking a piece of what the Dutch call zoethout (sweet wood) and which looks for all the world like a cigar. A kibbutz is an agricultural community; basically a large collective farm, and I’m sure several people watching her were thinking ‘she’s not gonna last!’. Well she did. She was one of a large number of young Dutch women who’d just arrived to work as volunteers. Hiske worked several months in the kibbutz orchards picking fruit.
Turns out in fact that she shared the bedroom next to mine
down in ‘the slums’ – what the volunteers called our rather basic
accommodation. Sometime soon after her arrival I heard someone playing
music on the other side of the thin bedroom walls. It sounded quite sweet and
lovely and I went to investigate. It was her. We soon started playing songs
together and the rest as they say is history.
Together with Eitan, one of the permanent kibbutz members
who played guitar, we formed ourselves a band which we called ‘The Irrigation
Band.’ (Eitan and I worked in irrigation). We played a few songs at whole
kibbutz events, and after we left the kibbutz Hiske and I hit the busking road
up and down the length of Israel and became quite well- known. We even had a
story about us on page 3 of the Jerusalem Post!
Post Israel we lived in Holland for a few months, then spent
about 2 years in Australia before returning once again to Holland with our
young 2 year old son. I stayed home while Hiske studied modern dance full time.
After 3 years we once again returned to live in Australia and by then our
relationship had become quite lifeless. We eventually separated.
Over the next 30 years for the most part we remained good
friends. Not close exactly but there was certainly no animosity. We saw each
once or twice a year because we had a son together, and now there are
grandchildren.
And in the middle of this happy arrangement she suddenly
died. I had heard from others how the death of your first spouse can often
trigger feelings of lost love and grief and the power of it really surprised
me. She had been pronounced brain dead by the medicos but was kept on life
support to give time for relatives from Europe to come and say their goodbyes.
I was in two minds about whether I should join in the goodbye ritual by the
hospital bed – we had been separated for nearly 40 years after all and in many
respects she was now a stranger to me. However I got the feeling from my
son that he would like me to be there so I followed that emotional scent
and went to the hospital vigil that was now occurring in Sydney.
I shared grief in her passing with members of her extended
family and many friends from her life in Sydney. Occurring at the same time was
a spontaneous outpouring of grief and praise for Hiske as she lay on her death
bed. Tens, if not hundreds, of people on social media referred to her great
friendship, her artistic talents, her wisdom, inspiration, spirituality, and
generosity. The praise of so many aspects of Hiske’s personality was fulsome
and for me a little bewildering.
Hiske and I spent 7 years together when we, and she, were
much younger. We separated when she was 26. But the person I knew was not as
people were now remembering her. I was dumbfounded. I don’t question any of the
effusive outpourings that blossomed after her death, but I am left with the
obvious conclusion that she changed a great deal after we split up. Perhaps she
realised who she really was (sounds corny I know) and what it was she wanted to
do with art and music. Whatever the case it is clear that in this latter part
of her life, she touched a great many people with her music and creativity.
Words like angel, free spirit, a true creative, and inspiring friend were
frequently used to describe her and signal what it was about her that her friends
and followers were losing. I have nothing but respect for the truth about her
as many people see it, but I did not know this person.
It seems petty now to quibble about this. I feel even more
strongly now that our age difference back then was a significant factor, as was
the fact that she was relating to me in a second language. Throw in the fact
that she was seriously anorexic the whole time I knew her and I just don’t
think she was able to express herself fully with me. Clearly moving on from me was
the right thing for her to do. I cramped her style.
