First I did not wanted to blog about that but I told m-c this story yesterday and she said that it would be interesting for Vu d’ici. It’s a tragic story which happened in Germany and I read on the Spiegel magazine about it.
Last year in November 2007, a 58 year old man got hit very hard by life. His wife and daughter left him and he lost his job, all happening at the same time. So he did not see any perspective anymore and one day he left his apartment with his bike and drove 100 km in one direction. He was searching for a place where he could be alone. He just had his diary with him, and some water. He found a lonely place in a wood on a raised stand (which is normally used by hunters to shoot animals) and he decided to stay there… and decided to die there. Every day he wrote into his diary, and he described how his body was reacting to the fact that he was not eating anymore. Some people found him dead last week. The last diary entry was written on 13th December 2007. He survived in the wood for 24 days.
This story triggered some thoughts: it is a very tragic incident but I was fascinated by the fact that this man consciously decided to die, but in a very unusual way: in the nature and by self-reflecting his own way to death. And the people who found him said that he was comfortably lying on the floor of the wood stand, with both hands under his head (like in a relaxing position).
Another aspect of the story for me was this feeling of “german melancholy”, because I know there are many people who are very frightened of being unemployed or receiving the so-called Hartz 4 unemployment money in Germany.
However, just wanted to share that…