What is really important? What touches us today – and will not go away tomorrow? It’s the things that have moved us since human existence: happiness, love, family, partnership, time, stress, loneliness, farewell, grief.
BILD columnist Louis Hagen, coming from a German-Jewish family, sought answers to the eternal questions of mankind from poets, thinkers and researchers. And found a few answers that are amazingly simple – and yet can enrich our lives.
★★★
What a picture: A first-grader struggles to hold onto her scooter, her mother next to her carries her satchel in one hand and a doll in the other, whose legs move up and down with every movement. A few meters further on, a father says goodbye to his little son and looks longingly at him, it seems, as he walks towards the school entrance.
Between 7.30 a.m. and 8 a.m. there will be hugs, hugs and kisses. It’s running, rushing, waving. It’s the hour before school starts. Although no one says it out of sheer stress: it is the hour of love. “It’s never a lie, what comes from the bottom of your heart,” wrote Joseph von Eichendorff.
BILD columnist Louis Hagen
I see them every morning as I ride my bike past city schools. The mothers who bend down to their children. A pat, a kiss, quick, it’s almost 8 o’clock. Or the fathers in the cargo bike with child seats (attention, no cliché, they really exist and more and more of them). Be together for a moment before everyday life engulfs us. And there are so many mothers and fathers this morning. And so many children.
I myself have experienced three stages with my sons. When they were very small, they were escorted to their classrooms, at least to the door. A kiss was possible. Then, the second stage, you were allowed to take them to school. A kiss was still possible – but in such a way that nobody could see it. The third stage: “Dad, will you take me to school. But please don’t park in front of the entrance…”
That’s just the way it is – “One, two, three, in a rush, the time is running – we’re running with it,” says Wilhelm Busch. This is especially true when we see our children, our grandchildren, grow. We’re only getting older.
And when that’s all long gone and the children have children themselves: The scenes in front of the schools will remain – or something similar to what I experienced this morning.
It’s the hour of love.
Louis Hagen (75) was a member of the BILD editor-in-chief for 13 years and is now a consultant at the communications agency WMP. His texts are available as a book at koehler-mittler-shop.de.