I spent Easter in my hometown Heidenheim and was away for almost a whole week. When I left last Wednesday, I stopped by Nadines’s tree just to see that the little heart I put there was once again taken away. The only thing that remains constantly untouched is a shell that I dropped down by the roots some weeks ago.

My trip around easter also meant my longest absence from Nadines’s resting place so far. It worked as a distraction, because, unlike in Stuttgart, not all of the places and things in Heidenheim are strongly connected with memories of Nadine. But when I returned on Tuesday and went to Nadine’s tree again everything came back and hit me way harder than at other times.

Even though distraction is a much needed thing – you simply can’t suffer day in day out – it should propably not be overdone.  My assumption is, that when a loved one dies, you have to go through a certain amount of grief. Distraction may postpone your harm, but it is unable to spare you from what has to be experienced. In the end, my little trip strengthened my supposition that the best way to work through such terrible loss is to allow sane dosages of grief in a balanced frequency.  Which is of course not that easy to implement…