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*, who comes 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.
★★★
“Are you coming home at night again today?” I asked my father when I had him on the phone. He wasn’t a nightclub owner, he was a journalist. And as editor-in-chief, he waited until his newspaper was printed. That was around two in the morning. When he came home, I almost had to get up again.
In the morning I would often find my favorite chocolate nougat on the bed, my father’s belated greeting. During the night he carefully placed them next to my pillow.
I went to the cinema with my mother, to the six-day race, to Formula 1 on the Avus. “Leave Dad alone,” said Mom. “He has to sleep. He only has one day off a week.”
The fate of almost every family in the 1950s: in the early years, the men brought in the money to feed their wives and children.
BILD columnist Louis Hagen
The best fathers were our mothers. A new survey by the evangelical news agency EPD shows that the attitude of modern fathers has changed radically. Only 1.4 percent of the fathers surveyed said it was most important to “offer financial security”.
The need to “play with your children” is paramount. Orientation towards one’s own father also plays a role: “do things differently, don’t be absent, don’t be too busy with work”.
What I experienced and above all did not experience with my father continued with my sons. We always wanted to go camping in the woods when they were little, but I was already big.
I couldn’t even haul a tent peg into the woods. My sons laughed and said, “Let’s go dad, we’re going with our friends. We’re not mad at you.”
If I compare the generations of fathers of yesteryear with today: What a privilege it is when fathers are so happy and able to and want to take care of their children.
However: I loved my father with all my heart – despite the little time we spent together. I knew he was short on time. But a bar of chocolate on the pillow can mean something big: Dad thought of you, he loves you very much.
I haven’t forgotten.
* Louis Hagen (76) was a member of the BILD editor-in-chief for 13 years and is now a consultant at the communications agency WMP. His texts have also been published as a book and are available at koehler-mittel-shop.de.