“Yes, I did notice. Congratulations, even though it isn’t your birthday or Jelle’s birthday. Congratulations for making a fine choice of a husband.”
Noelle looked down at her hands and seemed to be reflecting on something more profound than my last comment.
“You know,” she said without looking up, “I didn’t realize it until just now, but I think I have been waiting my whole married life to hear those words. Not from you, but from my dad. I always wanted him to change his mind about me and Jelle and come back to me and say ‘Congratulations. You married a fine man. You made something good of your life.’”
She looked up, her eyes glistening. “But since I will probably never hear those words from him, I’m just as happy to take them from you. Thank you, Summer.”
With our hearts full of sisterly affirmations and our bellies full of pannenkoeken, we left the restaurant and strolled through some of the neighboring shops. One of them was the shop Noelle had mentioned earlier where we could watch the Delft tiles being painted.
We stood for a long while with our hands behind our backs, appreciating the intricate detail work of the pottery painters as they carried on the centuries-old craft of putting their thin, blue paint—laden brushes to a blank plate, tile, or vase and turning it into a signature piece of art.
What followed was a meander through a bookstore and then a long stay at a small antique store. The proprietor lived above the showroom and made several trips up and down the stairs while Noelle and I took our time going through the hundreds of Delft tiles he had in boxes lined up on the floor. Each tile was different. Some of them looked similar until we held the two side by side to compare.
Most of the tiles were chipped. Many were broken in at least one place. A few had been repaired with glue that had turned brown over the years along the break line.
All the tiles, he claimed, were at least a hundred and fifty years old. Many of them he guaranteed to be three hundred years old. The prices varied, depending on age.
“He says his son is a renovator. He takes down parts of the old houses here in Delft and restores them.”
“Like the restaurant we were just at.”
“Yes. He probably did that restoration. He pulls down the tiles, and his father sells them. They know the year of the house and the year of the tiles by the city documents they have to sign before the work begins. You can see how he has them carefully organized. That’s why he said we may look all we want, but he will keep an eye over us to make sure we put everything back as it should be. Although here, on the back of each tile, he has written in pencil the year of the house.”
I admit I’ve enjoyed an occasional yard sale or rummage sale at the church. But I never had enjoyed a treasure hunt as much as I enjoyed going through those hundreds of tiles with Noelle.
I think we found so much glee in the task because both of us had experienced a sort of soul bath there in Delft. We were like a couple of best friends fresh from a plunge in the lake at junior high summer camp, and now we were given a project to work on as a team. Just Noelle-o Mell-o and me.
Our objective was to find two tiles that went together or in some way complemented each other. Our plan was for each of us to take our tile and put it in a place of prominence in our kitchen. Whenever we looked at our matching/complementing tiles, we would remember this day, and we would pray for each other.
“This is the absolute best sort of souvenir.” I took off my coat in the warm, cramped space and sat cross-legged on the floor next to Noelle.
The shop owner was eager to help us in our quest. He had a “private reserve” of his favorites tucked away upstairs and was willing to let us purchase a couple of the special tiles.
I didn’t know if that was a ploy to garner more money from us since he could tell we were intent on not leaving his shop until a significant purchase had been made. He could have been sincere in his eagerness to share. Although, the eager salesman had a half-dozen boxes of the private reserves, so I didn’t feel too bad about robbing him of his private bounty.
After a while the windmills, church spires, and little Dutch girls herding geese with sticks began to look the same. Blue lines. Lots of blue lines. I also was forgetting about the specific directions Noelle had given me on what to look for in the corner of the tiles.
“Did you say the more valuable ones are the ones with the squiggles in the corner or the ones with just a thin line?”
She handed over her sample tile. “Like this. These are apparently more valuable because they were made at the most renowned kiln here in Delft. This is the top of the line. Although at this point we just need to make a decision, Summer.”
The owner, who had been watching closely, picked up on my name. “Summer?”
“Yes?”
“Zomer?” he repeated it in Dutch and then pointed to Noelle and said her name.
I had no idea what he was getting at, but Noelle did. Her expression brightened, and she laughed.
“What? I missed that entirely.”
“Apparently both of us did.”
“What?”
“I never saw this before.” She looked incredulous. “I can’t believe I never saw this before.”
“You’re killing me here! What didn’t you ever see before?”
“You’re Summer, and I’m Noelle.”
“Yes? And?”
“You and I are opposite seasons. Summer.” She pointed at me. “And winter or Christmas or Noel.”
“Wow, I never thought of that either.”
“Opposites attract, right?” Noelle said. “No wonder we have been so good for each other all these years.”
“I know just the tiles for us. I had one of them in my hand a few seconds ago.”
With some careful rearranging of stacks, I pulled out a tile that was only missing about a quarter of an inch of the top left corner. The scene was of a tree with widespread branches. Under the tree was the figure of a young girl reaching up to pick fruit and place it in her basket. The three intact corners bore the right kind of squiggle to put the tile into the Delft pottery category. That part was important to both of us.
“And the other one is in this box. Help me look for it. It’s a winter scene with an ice skater on a frozen canal with a windmill in the background.”
“I get where you’re going with this. A summer scene and a winter scene. Very clever, Summer Breeze.”
“Glad you like it, Noelle-o Mell-o.”
“Quite right.”
The tiles were expensive. Most treasures are. The shop owner seemed as delighted with the results of our hunt as we were. He said he was giving us a discount because we were buying the two, but who knows if it was actually twice the price and he was trying to make it a victorious experience for us. It didn’t matter.
With our winter and summer tiles safely wrapped and tucked into our shoulder bags, we went in search of chocolate. How else would we celebrate such a successful treasure hunt?
Nolle pulled out a chair at the tiny corner table inside a book shop that was not far from the antique store where we found our treasured tiles. I waited, looking out the window at the mix of afternoon shoppers on the narrow cobblestone street.
She returned with two cups of rich, dark, hot Dutch chocolate. As we were sitting in that cozy corner sipping the lovely chocolate, I suddenly felt very Dutch and wanted to open a difficult topic. I looked at Noelle the way she had looked at me while we were at the pancake house.
“What?” she asked, obviously aware that my gaze had turned intense and questioning.
“Noelle, how did your relationship with your father get so broken?”
She moved her unused napkin to the side and placed her cup on the table, looking down. “You have learned a lot in your short visit, haven’t you? Put the question right out there.”
I considered retracting my question, but for some reason this felt right. All of it.
“Okay, I’ll tell you. My father had an explosive temper. My mother succee
ded in keeping the truth of his temper from others. He never hit her or us. He yelled and threatened and threw things a few times. I know now that such treatment is emotionally damaging, but as I was growing up, all I knew was that he would blow up and then calm down, and we never would talk about it.”
Noelle fingered the handle of her spoon and looked down as she flipped it back and forth on the tablecloth. “When I told my father I was thinking of taking all my savings and going to Europe, he lost it. I don’t know why his reaction was so intense, but he said that if I dared leave the house and go all the way to Europe, I should never come back home.”
“Why?”
“I think he was afraid. That’s all I can figure out. He was afraid something would happen to me. He never said that, and I didn’t understand that sort of parental concern. All I knew was that he was enraged for days, and his anger didn’t let up. He hollered and threatened a lot. I was afraid he would hit me. And I wondered if he did hit me, would he stop? My only course seemed to be to get out from under his roof to avoid his rage.
“The day I left I thought he might calm down and simply accept my choice. But he was even angrier that I was exerting such independence from him. He struck me across the face, called me a vile name, and yelled, ‘Get out of my sight!’ Then he turned his back on me and punched a hole through the wall by the front door. I grabbed my luggage and ran down the front steps with blood dripping from my mouth. I never looked back.”
“Noelle, how awful!”
“I know. It was. I found a new life here with Jelle and his family, and I just went on. My parents never came to see me. My mom sent some beautiful gifts for our wedding and signed the card from both of them, but I knew my dad wasn’t part of the gift giving or the celebrating. My father never got over my leaving, and I believe he used his violent behavior to keep my mother from coming to see me, even when the girls were born.”
We sat quietly in the somberness of her story.
“I lost so much because of him. I thought it was too late for anything to change, but now I wonder if there might be a chance.”
“It’s not too late,” I said firmly. “To reconcile with your father, I mean.”
“I know. I’m getting there.” With half a grin she added, “Thanks to you and your visit.”
“What do you mean?”
“None of these issues or feelings had surfaced for a long time. You show up, and everything that really matters is suddenly at the forefront. The past and the present began to mingle the moment you arrived.” She reached across the table and squeezed my hand. “You probably thought God brought you here because you needed this time to think about the future. Maybe He also brought you here because I needed to think about the past.”
I nodded and sipped my chocolate. “We both needed this time together.”
“Just like we have both needed each other since the beginning.” Noelle traced the rim of her cup with her finger. “Wouldn’t our teachers be surprised to know what they started with their simple pen pal assignment?”
I drained the last of my delicious drink and made a successful attempt at communicating my delight. With the palm of my open hand fluffing up my hair, I said, “Lekker!”
Noelle beamed at my accomplishment.
“I think it’s your turn now.”
“My turn for what? I already speak English.”
“No, it’s your turn to come see me. Soon. Very soon.”
She tilted her head. “Maybe.”
“No maybes. Only yesses. You and Jelle need to come visit us.”
We lingered a bit longer before deciding that Delft probably had a few more shops we should explore.
The first was a small but amazing flower market. We bought tulips by the bunches, lifting them right out of the white buckets and letting them drip water all over our feet. I bought three bunches of tulips, and Noelle bought two. We looked like beauty pageant queens, cradling our lovely bouquets on the way to the next hot-spot shop Noelle insisted we go to.
I saw the store she was eager to visit before we were halfway there. The rack of colorfully painted wares on the outside was the hint.
“You’re going to make me buy a pair of wooden shoes, aren’t you?
“Quite right.”
I was a willing customer, and she was a persistent assistant. For every pair she showed me, I bit my lower lip and scrunched up my nose. Then she would return with two more just as colorfully painted and just as clunky.
I knew she wouldn’t give up. And truthfully, I didn’t want her to. When she pointed at the bright yellow pair with the red tulips painted on the side, I knew those were the ones.
“Just like our boat,” she said.
I tried them on and laughed at how large my feet looked in the bright yellow clogs. “I feel as if each of these is a little boat in and of itself. I could go water-skiing with these, and they would keep me afloat.”
“Those are the pair then?” Noelle asked.
“Yes, these are the winners.”
“Give them to me, and I’ll pay for them. They are my gift to you.”
I stuck my chin out with mock defiance. “And what if I want to wear them out of the shop?”
Noelle gave me a second look. “You wouldn’t really, would you?
“Why not?” I confided in her that my blister was killing me in spite of the plaster I had applied. The wooden shoes didn’t hit my sore heel at all. I would look ridiculous, true. But my feet would be much happier than they’d been all day in my irritating shoes.
She warned me that I would be a spectacle and then walked away to pay for the wooden shoes. I left them on my feet and reached for the bountiful combined bouquet of tulips. If I was going to be a spectacle, I might as well be a colorful spectacle.
We headed for the next store, and I said, “Even though I walk through the streets of Delft in wooden shoes, I will fear no mocking from the bystanders.”
“You really have worked out just about every possible paraphrase on that psalm, haven’t you?”
“I have one more version I’ve been working on in the back of my mind. Do you still have that little notebook in your purse?”
“Yes. Do you want me to take dictation again?”
“No, I want to borrow it on our drive home.”
After another hour of shopping, I managed to find souvenirs for everyone on my list. I received a steady stream of stares at my flowers and shoes along with a variety of comments in a variety of languages. Noelle understood some of them and assured me that not all my critics were favorable toward my best-foot-forward choice of attire.
I didn’t care. Not really. So much of what mattered to me on this trip had been those things that happened on the inside. The outward didn’t concern me as much as it had before.
We trotted back to Noelle’s secret parking spot, and I couldn’t wait to slip out of the jolly wooden shoes. My feet now had blisters in new places.
“You wanted this?” Noelle held out the notepad.
“Oh, right. I almost forgot.”
While she drove, I wiggled my toes and composed. My paraphrase was complete before we arrived home. “Are you ready for this?”
“Probably not, but I have a feeling that won’t stop you from reading it to me.”
I cleared my throat and read the masterpiece scribbled on the notepad:
The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not freak out.
He makes me lie down under scanning machines,
He leads me to trustworthy doctors,
He restores my deductible.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death
(And keep on walking and don’t get stuck or sit down and
have a hissy fit),
I will fear no evil,
For You are with me.
Your new creation health renewal plan
And perfect timing they comfort me.
You prepare an organic diet before me
In the presence of my injections.
/> You anoint my bald head with oil
When my bra cup no longer overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
And eventually I will come live in Your house, forever!
Noelle’s first response was to laugh, but with her airy giggle came a stream of tears. I cried too. Good tears. Tears that cleansed and revived and took their time to roll down because each one of them meant to make its journey deliberate.
Jelle was home when we arrived and tucked little Bluebell into her compact parking spot in front of the house. He said he wanted to take us out to dinner, if we were interested, which we were.
Our reservations were for eight o’clock. I headed upstairs to the pleasant guest room and went to work packing my bags. We had to leave the house at six in the morning to reach the airport in time for my flight home.
This had been one of the fastest weeks of my life. Fastest and fullest.
I went to the devotional book beside the bed and gave it a loving pat. When we had arrived at her house, Noelle had told me to keep her purse-sized notebook. She said it had proved that day that it much preferred holding my thoughts than holding her shopping lists.
With the gracious little gift open in my hand, I nipped through the devotional book, looking for the entry that had brought me such comfort my first morning in this room. When I located the verses in 2 Corinthians 4,1 copied them in Noelle’s notepad: “So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace…. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.”
The passage had such a different meaning to me now than it had a few days ago. Noelle had urged me at lunch not to give in to fear and start shutting down my life. Corrie ten Boom thought she was going to die when she was in midlife, and yet she went on to travel the world for the next three-plus decades.
My eyes fixed on the phrase “unfolding grace.” I liked that phrase so much. I knew it would always remind me of the tulips we visited my first day here. All those millions of brilliant blooms would be here today and gone tomorrow. But their bulbs, the essential core of everything they were, would go on and be sent around the world.