On a sultry summer day, Silke and Kalle sitting in the parish hall and let you explain how this works, if it vows eternal love. The priest in sandals, Shorts and a Hugo Boss Polo says: “We all sing a song, say a prayer, then I believe a sermon, the 1. Letter to the Corinthians, of course, 13. Chapter. ‘Love is always patient and kind, it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.’ A Classic!”
Silke nods, Kalle nods. “That sounds good.”
frontotemporal dementia
“Then exchange vows, they kiss, we sing and pray, our father. Then I go out, and you.”
“Okay.”
“Have you flower children?”
“Yes, two. Rice and rose petals to throw.”
“it’s Better to just roses. The rice we always get so hard to get out of the Church.”
“Okay. Only Roses.”
“How did you meet?”
“Oh, it was complicated,” says Silke. Kalle explains: “In our first Meeting, Silke said to me: I have a husband. I have a child. And I’m sick.”
“Ah, Yes, okay. And how do you imagine your future together? Where do you see yourself in five years?”
Kalle looks at Silke, and Silke Kalle. Silke says: “I see us in five years anywhere. I wasn’t supposed to be here.”
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Silke has lifted the many colorful pictures, the Doctors made up of your brain
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have made That Silke hook-Naumann, 48, sits to this day in front of the priest, that she speaks, she laughs, she loves, she lives is a small miracle. That’s what she says. The Kalle says. The neurologists say.
One of them Silke is, by profession-house scientist to host, 15 years ago. Your doctor has sent you there. Because you forgot last time always change something. Silke, think nothing of it. A routine is a safe investigation. But now the neurologist tells you, and Silke understood only snatches of the word. Atrophy of the brain. FTD. Fronto-Temporal Dementia. Genetic Predisposition. What shrinks tell the doctor you actually: “your brain. It will continue to shrink. You will always forget more things. Until their memories fade. You will not recognize people. Also, are you particularly close to your family, your friends. And eventually you will die of this disease. Maybe in five years, with a bit of luck, in ten or twelve.”
Overwhelmed and alone
Silke doesn’t know what she supposed to do with all of this start. She is healthy and just 33. Dementia? In the age? Is there? You expects. 33 plus five years, that would be 38, plus ten 43, plus twelve 45. Silke thought. What happens in between, with me in all the days? I Wake up at some point and no longer know who I am? And who are the others who look at me pityingly? You ask yourself: do I Want to experience all of this actually?
Silke pushes aside the thoughts. She begins to write everything on a piece of paper. Appointments, Recipes, Memories. If she has food on the stove, an alarm clock, so that you forget it. But sometimes, she forgets the Alarm, and then it smells burnt. You tried everything, what are you doing to keep firmly in mind, and yet she puts sometimes a chicken thawing in the sink and asks a half hour later, what has the search there.
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The family is at home on the Sofa. Silke’s Doctors say it was a miracle that she’s alive.
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Silke is overwhelmed. You told your Partner at the time of their illness. Of what is, and of what’s to come. The Partner separates from you. And Silke is overwhelmed and alone.
a Few years later Silke gets to know a man. A, she talks about her illness and about the she speaks only reluctantly. In 2010, the two had a daughter, Letizia. Is just so happened. The two marry. Not really out of love. A marriage with much controversy and little bit of luck. A marriage that is not good. But it is better than a life alone, thinks Silke. Who else it out there for you?
Yahtzee tournament
Silke pulls back more and more, distract yourself. On a day in the Winter of 2015, a well-Known takes you to the anglers club. There were about two dozen people squatting at the tables and empty the cubes from the cups. The Yahtzee tournament of the sport fishing Association is in Holzminden, Germany. At one of the tables, the sports Director of the club, Karl-Heinz Müller, called Kalle, then 39 years old and divorced. Silke, 1.58 meters, the Kalle, 1,90 meters. When Silke goes in front of the door to smoke a cigarette, then Kalle is also and to. Kalle down and bends over to Silke. “Well, what’s your name?” – “Silke.” “I’m Kalle. And what are you doing here?” – “Well, play?!” – “Oh, Yes. I also.” Kalle wants to have Silke’s number. Silke doesn’t want to. She gives him their contact information in Facebook.
After a few weeks, Kalle dares to send her a friend request. Careful Keys.
1. February. Kalle: “Hi, thank you that you accepted the friendship! Wish you a nice evening!”
Silke: “I wish you well.”
Four days later. Silke: “Sorry for the disturbance. Just wanted to wish you a nice weekend.”
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On some days, Silke is yet to come high up from the Couch. Then she manages to go with Letizia on the Playground.
Kalebet ©Insa Hagemann and Stefan Finger/star
Kalle: “Thank you. You’re not bothering me.” Kalle sends a photo of Lucie, his dog.
Silke: “Sweet!”
Kalle: “My Ex hated the dog.”
Silke: “Then she was not the Right thing to do.”
Kalle: “I always fall for the wrong women.”
Silke: “I think always the wrong men.”
Kalle: “we have something in common.”
again and again, Silke Kalle, and Kalle writes back. To sit when Kalle, a Truck driver, is on Tour with his 20-Tonner and Silke home and glad that your husband come home late from work. They meet in a Chinese Restaurant around the corner. 14. February 2016. Valentine’s day. You are not aware of. You go for a walk, tell yourself your life; and as they say “goodbye”, says Silke, the words, the tear Kalle from his dream: husband, child, sick, demented, actually, I should no longer live. Kalle thinks: That’s it.
melancholy
But Kalle thinks back to Silke, and she to him. You are on the phone secretly. Once, when her husband comes home, not Silke, and Kalle listening to the two Argue. He thinks: “This woman has a betterit is a life earned.” Eventually, Silke a packs up their things and Letizia, separated from their father and goes to stay with Kalle in his bachelor pad. Which is too small for three, Silke noted. But here it is taken in the Arm. Here you can laugh. Here, someone is listening to her. Here you can be. And here is love from the friendship of Silke and Kalle. Although Silke had given up years ago: and the love.
The two of you and Letizia move into a larger apartment. At the weekend, Letizia with her father, during the week, Silke and Kalle. Kalle makes with Letizia the homework, because Silke can’t concentrate and your words no longer come. Kalle brings Letizia to school and picks you up again, because Silke has a fear of not returning. Kalle is playing with Letizia football, because Silke have the strength.
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Silke can still go out sometimes, shopping.
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Letizia’s favorite football player? “Kalle!” Letizia’s Favorite Goalie? “Kalle!” Letizia’s Favorite Team? “Germany! And Werder Bremen, because Kalle like so.” Sometimes Letizia calls him “Papa”. Kalle don’t like it, even if he would adopt Letizia immediately, if he could. He then says, “I’m just your dad.” Letizia stands there and looks like an eight year old girl looks, if his Hero has just been told something that had not known it dear. Kalle remembers that: “But Kalle sounds nice, is it?” “Okay,” says Letizia slightly bent and pressed his cheek on your lips on Kallas.
There were people who didn’t understand Kalle. Together a, which no longer recognizes him, perhaps soon to move in with. Kalle, it doesn’t matter what the others say. He feels that this feels right, and what he’s doing.
His Job as a Truck driver, he has given up at some point. He found it difficult. Life on the road was not always easy, but it was his life. Now he is the “girl for everything” in the freight forwarding. A loads of freight, loading, repairs, sweeps the yard, cutting the hedge. If the other riders come back from their tours and tell what they have seen everything on the streets between the Alps and the North sea, then the Kalle hurts. But he knows what he has to do the Job abandoned. For his new life. The only way he can be every day Silke and Letizia from the school pick up. He has a family now, says Kalle. The needs him. His name tag, which stood for nearly 20 years on the front windshield of his Truck, is now in the bedroom on the window sill. Five letters in Blue and White. Melancholy on thin sheet metal, pressed.
“I need Mama.”
On some days, it goes to Silke. Then you cook something Small. Goes with shopping. Watching TV or listening to music. On many other days, from early until late on the Couch. Pulling pain through your body, and without crutches, not to the legs. Your favorite songs or talk on TV can’t stand you on such days. Not even the stories that Kalle told, when he comes home from work. She goes to him then ever. But Kalle does not know that you mean evil. That Silke can sometimes just different.
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Silke dances, and Silke laughs. Kalle admire you for enduring your life.
©Insa Hagemann and Stefan Finger/star
Every day you swallow your tablets. Levothyroxine 75 mg, Hygroton 25 mg, Ginkobil, 240 mg, Vitamin B12: in the morning. Ramipril 5 mg morning and noon. Levetiracetam 750 mg: morning and evening. Lercanidipin and Bisoprolol 10 mg in the evening. Tilidine 50 mg naloxone, 4 mg and Paracetamol 500 mg with codeine: as and when required. Silke threatens to go blind, has high blood pressure, heart rhythm disorders, inflammation of the pancreas and a thyroid gland, which is four times as large as it should be. Some of it because of her illness and the other due to the medications for their disease.
the other day told Letizia for the first Time, a bit of “dementia”. Silke and Kalle have you use the word never, you told her that “mommy is sick and that’s why not everything can make it like the other mums”. But Letizia is older, a few months ago, it has become eight. If Silke forgets something, her plate falls down or has to pass because of their medication, then Letizia noted the. If you are afraid that something happens to mom? “Yes. The whole arg. I need Mama.” Silke says: “But I’ve already said many times: I’m in there forever.” The “da” shows Silke on Letizia’s heart. The nods, takes a deep breath and presses her Hand firmly on her left breast.
euthanasia
Silke know that you need to talk to your daughter someday about what’s going on. But she’s afraid of. Secretly she had always thought that that would take care of everything by itself. You are not supposed to be there. This is also why you had said many, as she was with Letizia pregnant: “blowing it.” And because she was 39 and ill and the pregnancy even they themselves could have cost you your life. She thought: “This is a life.” And eventually, Letizia was there, started to run, to speak, came to the Kindergarten, the school, and was at once the it is today. And to live without the Silke could not imagine.
Kalle has often thought about what he would do if he were to Silke’s place. “Kill me!”, he says. While Silke sits there and laughs. How often, when it comes to your death. Kalle admired Silke, that it can withstand all of this. He knows that this will not go on forever. That you no longer want to live, if you detect your small family, your business and your Kalle. She said Kalle. Euthanasia. In Switzerland or in the Netherlands. Kalle had to promise Silke to help you.
A promise that he has given her, for a long time before both decided to give the other a promise. The promise had been given to both of the others, only that the not voted so really, the thing with the good and the bad days.
roses instead of rice
Two weeks after the appointment to the parish of Silke and Kalle are on the Altar. Kalle with Letizia and in a silver grey suit, Silke in the white dress from the shipping house. Then, an organ plays, a dozen wedding guests and sings a song, the pastor stops his sermon, reads from the 1. Epistle of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, Silke and Kalle look in the eyes, “Yes, I want to”, twice, the priest is preceded by Letizia throws roses, no rice.
It is a beautiful day, maybe it really is the most beautiful of your life. Silke hopes that you forget him so quickly.
