Dear friends The airline Malmö Aviation refused me when my wife Doro and I wanted to check in. They claim that their partner Brussels Airlines that operates the route Stockholm-Bromma - Brussels requires 24 hr advance notice of my need for assistance. It’s baloney. I hardly ever notify airlines and I fly about 10 times a year and never had this problem. Here is what I would have liked to say in person. I am very sad for not being able to come. It would have helped me to meet you and to feel part of the large group who mourn the loss of a great person and great friend. I would very much like to come later. What would be a good time for me to meet you, Jan-Jan’s family and other friends of Jan-Jan that might remember me? I will think of you tomorrow Good night Adolf

Dear Adolf, Everybody here was angry, astonished and shocked at the same time when I told them what those airlines did to you. I for one will never fly with those airlines ever again. We will read your text tomorrow and think of you all day. The last week we have talked a lot about you and told stories about you and Jan. On June 29th the ashes of Jan will be spread on a small piece of land he was trying to turn into a small nature reserve where children could go and learn more about the nature. Only the family and close friends will be there. That would be great if you could come by then. I will fly to Stockholm (with Sterling airlines!) on Friday. If it is all right with you I will come and pay you a visit on Saturday afternoon. If it does not suit you, please let me know and I come on another moment. We wish you well. Kamran

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Dear friends Jan Sabbe, one of my closest personal friends, founder of the Independent Living Movement in the Flemish part of Belgium, died yesterday after an unexpected short illness. Jan enriched many people’s lives including my own, he was such a lively, creative and inspiring person that he leaves a great empty space behind. He and I first met in 1981. Since then we not only worked together on various projects, we also became very close friends. I have seldom met such a warm, generous and humorous person, so full of enthusiasm, excitement about life, curiosity and compassion, a person who had so many visions and ideas and who made so many of them become reality. He started at least eight organizations and made sure they were competently run. Since the 1980’s he had been the prime motor in disability politics in Flanders. Jan travelled widely, knew people in many parts of the world and worked together with them. One of his major interests was to help people with disabilities to leave institutions, to develop schemes how to finance and organize personal assistance services and how to create individual support networks in the community for people who had been institutionalized including persons with cognitive disabilities. One of his most recent projects was to test in court whether such a personal support network could replace a so-called good man. There were many facets to Jan’s personality, more than I can grasp. Since childhood he had been a nature person, had travelled around most of Europe to watch birds, he loved to design gardens with bath tubs full of water plants and mosquitoes for his bull frogs. He was an expert on bamboo and it is all his fault that our garden in Stockholm has been taken over by a dozen varieties of this lovely plant. Jan’s disability made him dependent on assistive technology and soon after he had become disabled, in his early twenties, he designed and developed his own solutions, started two companies that cooperate with universities and import and sell sophisticated computer input devices for people who cannot use their hands. Jan loved to listen to music. His partner Theresa is a singer and performs in a group of female vocalists songs from the Renaissance. Jan’s costume parties were famous. He was very gregarious, enjoyed the good things in life, friendship and family. Over the years he had been substitute father to a number of children who adored him. For me Jan was an important role model. Here was a person who by all common standards should have been an object of pity: unable to move anything but his head, totally dependent on the help of others, confined to bed for long periods in order to prevent pressure sores. And yet I am sure everybody who met him experienced Jan as a happy, active and attractive person! How did he do it? As I see it, it was his trust in the world and in himself, his willpower and innate kindness. Jan had the ability to consciously live every moment, focus on the presence and make the most of it. Adolf Ratzka

Adolf Please accept my sincere sympathies on the passing of your good friend Jan - I first met Jan about 10 years ago in Cork at the launch of the Report on the Status of People with Disabilities in Ireland - a landmark publication at the time. More recently we had some good conversations and shared a few cigars together in Valencia. I had hoped that Jan would make it to our Conference in Croke Park last year - initially he had hoped to travel but it was not to be in the end - I always found his forthright manner and straight talking very refreshing - we need people like that so badly. A good man, may he rest in peace. David

DEAR ADOLF, I RECEIVED AND WAS SADDENED BY YOUR E MAIL REGARDING JAN. I DIDN'T KNOW YOU TWO WERE SUCH CLOSE FRIENDS. I AM SO SORRY FOR YOUR LOSS. I REMEMBER HIS BACK YARD AND HIS BATHTUB PLANTINGS WELL, NOT TO MENTION GOOD COMPANY AND GOOD FOOD TO GO WITH. WHAT AN ADVENTURE HE BROUGHT TO LIFE ! I ALSO REMEMBER HIS CA. TRIP WHEN MY HOUSE WAS STILL NOT ACCESSIBLE AND I WAS HAVING HIP SURGERY. WE NEVER SAW EACH OTHER, BUT SPOKE TO EACH OTHER OFTEN. THAT WAS THE TRIP WHERE HE BOUGHT THE OLD ... UPS? VAN? ... HAD IT STOLEN, AND FOUND IT AGAIN. HE DID DRAMA WELL. MY FATHER HELPED HIM FIX UP HIS VAN FOR SLEEP/CAMPING FOR HIS TRAVELS. MY FATHER LIKED HIM BUT THOUGHT HE WAS CRAZY. MY FATHER DIDN'T QUITE UNDERSTAND THAT KIND OF INDEPENDENCE IN SOMEONE WITH THAT MUCH OF A DISABILITY. THIS HAS BEEN A SAD YEAR - MY AUNT DIED IN PERU IN MARCH (BUT I GOT TO SPEND A MONTH WITH HER FIRST AND THAT WAS WONDERFUL), ROLAND SYKES DIED IN MARCH, AND NOW THIS NEWS OF JAN. I HATE THIS - THIS LOSING OUR COMMUNITY LIKE THIS. I KNOW IT'S PART OF THE LIFE CYCLE, BUT THE LOSS IS HEAVY IN SO MANY WAYS. I HOPE THIS FINDS YOU AND YOURS WELL AND HAPPY. WE ARE GOOD AT THIS END IN SPITE OF DIFFICULT NEWS. WE'RE GOING TO OKLAHOMA IN JULY TO MEET OUR GRANDSON FOR THE FIRST TIME. WE'RE ALSO VISITING AIMEE AND DAVID OF COURSE, BUT JADEN IS TRULY THE MAIN EVENT. HOPEFULLY STEVE'S MOM WILL BE ABLE TO JOIN US FOR PART OF THE TIME AS WELL. IN THE MEANTIME STEVE IS OFF TO SAIPAN ON FRIDAY FOR A WEEK. I'M STAYING HOME TO WATER MY PLANTS AND TO TRY TO HELP FIX A MESS OF A BOARD OF DIRECTORS THAT I'M ON. THAT PART I'M NOT SO HAPPY ABOUT. IT'S HAWAII'S STATE INDEPENDENT LIVING COUNCIL WITH SOME 15 MEMBERS FOR A STATE WITH ONE CENTER AND A BOARD WITH TWO MEMBERS (INCLUDING MYSELF) WHO KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT IL. SIGH. TAKE CARE, MY LOVE TO YOU DORO AND KATARINA. LIL

Lieber Adolf, Dein Nachruf für Deinen Freund Jan hat uns sehr berührt. Wir können uns noch gut an ihn und an seine Frau erinnern. Er hat uns an Deinem Geburtstag sehr beeindruckt und man hatte das Gefühl, dass er ein besonderer Mensch mit einer großen Ausstrahlung war. Ich kann mir vorstellen, dass Du sehr traurig über diesen Verlust bist. Linde

Sorry to hear it. Both for Jan-Jan and for you. It's a big loss. Charles Berkow

Dear family and friends, I write this text in English because I know many of Jan-Jan 's friends don 't speak Dutch. The warm feelings that this man leaves behind in many hearts are indescribable. Jan-Jan is the only person I know that leaves such lasting impressions in his wake, even if the incounters have been brief. In the years that I have known him, the number of people that I 've seen being energized by his limitless mind, are countless. Jan-Jan had the gift of connecting people that needed each other, without them realising it. He knew that people need people, and used that knowledge to help himself, and others by doing just that. He was not afraid to be dependent of his network of assistents, family, and friends. He made me realise that, although he was physically disabled, he didn 't depend on others more than anyone else. He enjoyed life to the fullest, whenever, where-ever he could. Didn 't see the problems, but the opportunities that were created by them. To see Jan-Jan work, was to see water flowing around a stone in the river. I myself have been his assistant, his driver, his helping hand on a lot of occasions. But although I was supposed to be helping him, I always had the feeling that I was the one being helped. And I have the feeling a lot of people have had the same experience. He never gave up, always held his head up high, not of pride, but because he had to have seen it all. I think the best we can do to honour him, is to never let down our efforts of living a full life. Joeskine

Adolf, We met only once, in Valencia, ...verdura a la plancha, ... the context was a typical jan-jan "organisation" (where are you next week? in Valencia? ...fine I'll be there too, ...) I remember that we, more or less, agreed that we were going to visit you in Stockholm, however, life decided otherwise, and to be honest, we, Jan-Jan and I, never talked about it again. Since at least 20 years, Jan-Jan has often mentioned you in our talks. Jan-Jan was my best friend, I chatted with him on the phone 2 days before his terrible accident,... he was going to visit Bulgaria, beginning of may, and than first week of july, he was going to visit me in France, Valence....(as a matter of fact, when we, you with jan-jan, met, I was working in Valencia Spain, now I'm working in Valence, France,...life is full of coincidences and to confuse even more, I'm renting a house in Barcelonne, a small village in the neighbourship of Valence). I have a very ambiguous feeling about expression of (deep) sorrow, I personally believe, that real sorrow is the most personal feeling one can have, it should stay "hidden" in order to be pure and to avoid pollution. On the other hand, f.e. beautiful music is always sad. In the same context, I was really touched by your in memoriam, and I thank you for it. Just 2 comments: Jan-Jan,knowing that you, Adolf Ratzka, considers him as a role model, would have been so proud. The second comment is more personal:I don't know your garden in Stockholm, but I have here in my garden a "Riesen Bambou" if you are interested just let me know. Final thing, something really bizarre. Jan-Jan, after our phone on april the 16th,sent me an e mail on the same day, however it only reached me on may the 9th. Have a look to the link Kind regards stefaan strypsteen jerome-murat

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