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At the age of 48 years, in 1996, Henk urgently needed to hand over his genetical family history because of possible complications following a serious car accident. Only then his younger brother confessed that Henk and his twin brother Vincent have a different, unknown father. Everything is described in a diary of the man they thought was their father. Until that unforgettable moment.
One day in 1947, the young Dutch soldier B. went for a stroll in Surabaya. He met a nice young woman. They went out together, and that evening she confessed sadly that she was pregnant by a Dutch marine. The marine was untraceable, and she did not know what to do. In his hubris, and with a heart full of pity, B. asked her to marry. When the twins Henk and Vincent were born, B. accepted them as his own children.
In 1951, the family left to the Netherlands, where a third son was born. The relationship however did not last. Mother Lenie left the children behind with her husband and started a new relationship. When they look back on it now, Henk always has felt that something was wrong. His younger brother looked exactly like their father, but he and his twin brother did not at all. They found it too painful to talk about this subject with their father. Supposed they really were his children, then surely that would be a terrible question?
The contact with their mother in all those years was not intensively, but they kept seeing each other every now and then. Everybody lived his own life, and questions were not asked.
Apparently the topic did weigh on the heart of Henk's stepfather, because years later, he wrote a diary in which he explained everything about the backgroud of the twins. He made a number of copies. Other family members read the report, as the younger brother of Henk. But no one dared to hand over the copy to the twins themselves. "We thought you knew it," they would explain lately.
When Henk is out of hospital after the car accident, he and his brother read the diary for the first time. It even reveals the name of their alleged biological father. In a broadcast of Spoorloos they do an urgent call for information on their alleged father. And wonder of wonders, the former marine and his wife happened to look at the broadcast at the same moment.
When Henk is summoned by Spoorloos to return to the studio a month later, he is quite nervous. During the broadcast, he and his brother are suddenly confronted with their father! They really look alike. The father had not known at all of their existence, he had met mother Lenie only once during a New year’s eve party. The embrace between father and his two unknown sons is warm and emotional.
Since then, Henk and Vincent have regular contact with their father and his family. Their new "sister" had always wanted to have a brother, and suddenly she got two at a time. The boys are fully accepted, even by the wife of their father. For Henk it feels like a rebirth. All the pieces finally fall into place.
With their mother, they are never able to talk afterwards. "It all happened in the past, it is all behind us. Why bother? You need only look to the future," she replies. The topic is taboo up till the day of today.
The corresponding story of the father of Henk and Vincent, you can read in the category 'Stories - Daddy soldiers: "My wife said: that boys could be yours..."
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