Driving home from work, cooking dinner, and then finally relaxing with a glass of wine in front of the TV after a hard day. Sound familiar? One can assume that many after-work hours in this country go something like this. Then a question away from everyday life and habit. So straight from the gut: what do you want to do before you die?
The people of Ergolding have just asked themselves this question. For a week, they were able to complete the sentence with chalk on boards in front of the town hall of the market town near Landshut: “Before I die, I would like…”. The idea: “One is nudged on a topic that is otherwise taboo,” says Gabriele Gaudlitz from the community afterwards. What came out: Learn Spanish, fly to Canada. Spending a lot of time with the grandkids, driving a Corvette. Someone who fled their homeland wrote: Seeing my mother again.
It really can’t get any more individual than an answer to this question. What do you want, who are you, where are you in life? “But you could also see that some needs connect us,” says Lisa Friedel, she is currently doing her practical semester in the senior work of the Landratsamt district office and brought the campaign to Ergolding. To be happy, it was always necessary to be mindful and courageous, to travel and to make peace with people. What was hardly on the boards: material things. And, says Friedel: “I can’t remember that there was anything about a job.”
The campaign by the American artist Candy Chang has already made it to 78 countries. In Ergolding, the Landshut hospice association, the district’s senior citizens’ work and the community helped together. School classes were there, senior citizens, and the mayor also immortalized himself. “I wanted to live a healthy and happy life,” he says. After the positive feedback, Andreas Strauss is now even considering putting up such boards for other topics: What the residents want for the place, for example. In autumn, other communities want to take up the campaign on World Hospice Day.
Only: The topic can also trigger fear. Especially in the pandemic, says Friedel. “Dying is more present.” She doesn’t want to focus on death, but on life. “That you don’t postpone anything, that life is useful.” Maybe today after work is a good time to start.