"For Where Your Treasure Is, There Your Heart Will Be Also" *
I am not too sentimental about material things - books maybe, of which I have many. For the rest, memories are the keepsakes that remind me of places I’ve been to and people I knew. These familiar thoughts and sentiments belong to me alone and are conveniently encoded and stored in my brain cells, from where I can retrieve them on demand to reminisce and dream and find explanations and solutions for life’s many puzzles.
However, over the years I’ve collected a few tangible souvenirs and this Bible is one of the things I keep close – usually on the nightstand. I bought it in October 1975 with the express aim of studying its contents that I might live my life by its rules (an undertaking in which, to some extent, I think I have succeeded). This Bible is packed with keepsakes that I’ve collected to remind me of some or other significant moment. I seldom read from this Bible these days, but from time to time I still refer back to it. It contains cards and notes from my children, letters from childhood friends and boyfriends past, my own feeble attempts at writing poetry, drawings by my children and their letters to the tooth-mouse and even a tail feather of my parrot Gert who died in 2003.
*Matthew 6:19-24 (These words also appear as an inscription on the tombstome of Dumbledore’s sister and mother in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows).
Amongst these books I found one very old-looking medical textbook, in Dutch, and authored by Jan Palfyn. The book was published in MDCCX (1710 according to an online converter). It seems to be covered in animal skin, is in fairly good condition considering its age. A note on a scrap of paper in my father-in-law's writing says "Kosbaar! Geneeskundige geschiedenis." (Valuable! Medical history)
