On New Year's Eve 2011, Flor Schmidt's eldest son was run over by a car and succumbed to his serious head injuries in hospital shortly afterwards. Read the whole story.
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Happiness is when your heart leaps. Happiness is lightness, is amazement. Happiness always takes place in the now, it knows no past, no future. Happiness does not ask what situation you are in. It only looks at whether you love and whether you are open to being touched." When Flor Schmidt lets her thoughts flow during a time-out with her yoga class and finds these warm words, she is surprised herself. A few years earlier, she had experienced the worst thing that can happen to a mother: On New Year's Eve 2011, her eldest son was run over by a car on a country road just a few meters from her parents' house. Nicolai succumbs to his serious head injuries in hospital shortly afterwards.
The family had just celebrated his 17th birthday on December 23. The call came shortly after midnight. A friend of Nico's is on the phone. He says that there has been an accident and that Nico is in hospital. For Flor and her husband Hubertus, time stands still at this moment. Their son is seriously injured and is undergoing surgery. Early in the morning, the doctors have no more hope. Nico is going to die. A sea of fear, anger and despair washes over Flor. But when she holds her son's warm hand in the intensive care unit, her pain is suddenly joined by an unconditional love that she has never felt before. Love for Nico, for her second son Kasimir, her husband and all the other people around her who had come to say goodbye.
The mother allows herself to get involved with the emotion: "I let this feeling guide me in everything I did from then on. I felt guided and safe in a strange way." The first decision she makes, trusting her intuition before letting Nico's body go, is to donate his organs and give life to several strangers. When the family is back home, the loss is omnipresent. "We couldn't imagine that our hearts would keep beating, that our lives would go on. It was impossible for time to move on without this part that had made our family complete."
But the hands on the clock moved relentlessly forward. A new day begins again and again, a day that wants to be lived, that must be lived. The care of friends and Hubertus' family carried her through the weeks after the funeral. "Our friends made sure that we were never alone with our pain for too long." They come by with food and to talk, to share their own grief. Nico's friends and classmates also visit the family frequently. The mother senses how big a mark her wonderful son has left on people's hearts. Instead of hiding, Flor allows herself to feel the pain. She confronts the horror, cries when the longing becomes overwhelming and learns that she must not allow herself to be dominated by all the unanswerable what-if questions.
On one of these days, she sends Nico a letter to his e-mail address for the first time. One of many messages into which the mother pours her thoughts, all her love and questions. It will be a long time before she stops opening her laptop with the brief hope of a reply from wherever Nico is now. Of course, her mother knows that won't happen. But Flor wants to remain open to her feelings, which hurt endlessly, but also allow her to be close to her son again and again. She accepts the thoughts of confidants, of her healer, who takes care of her back pain, which no injection from the doctors will help with, and also of other mourners who cross her path again and again as if by chance. Step by step, she enters a new life in which Nico is no longer there but is always with her. "I can feel that love does not end with death, that nothing in the world can stop me from continuing to love you," she writes in an email. Working through grief means looking closely at obstacles, not ignoring them, "otherwise you will stumble over them again and again."
Today, Flor Schmidt shares her experiences in lectures and as a counselor with other people affected: " Grief lies heavy on my chest. I try to breathe through it. Just as I have learned to do. Come on, pain, I'm not afraid of you anymore. I can stand you because I can feel that there is something inside me that is stronger than you."
Book tip: In "Weiter als das Ende", Flor Schmidt describes her grief journey in very personal words and provides valuable insights into how grief work can look and function.
Date: 14.01.2021
