Stayed in Silence*

*Note:

This poem was written for Evert van Imhoff. He was the director of the The Netherlands Interdisciplinary Demographic Institute (NIDI). People may have thought that he was on the 'top' of the world with his position within the academic world in the Netherlands. However, he decided to take his own life in 2004....

It touched me deeply and it moved me to write this especially for him. I never knew him personally, but his story had made me reflect on life and ask this question: What is the real reason for living?
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Did bitterness fill your soul
When you tried to scream out loud
As you were struggling to leave this life
As you were in a deep down of dirty mud
Within a place where you could not breathe nor speak

Or you just stayed in silence
When you figured there was no reaching hands
Of anybody’s
Whom you expected was trying to grab you out of the presence
And laying you into the brigher future

Or you just stayed in silence
When in your mind stayed the question
'Was there a bright future?'
'Was there an end to your suffering,
And your suffocated life?'

And you left the question why
Which matters
Only to the ones that you left behind

Farewell, my life! you said
Farewell!

As there was never any virtue in it
As there was never any glimpse of smile in it
And at the last second of your life, I wonder
Did you ask yourself, why?

Or you just stayed in silence...


Groningen, 20 July 2004, 13:56