Ode to Tonny Hollanders | Always own and always sweet

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Dear Tonny,

On November 2, 2020, I received a phone call from your beloved B. He told me that you had passed away. I couldn't believe it at first. Crying, I went downstairs to tell Jos. We were devastated and actually I still am.

Sometimes in life you meet people with whom you click at the very first meeting and with whom a friendship begins at that moment. That's what happened with me and you. We saw each other for the first time at the Open Podium in the Public Library on the Oosterdok in Amsterdam. We came to sit next to each other and immediately there was something. What that was? Curiosity about each other. Who are you? You I want to get to know better! And so it continued over the nearly seven years we spoke. It became a friendship in which I always felt that you welcomed me to Amsterdam, after I traded Deventer for this city after 34 years.

During those years we came to know a lot about each other. I discovered a free woman who had developed her own views about relationships and life itself. You were a single woman who had raised a child on her own. You had a long-standing, deep relationship with a married man who did not live with you. We had a great openness to each other, laced with humor and gentleness. Very bravely you picked up life after George, your only child, died far too young. How you handled that, I found courage squared. We talked a lot and shared a lot. As your lover Bobby said, “Tonny and you had a kind of marriage too, I heard that when she talked about you.

What struck me about you was how you looked. As a textile enthusiast, that struck me immediately: a woman who had developed her own style over the course of her life, a woman who didn't follow trends or rules about how to look as a woman at a certain age.

A woman who knew very well what to wear. Who did not hesitate to buy an overpriced silk scarf because she was seduced by the design, but who also made a bag out of an old plastic banner and was very happy with it.

Making something yourself was a big part of your existence. Jewelry, you had a lot to do with that. You told me that when you lived in London in the 1960s you designed perspex jewelry and they were very successful. On the mantelpiece in our bedroom is the ring you once allowed me to borrow. I'm sure you're fine with me inheriting it.

Every once in a while I put it on a finger and I see and hear you again.

Once I was in your previous house where you had your workplace in the attic. There were pieces of fabric that still had to become something and there was a garment hanging in the making. You also made the beautiful jackets for Bobby, Mister B as you often called him. In addition, you very consciously bought clothes that were just a little different. A friend gave you a beautiful coat from Marimekko, which you showed off radiantly.

After you died, all those rags and scraps of fabric went with you to my house. A lot of hand-printed fabric from the Paapje and from Wim van der Doef. I decided to make a quilt out of it. Cut strips and put them together into a wonderful piece of cloth full of color. 

When I put it to bed, I heard you say you were happy with the result.

Poetry was part of your life. You read a lot of poetry, wrote poems yourself; you regularly read them at the OBA's Open Podium. 

I think this poem is appropriate.

No words

of course there are words like 
loss, loss, sadness
but the right word for how it feels
I do not have

What goes through me next to 
your empty silent chair
No sentences to say what I 
really mean

and your much loved, never missing 
presence
is just as hard to pinpoint as this 
togetherless time

Those stupid words they 
are in search
for a speechless
dictionary                                                                                                      

with a heartbreaking 
a to z
a helplessly longing 
alphabet
 

You came to our house at parties and then didn't feel like going home at all; you always enjoyed yourself to the fullest. You belonged to me and to us, just like Bobby for that matter. Always your own and always sweet.

'Ah human,' you would say, 'I am so happy with my new home.'

I always loved that 'Ah woman' with that intonation.

'Ah human, I am so delighted that I got a trip to Iceland from the grandchildren.' 'Ah human, I had such a wonderful time with them, they had arranged everything for me.'

Oh human, how I miss you and how much I love you and how sorry I am that you can't read this.

Much love from Jan