B. Pahl-Eberhart «Four minus three»

What are eight clowns doing at the bedside of a boy who is almost dead, whose life is kept only by medical machines? They came to say goodbye. They were called by the mother of the child. The day before, she forever said goodbye to her one and a half year old daughter, whom the doctors could not save. And before that — with her husband. She has an unusual profession: she works as a hospital clown in this very hospital, where her loved ones were brought after a terrible accident at a railway crossing. So she asked her colleagues to put on their «work» suits and red noses so that they would be there when she turned off the devices, let her son go and was left all alone. She describes step by step her path — parting, pain, reconciliation within herself, sympathy and support, but also misunderstanding — outside. Because others have their own opinion about «as it should be.» And Barbara does a lot in spite of him. “I consciously took a lighter, “lighter” path. And in doing so, she apparently violated certain taboos regarding ideas about how one should express one’s grief in connection with death. Eight clowns in a hospital room is just the beginning of this journey. Which in fact is not easy and not simple, but leads to life and love. She needed to talk about it — in letters to friends, in interviews and, finally, in a book. So she mourned the dead, so she kept herself on this side of being, so she kept her mind. What she wrote now becomes support for many who have had to lose loved ones. It reveals something important to us about ourselves and about others. For example, that the mutual accusations of those who remained may not be a manifestation of their evil will, but “substitutes” for pain that cannot be endured. That we are allowed both to ask for help and to refuse it. And that you can come to a new love without betraying the old one and keeping the memory of it.

Eksmo, 365 p.