The Story of Jelmer
A period in my life
Kralingen
His name was Jelmer. Jelmer van Delft. Just like me, he lived in Kralingen, that old Rotterdam neighbourhood close to the Kralingse Bos and the lake.
He must have shown up in our class in the second year. Just like that, at the start of a new school year. A new student—always nice to have a fresh face. You could say he got a second chance, because I later heard the story: he’d been kicked out of grammar school because he wasn’t doing any work. Not because he couldn’t do it—quite the opposite. Jelmer had that great combination of brains and a cheeky kind of cleverness. Why he let things slide at school always remained a mystery to me.
From grammar school to MULO—a step down, you’d think. But Jelmer didn’t seem to lose a wink of sleep over it. He had that enviable quality of shrugging off what others would call a total failure. He just didn’t let it get to him.
A friendship forged
Our friendship just grew on its own. Every morning, the same route to school; every afternoon, the same way back. Through all kinds of weather, we’d cycle through the streets of Rotterdam, through Kralingen, to school and back home again. That’s how friendships between boys are made: through shared kilometres, through pedalling together against the wind. But mostly through laughing a lot at each other’s jokes.
I quickly realised what a special guy Jelmer really was. He once took me to his chess club, somewhere in a dim room in Kralingen. I watched as he took on an old-timer, a guy who had been winning prizes for years. Jelmer just beat him with sheer audacity. Everything he did was so nonchalant.
It was no different on the football field. Skill, speed, vision—he had it all. When I took him to our Christian football club, Unicum, he was playing on a higher team than me in no time. But he was never difficult about it. Jelmer never felt the need to prove himself or show off.
And then there was his looks. He was handsome, and he knew it. He used it to his advantage with the girls at school and in church. Brown hair, beautiful dark eyes—the girls fell for him. He didn’t even have to try; they just came to him.
He had it all going for him
Jelmer really had it all going for him. Brains, talent, looks, charm. You’d think: a person like that is destined for success later in life. His life seemed to be on a path to success and happiness.
After high school, he went to the teacher training college—that’s what it was called back then. He graduated successfully and became a teacher. A profession that suited him: the combination of cleverness, the patience he always had, and a healthy dose of cheerfulness.
We lost touch when we were nineteen. That’s just what happens at that age. I got a girlfriend, and he went his own way. I later heard he had fallen in love with a Roman Catholic girl. He came from a Reformed background, just like me. I remember us sitting in the churches in Jeruzalemstraat or on Avenue Concordia, up in the gallery. We laughed so much there, secretly between the psalms.
Losing sight
Then comes that moment when you lose track of each other. We both went our separate ways.
The news about Jelmer’s life trickled in slowly after that, as it does with people who have vanished from your inner circle. He had gotten divorced. He wasn’t allowed to see his children anymore. The man who once seemed to have the world in his hands saw life slipping through his fingers like sand.
He moved to North Brabant, somewhere near Tilburg. A fresh start, a new job in education. But there, too, life wore him down. An illness—I don’t know what kind. Staying home. Getting fired. The isolation closed in on him like a tight circle, which must have been suffocating for him. No family anymore. No relatives nearby. No church. No friends from the time when life still seemed limitless.
The pub became his home
What he had left was the pub. That’s where he found his new home, his new company. Jelmer was still Jelmer—he could still set the mood and make people laugh. Maybe he had some good times there. I hope so.
Forty years later—maybe even longer—I opened my national newspaper. A small advertisement, easy to miss. Jelmer van Delft had passed away. Due to his illness, it said. And when the funeral would be. I drove to Brabant. After all those years, to see Jelmer one last time, if only to say goodbye. With the memory of our shared youth.
A painful farewell
It was a gloomy affair. Few people, few words of comfort. A couple of family members, some acquaintances, maybe those pub friends. The loneliness hung over the whole ceremony like a mist. So this was it—the end of someone who once seemed to have the world at his feet. Someone who was destined for success.
I drove home feeling sad. Not just because of Jelmer, but also because of the strange turn life can take. Because while he had been given everything—the brains, the talents, the good looks—my life had taken a different turn because of something you can’t force or earn: faith.
Maybe I was less gifted, less handsome, less successful than Jelmer in those young years. But God had given my life a turn I never could have foreseen. A happy marriage, a beautiful family, a church community where I belonged. Everything Jelmer had lost, I had received undeservedly.
Just like King Saul
That evening, as I was thinking about my old friend, King Saul came to mind. Another person who had been given everything. Tall, handsome, chosen by God himself to be king over Israel. And yet—we know how it ended for him. How he eventually took his own life because he couldn’t handle the overwhelming power of his enemies anymore.
That’s how it can go. You’re born with all the right papers for a successful life, but somewhere along the way, the steering wheel slips from your hands. Relationships break, friendships fade, the ground beneath your feet gets swept away. In his loneliness, Saul became alienated from everything he had once held dear—from his people, from his family, and ultimately even from God.
He died alone, fallen on his own sword.
Just like Jelmer, but in his own way. How painful is that!
@wimvanputten