My Stories
Photography | Visual stories
On June 15th, 2021 at 15.20h she died, while I was on a business trip in the east of Germany. When the nurse called me, I was walking on a crossover at a chemical plant with a client, and could not take the call. But I knew it anyway.
That evening, alone in the hotel in a town where I have not been before, I went out for something to eat and found a small Italian restaurant with a lovely terrasse, touched by the late evening sun. The wind was chilly but I didn’t care.
On Tuesday after Easter, April 6th, I took my mother to the hospital. She knew long before we did that her time was almost up. It was not the fear of death that worried her, it was the sadness that her time with the people she loved would irretrievably melt away, that she would no longer be able to participate in our lives, would no longer be able to take care of us, and would leave us alone for ever.
. . .
As I wait outside the ward door for my Corona test result, the hospital seems deserted, as if the virus had sucked the life out of the corridors. No other visitors, no staff with beds, no doctor with a stethoscope in his pocket. Only distant noises and the omnipresent hospital smell of floor wax and disinfectant distract me.
The ward door opens.
Sometimes I lose track of my photos for a while, sometimes I don't feel like sifting through and editing them right away, sometimes they gather dust on the hard drive waiting to be rediscovered at some point down the line.
It's been 4 years since I took these photos in downtown Frankfurt - without a face mask, in the old days, long before the Corona virus. How much life has changed since then, how little we have been aware of the freedom to go anywhere, to have a coffee in the sun, to meet friends...
I love the late afternoons, when the low sun conjures slowly moving shadows in the urban canyons, colors suddenly light up and are swallowed up elsewhere, and reflections of large glass fronts create surreal illuminations.
