The first few years I knew Oom Klaas, I was jealous of him because I felt that he'd gotten all of Mom's attention. However, as time had passed, I began to like him, and eventually love him as a daughter would her father.

We moved a lot after Mom married Oom Klaas. First, it was Sri Lanka. Actually my parents got to live there for five years, but since it was the Tamil Tigers era and Sri Lanka was in great chaos (on and off), I had to go Sri Lanka-Indonesia quite constantly. There was even a time that my school in Sri Lanka was closed for a long time due to a bomb that exploded in Colombo which killed their prime minister. It was tragic.

After the project in Sri Lanka was completed successfully, we moved to Pekanbaru in Indonesia. It was a three-year project, but I moved to Jakarta to live with my godparents at the end of the second year. Next, Oom Klaas took the supposed-to-be on year project in Bangladesh, but only went there with my mother. However, after a few months staying there, they couldn't stand it and Oom Klaas asked his boss to remove him from that project. So, they were off to Jakarta and worked at DHV's (that's the name of the company Oom Klaas worked for) Asian headquarters in Jakarta whilst waiting for another project. They were in Jakarta for less than six months, and then we moved to Palembang for a short-term project. FYI, I'd just finished sixth grade and got great grades, best in Math, at that time. After few months of staying in Palembang, Oom Klaas' boss transferred him to work for a project in India.

Frankly, we didn't like in Lucknow, India. We couldn't bear a day there with the extreme pollution, dense population, insufficient basic services and terrible odour, let alone two years. Yes, my friend, we had to live there for two years. Well, at least they had cable, but we could barely go anywhere in town for weekend vacations, so, my parents took to working in weekend as their leisure. Hey, at least it kept them from remembering they were stuck in Lucknow.

Oom Klaas was most of the time a wreck and he complained a lot when we were in India. I, who was an optimist before going to India, became very pessimistic. Mom...she didn't change at all, but she was rather stressed-out by work and my and Oom Klaas' pessimism.

Fortunately, Oom Klaas had the courage to tell his boss that he was sick of living in India, even though his colleagues are very cooperative, and we could finally leave. So, we went back to Jakarta and settled there.

Less than half a year later, Oom Klaas was transfered to Africa. He went there alone. He was in a project there for few months and went back to Jakarta, where his family was waiting.

Oom Klaas was very ill when he came back from Africa. He looked worse than before. His back ache was getting worse by the day. Mom and he went to see the doctors in Jakarta about his poor helath, but they could only find a symptom of cancer.

He went to Holland in November 2002. He went for a health check up there. The doctors there found out that he already had cancer of the next stadium.