Esther 09/02/1978 - - 01/23/2009
These thoughts need to be written to console myself. Climbing the Bavarian mountains 8. 13. 2006 the first call shocked us about the sad fact about my daughter - my only child: “Esther has a problem. The Professor has operated her in May 2006 and has forgotten, to send her the result of the diagnosis: cancer.''

 The Professor feels bad and offers an operation the very next week. But my daughter refuses this operation. She finishes her juristic studies with success two months later. End of December 2006 my daughter has still enough power to walk hours with her mother, sister, my woman Mimamai and me. April 2007 my daughter tries 40 days fasting to fight her cancer. The way to this place she drives on her own, the way back it is me to drive her car.

Before this fastings my daughter has met in a speech about death a man she has chooses as her new friend and moves in his home June 2007. This day the mother of her man dies from cancer after all medical treatments have failed.

The sickness of my daughter is getting worse after the fasting. In July she has to suffer from a three and half hours operation, because the cancer tumor hinders her to pee.

In December 2007 she marries her man.They visit us in Bamberg on Mima's Christmas Market. In the year 2008 my daughter arranges with her man to buy a beautiful home of their own with garden.

She guides her man to arrange these actions for their new home with satisfying success. Friends around loose much money in the stock market, but her man buys and wins their new home with garden. Therefore my name for their new home is “House Esther”. They both move in their new home December 2008.

She loves to sit in the glass house in their garden, when the winter sun spends enough warmth. But because her lungs don’t work enough anymore, she needs more and more oxygen.

The ancient clockwork on "Esther's House"


My Mimamai comes from "Esther's House" Sunday 10.05 a.m.

The glass garden house in "Esther's House"
Back to the week end and my life with my woman in Munich: Saturday is a beautiful sunny day. We walk downtown Munich through the English Garden. We celebrate “all you can eat” in a Chinese Restaurant, explore shops for inspirations for Mima’s coming Christmas Market 2009. A call from Esther's mother shocks this idyll:

“Esther wants my visit, it is urgent.”
We hurry home, pack up the car with blankets and pillows, take the high way and reach three hours later Nuremberg. My daughter suffers with every breath. There is nothing more to do but to kneel by her sickbed and let the tears roll down. She apologizes:

“I thought to die today. But this will not happen.”

“You give me great joy and happiness, to meet you. Please call me up, when you need my help. It is so good to be near to you....” is my helpless anwser.

“That feels so good,”

she replies thankfully. With tears my surrender happens to her strict order, she has always repeated:

“Nobody has to complain but me!”

This report is from 19th January. 19 years ago died Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. The mother of my daughter has changed after Bhagwan’s death to another Master: Maulana Scheikh Muhammad Nazim al-Haqqani. So my daughter listens to Islamic prayers with the friends of her mother. Sitting by her bed my silent prayers too hope for healing. Sound and language of prayers is secondary, intensity is first. This prayer is written silently.

Memorial Stone in front of "Esther's House"

back

Wednesday 21. January: Again after my job hours on Tuesday the fast high way brings me 170 Kilometers north from Munich to Nuremberg. Again two, three hours at her sickbed, a massage of her feet in her state between life and death. Again her man and I share a delicious drink at night: a bottle Italian red wine. Again my tense nerves relax a few night hours in the old house, their new home.

My child has recovered a bit in between life and death. She comments:

“It’s not yet my time to die. I have to confront myself with this.”

The tumor is growing like the belly of a pregnant woman. She is so fragile, that she can hardly move her legs on her own. She wants me to move her feet that she feels like walking. Her left foot is swollen. She drinks juice and tea only.

In their home rings the old clock on their roof every quarter of an hour. This sound or whatever wakes me up 4.30 a.m. One hour later my voyage brings me back to Munich, back to Mima, back to my work. My feeling: it is time enough to return tomorrow.		  
Thursday morning 22. January: The car is packed. for the next voyage to Nuremberg. It is a beautiful day. A beautiful day to die. Five degrees below zero. The sauna bath made the body so tired to sleep a long night. Nearly 20 years behind the desktop in front of this screen give a ritual of security, health and wealth. One page for our computer magazin has to be finished, then comes one of the hard last "Good Bye" voyages to my little lady. Maybe we can still hold us in our arms and take some of our last breath together.  

Tuesday evening Esther gave me her last shopping list in her 30 years short life:

- Mango Juice
- Liquorice
- Lychees
- Fruit sweets without sugar: 'Fruechtli' and
- The Tibetan Book of Death

'Is this too much?'

she asked with her very soft and tender voice closed to death,

'Is this too much? I don't want to stress you.'

She made me laugh and provoked once again my nastiness:

'Now you have stressed me 30 years, the rest I will stand, you can be sure.'

'But I don't want to stress you'

she nearly whispered back and made me immediately regret my harsh statement.

Friday morning in Nuremberg three shops provided all her five last, little wishes. Bringing and giving her these little treasures she was so excited and thankfully repeated again and again:

'I have so lovely parents, I have so lovely parents. I am so happy with you.'

Her mother immediately interfered:

'But I already have an edition of the Tibetan Book of Death. This edition from Diderich is well known. Doesn't this fit your needs? Can he not bring back this one?''

‘Sure’,

Replied my daughter softly, who had no other needs in that moment but to eat 'Fruechtli' and next salty liquorice. These 'Fruechtli' are a memory of her very early childhood, when her mother and I still worked together the first four, five years to bring her on her handicapped feet and teach her walking.

Her wish from the evening for my readings out of this Bible size new 'Tibetan Book of Death’ was lost, the small paperback edition together with the energy from her mother has somehow spoiled this precious moment.

The brother of her mother has arrived too. So I gave him my place by the side of my dieing daughter to bring back the Tibetan Book of Death and took the last shopping order from her mother

'Flesh of a lamb for our soup, that we can stay better grounded...’

Snow made the streets slippery. There was not much traffic in Nuremberg. With some food in a fish restaurant I once remembered with my daughter, my tense nerves found some peace to relax. The way by car brought me by the side of the street, where she has moved in the house of her husband, called after the poet Goethe.

There were two voices like mostly inside: One voice was calling to drive back to my daughter, the other voice was to sleep a bit in the house of her man. I sleep in her bed with her blanket and with the pet donkey; I have bought her more than 25 years before. In a touching phone call to my woman Mima in Munich, I confessed:

'In this hard time for Esther and us I really try my best to behave in my most human way. Afterwards we can continue our dog and cat fight like always.'

As matter of facts it was more the fight of a cat with a mouse. My senses stressed with her mother: my side is the part of the mouse! That lesson existence wanted me to teach about female force.

After maybe half an hour her mother gave me a phone call to come. Few minutes later I arrived at her mother's home, where my daughter has moved in last Saturday in intolerable pain.

Now six days and night later under the devotional cure of her mother and of her Islamic praying friend Esther has lost consciousness and was finishing her last breath.

Her mother has sent her husband for a doctor, who had not answered her calls. But a minute after my arrival her husband came back without doctor. So he took Esther in his arms and helped her very last breath. Esther died at 4.00 p.m.

Short time later her husband closed her eyes . The little lady looked utterly peaceful and relaxed. Her mother could not to stop to repeat:

'The death on Friday will bring you directly to paradise, which emphasises the Sheikh always.'

The Sheikh is their teacher. The other Islamic praying woman was greeting the sun just after Esther has finished her last breath with such sermons:

'Look! Look there: all the angels are around. Isn't it wonderful?’

'For sure,'

Esther’s mother was ready to admit,

'Esther had said that she has the happiest parents.'

My ears listened to something else, but there is no way to argue with these women - not now, nor ever.

Looking at her with my deep breathing there was such strong imagination, that her breath was still corresponding with mine. But these illusions left me soon. Standing at her head her mother came by my side. But no mood and room came up for her heartily hug. That would have felt like a theatrical demonstration for her Islamic friend, brother and Esther's husband.

We were sitting silently nearly two hours until my question dared to disturb her husband:

'Shall we leave?'

He agreed. Thankfully a shake hand connection happened to her Esther’s mother Islamic praying friend. Both women had cared in the most wonderful and devotional way the last six days and nights for my dying daughter.

'You will leave so early?'

The woman asked astonished,

'But she is still here ...'

'She is for ever here in my heart'

And my hand touched my heart. She gave back the same gesture and Esther’s husband and I was leaving.

Her mother asked him:

'Please can you take the empty Volvic water bottles back?'

To me she came smiling with the paperback edition of the Tibetan Book of Death and said:

'Here, you can take this book, didn't you want it?'

‘No,'

I tried to explain,

'No, Esther wanted me to read from this book for her.'

She looked a bit puzzled and repeated with the book under my nose:

'But you can have it, here take it...'

'No, I don't want anything anymore from you.'

And with her husband in his 'memorial home Esther' we shared a good bottle red wine together and our memories about the little lady, we both had loved and will love for ever.

After two hours together Esther's mother called him up and gave him different order for the funeral company. Under her louder and louder commandments he agreed and said after the call:

‘OK, I will fulfil her wishes. That will cost me some hundreds more, but this is only once and after this the relationship to this woman can be new arranged.'

For me the death of my daughter it's like the chain is broken to her mother too - feeling of freedom.



I sleep in her bed with her blanket and with the pet donkey.