Humans of Wikkelhouse # 4

Who: Tijmke (37) & Mattheus (37)
Eli (6) Yaël (4) & Zé (1)
Where: Nunspeet
Since: 2022
What: pre-caregiver home

“The farm is my childhood home; I grew up here. We now live on the property in our Wikkelhouse. When my father passed away, the seed was planted for us to come and live here. My mother was on her own at the time, so you could say we’re now ‘pre-caregivers.’

It was a dream come true that we were able to live here. In the month before our Wikkelhouse was due to be installed, I was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease. Our middle child was two months old at the time, we were right in the middle of moving house, and we were running our own business. On top of that, my mother remarried fairly quickly. It was a very turbulent period.

We are Christians and believe it was meant to be this way: we were living in my mother’s garden at exactly the time we needed help. In fact, the roles were reversed: instead of us providing care for her, she took care of us. Because I’ve been ill, I don’t plan too far ahead. Who knows what we’ll be doing in five years? We take life as it comes. We love our Wikkelhouse dearly, but whether we’ll still be living here in ten years’ time, no idea. We’ll see.

Our house is big enough. We have a wonderful garden and in summer we live mostly outdoors. In winter we’re inside more, of course, but I notice that the children are often close by anyway, they always seek us out. No matter how big our house is, in the end the five of us are happiest all piled together.

Mattheus is an interior builder and is always coming up with clever solutions to make our home even more practical. Right now, he’s working on a triple bunk bed for the children’s room. We also consciously think about what we bring into our home. We’re not minimalists, but we do try to consider whether something is truly useful.

Even though our lives were turned completely upside down, we settled in very quickly here, and the children were happy. Within six months it truly felt like our own place, a new beginning. The house is very light and pleasant; you live with the elements of nature, with cows walking past our windows. We experience the sunrise and sunset consciously every single day. If it were up to me, we would never leave.

Because of the treatment for Hodgkin’s, my doctors warned me that I would become infertile. We were very happy with our son Eli and our daughter Yaël, but we still had a wish for another child. We started a fertility treatment program in Utrecht, which meant a daily trip back and forth. In the end, I became pregnant naturally. God provides and restores.

When I look back now… none of this would have been possible without my mother. Being able to live here was truly a gift. My father lived here with his parents; now I live here with my family, my mother, and her new husband.

We regularly evaluate together how things are going on the property. We share the washing machine, and the children play everywhere, they come and go freely. I have a good relationship with my mother and her new husband. Together we take care of the maintenance, mowing the lawn, all the things that need to be done here. It works better than we ever expected. There are many practical benefits too: I can let the children sleep a bit longer when I need to run errands, and my mother can watch them for a while. And of course, I also take care of her when she needs something. They say it takes a village to raise a child, and that’s exactly how it feels to me.”