The interviewees:
Elke Büdenbender, 60, lawyer and judge (currently on leave), married to Frank-Walter Steinmeier since 1995, with whom she has a daughter;
In 2010, she received a kidney transplant donated by her husband.
And: Eckhard Nagel, 61, transplant surgeon, doctor of philosophy and honorary doctor of theology;
Professor in Bayreuth;
married, three adult children.
Elke Büdenbender:
Eckhard, how long have we known each other?
twenty years?
Eckhard Nagel:
More like thirty.
Büdenbender:
That's right.
We moved to Hanover in 1991 and got to know each other pretty quickly, first Frank, my husband, and you, then your wife Anne and me.
Thirty years, my god.
What have we experienced together?
Nagel:
A lot.
At that time we lived in different shared flats.
A new circle of friends grew together, the first families were founded in our area, and then we moved to the beautiful surrounding area as a family.
I still remember the move well, which Frank helped with.
Büdenbender:
A few years later, for other reasons, we visited you on this wonderful farm where you lived at the time.
.
.
Nagel:
Yes, that was after the death of Jonathan, our son, who wasn't allowed to grow up in this world.
Büdenbender:
That was a really difficult time for you.
I still remember a visit from Anne when our daughter Merit was already born.
Anne was so sad.
It was the first time I felt how painful the death of a child was.
Nail:
Even after almost three decades, I feel this time to be the hardest in my life.
In my opinion, the death of Jonathan and a year and a half earlier of our second daughter Rieke was only survivable because we were responsible for our eldest daughter.
Bears parental responsibility for life.
It is well known that death always begins with birth.
With existence.
In my experience, the birth of a child often coincides with the passing of an older family member.
This is the spiral of life: the elder goes, and the younger – or the younger – comes.
It is therefore particularly difficult when this natural temporal sequence is broken.
That shocks and scares.
When children die, it triggers a different, even more incomprehensible, despair.
That is the reason,
Büdenbender:
I didn't realize that at all.
How did you become aware of this?
Nagel:
My original goal was to become a pediatrician.
That's why I studied medicine.
But then I ended up in the intensive care unit and realized: I can't do that.
Büdenbender:
Why not?
Nagel:
There were mainly premature babies and infants with heart defects on the ward.
Pediatric intensive care was still in its infancy.
The children lay in incubators and were sedated so that they could be ventilated.
While you usually see advances in medicine, I realized that at least half of these children were getting worse by the day.
Not better.
That completely overwhelmed me.
It was hard to bear that children who were just born have very little or no life prospects.
Some died while on therapy.
And as a doctor, I had to deal with the parents.
I went home stunned every night, even when something positive happened.
I kept asking myself: Why should something like this even be possible?