Nicole: "Why we made the decision to emigrate to Spain with the family..."

I am Nicole and together with my husband and our children, I live in Spain

Such a decision is obviously not taken lightly. Emigrating was always somewhat of a dream for us. Even as a teenager, I didn't see myself staying in the Netherlands. My husband also pictured himself growing old in the sunshine. When we first got together, this was often a topic of conversation. But you have your job, your house, and we never really took any action.

But then things happened in life that we unfortunately did not see coming

Our life in the Netherlands wasn't always easy in recent years. A year before the birth of our two little boys, I lost my father at the age of 53. And at the same time, my first pregnancy ended in miscarriage. But we were so happy with the birth of Quinn and Xem, our identical twins, a year later. Two very easy-going little boys, who made our life so much more enjoyable. The boys were 1.5 years old when tragedy struck again. Lung cancer was diagnosed in my mother. She was 50 at that time. Far too young. From that moment on, our life became a rollercoaster. After the diagnosis, we decided to get married within three weeks. Because I had already come to terms with the idea of marrying without my father. But the thought of also having to celebrate my wedding without my mother was something I refused to accept. So three weeks later, I married the love of my life, Roland. A beautiful day, but also filled with a lot of sorrow. The prognosis for my mother was that she had six to twelve weeks to live...

A year later, she was still alive

But that year was marked by hospitals and above all by a great deal of sorrow. My mother couldn't find peace in the knowledge that she was going to die, she could no longer enjoy life. Sometimes you hear about people trying to make the most out of the remaining time after such a diagnosis, but my mother couldn't. So it was hard. To celebrate her still reaching 52, we went to Disneyland Paris together. Those were happy days. But upon our return, the next blow came. That evening when we came back, we were met by my cousin who informed us that my aunt, the godmother of the children, was in the hospital after a stroke. She was 42. Two months later, she too passed away. And four months after the death of my aunt, my mother also decided to give up and chose euthanasia to end her life. You can perhaps imagine our grief.

And with that, it was not over

My brother was 24 when he lost both our parents and couldn't cope with it. He couldn't handle the grief and decided to turn to drugs. After that, things went downhill. And eventually, he even lived on the streets. This too was a difficult time. Because I was not only dealing with my own grief and settling a negative inheritance, but also with saving my brother. Which didn't work out. And that brought on a completely different kind of sorrow and guilt. I think this period also lasted about 1.5 years.

Then we decided that we were going to do it differently

We entered calmer waters and decided to travel and enjoy life more. Because the people I loved the most also had that desire. But they never got the chance to actually do it. They always said: “We'll do that later…” or “It will happen eventually…”. But later never came. And that wasn't going to happen to me. I wanted to live and enjoy. We made trips to Florida, went on a cruise through the Bahamas, traveled through South Africa, discovered the beautiful Tuscany, and so on. Enjoying life and spending time with each other is so important. And that doesn't always have to be on a distant journey, it can also be close to home. But after hardship, we needed this and we really found our peace again.

And so a trip to Lanzarote came about

I vividly remember that we were on our way to the beach, with Xem on my shoulders, when it suddenly came up that we would like to live abroad. A desire that had always lingered, but had receded far into the background after the arrival of the children. It came up out of the blue, without any particular intention. The reaction of our two little boys surprised us. Because they were up for it. And suddenly we dared to dream again about a life abroad. And we started to seriously explore the possibility. With the motto, life is too short, so why wait, we made the decision to emigrate to Spain. It was quite clear that it had to be Spain. Because in Spain we always felt most at home. That autumn holiday after our summer in Lanzarote, we decided to do some research in Spain. To take another serious look at whether we wanted to live here. And then you suddenly look with very different eyes than on vacation. Because when you walk around in the supermarket, you suddenly miss all sorts of things. And if you go house hunting, don't expect beautiful houses with nice interiors like in the Netherlands.

But after the autumn break, we were certain

In the summer of 2018, we were going to emigrate. It was indeed exciting. And that year leading up to the emigration was not at all straightforward, as it was filled with challenges. The sale of our house did not go smoothly, and finding a house in Spain was not easy…. The sadness and fear of the children did sometimes surface. But we made a pact with the boys not to give up. “We will at least try it for two years and after those two years, we will evaluate again.” And as said, so done.

Since June 2018, we have been living in Spain and enjoying the Spanish sun

Life doesn't always go as you expect, but it has brought us here now. We truly live in the moment and what happens in a few years... We'll see when it comes. But before it sounds entirely like a fairy tale, our life here in Spain isn't always perfect either. And with two kids in a Spanish school and the whole Spanish mentality, we always have plenty to experience. So I'm really excited that I can now write about that for Kids & Corks.

NICOLE