I agreed to stay on at Witte de Wit for three months, for transition’s sake. I felt I couldn’t just run out and leave my colleagues in the dark. Besides, the annual ‘Bloemenvaktentoonstelling’ would be there, with all appointments for meetings made by Norma.
On my last day, Rosalie gave me a card.
“Dear John,
I want to thank you for giving me the job of my life and the opportunity and trust to sort out Seedy’s big puzzle. Sorry we haven’t been able to talk about this further in the last few weeks, but I think I have unraveled the mystery. In his tunnel, Seedy has been making crossings with especially the ‘amboise’ plants. I am sure that these are varieties that Leonardo da Vinci worked on when he lived there. They are super healthy, but the crossings only gave a few seeds. Don’t know what Seedy has done with them, but they must be super-special.
I wish you and your family all the best. Please keep in touch and drop by in the future to find out what came out of these secret seeds.
Love,
Rosa”
After the last three months at Witte de Wit, I went on to run a flower exporting company (supplying supermarkets in the UK, Denmark, and Switzerland), and set up a consultancy business (working with retailers and groups of flower and plant producers) after that.
Seedy was soon fired and Witte de Wit moved to new showy offices in Nieuwveen, not far from Anton’s Potrozen, and built 3 hectares of state-of-the-art greenhouses to grow cut roses under the name of PRO-Roses. I had had earlier discussions with Big Anton about this. Anton loved to grow roses, but a breeder should not compete with their customers. We had agreed that, if he really insisted, he could only grow those varieties that were not picked by other growers. The investments were such, that, in terms of turnover, PRO-Roses had to be in the top 5 right from the start.
A few years later, both PRO-Roses and Anton’s Potrozen went bankrupt, Witte de Wit had to sell the offices and moved to Anton Speelman’s small farm in the same area, which they had taken over when Speelman had suddenly died of a heart attack. The breeding was also moved there and the Benthuizen property with greenhouses and the ancestral house sold.
Agostino Crispi suffered the same fate as Anton Speelman, so that much sooner than anticipated, his son Vincenzo became CEO of LAVAL. When Iko Chaim Litzman also passed away, this meant that I was the sole surviving signee of the famous Tel Aviv Accord.
Witte de Wit introduced Lecciona®, bred by LAVAL, but plants of the variety aged rapidly and stopped producing after a year. Witte de Wit blamed the propagators and LAVAL, but never visited the growers affected, who started a lawsuit for damages.
LAVAL and Witte de Wit disagreed about the contract between them, and each took the other to court.
When my uncle Arie, my father’s and Big Anton’s brother living outside York, England, died, I went over for the funeral with my dad and some other relatives. Anton had suffered a stroke a few years earlier and couldn’t come. In the family gathering, stories of old times were shared and at one point it was revealed that Big Anton had an illegitimate child and the relatives wondered how he looked after this daughter, because he would. My penny dropped. Anton’s double definition of ‘loyalty’ became clear.
In the meantime, Pim hired me to reorganize Zoutman after he fired his general manager, was in the middle of a merger, and not making enough money with his four products.
March 2006, Bogotá. At long last, Zoutman would have its first (and last) Open House at the Marinyanna Farm in Colombia. Coinciding were two gerbera seminars at the farm and in Medellin, for which the Dutch specialist Eric Kuyper and the new manager for Latin America, Akshat Makote, of Indian origin, were flown in. One of the first nights, in the hotel in Bogotá, I woke up dreaming. I instantly realized that the dream was different, appearing symbolical, and decided to write it down on the notepad beside the bed. Then the alarm woke me up. I read: “Again in a canoe in the canal next to Opa’s former house, this time returning to collect the last blue plant.”
Before I finished showering, the meaning of this message was clear to me, and my mind made up: I would start my own marketing business to launch a consumer brand for roses. The dream I had been forced to abort at Witte de Wit.
Explain. My grandfather, Opa Jan, had been my great example in life. Born in 1892, as a teenager he would work extra in the moonlight at the farm of Mr. Elsgeest. The extra money earned was saved by Elsgeest’s daughter Koosje, his first and only love and thus kept out of the hands of his alcoholic father. After their marriage, Mr. Elsgeest lend my Opa some money to start his own bulb and chrysanthemum nursery.
Their firstborn died after a year’s sickness, another drowned as a toddler in the canal in front of the house. Twelve boys, one girl and two wars later, they bid farewell to three emigrating sons. Opa formed a flower firm with three of his sons, the youngest dropping dead at his feet, just married, his wife pregnant. Opa sat in his chair for a day, staring with his coat still on, hands still dirty from harvesting the flowers. Then he dragged himself up, held his wife, whispering “Koosje, we must move on. We must.” And he did, working every day with one of the sons after the firm broke up.
They travelled to Australia to visit their sons and families and celebrated their golden wedding. Opa stopped working when he was 82 to look after Oma Koosje, who had started to suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. “She has looked after me all her life. Now it’s my turn,” he explained. He learned how to cook, do the laundry and other household chores. He picked up drawing as a hobby, childish at first, but very realistic later on. People he found difficult to draw, but his animals and especially flowers were beautiful. Oma died peacefully, one week before their 60th wedding anniversary. Opa had lit a candle, held her hand. Together they prayed a Saint Mary. He felt her last heartbeat, closed her eyes and then slept by her side.
He then set to writing his memoirs and when he became blind at 87, the light disappearing from his beautiful blue eyes, he started to play the harmonica. “Just go on,” he would say, “see what you can do instead of what you can’t.” Soon he would be playing all sorts of popular songs. A year later, he had an eye operation. “Look,” he said, after the bandage had been removed, “look at the carpet”. I looked down, but there was nothing to see. “Look at the colors. Fantastic!” He gave me the gold watch that Mr. Elsgeest had given him for his engagement. It was the first thing he ever owned. I cherish his gift of time, but even more his lessons. “Go on. Discover what you can do, don’t look back.”
The canal by his house. No doubt in my dream I was peddling forward in life when I was reminded of my exemplary Opa with his eyes reflected in the delicate blue plant. The plant itself an opportunity to be seized, a talent to be tapped before it was too late. The message was clear: I had been thinking about starting my own business for 15 years and introducing a rose brand for 10 years. The time had come.
I left Zoutman and re-started my quest. I went back to teaching part-time and started my homework, finding a variety and market.
The secret about to be revealed…
