DOCUMENTARY PORTRAIT OVER THE LAST LIFE MONTHS OF MY GRANDMOTHER I often accompanied my grandma with the camera. Approaches to a time I only knew from stories. But documenting got particularly difficult in 2010. My grandma suffered a stroke in March, the second followed in September. This was a shock, especially for herself, she was as fit as a fiddle, never really depended on anyone all the years. Her brain worked always perfectly. We often sat together for many hours and she told me about her experiences before and after the war, about expulsion, hunger of the love to her husband, who died of typhoid fever only few days after the birth of my father. She has often got me from depression with her zest for life. Sometimes we argued, we caterwauled like wild geese. Then I didn't care that she was an old woman, she simply took me to the white heat. But suddenly I was really afraid. My grandma had been lying in the sickbed for a long time. We already thought it was over, the once so strong woman made the diapers full, could not speak any coherent sentence but her unshakable will made her get up again. A slow process, no one knew whether she would recover again or whether this would be the final farewell. But the grandma continued to live. She ate more again and she somehow still looked beautiful at her age. So impressive. She has taught me to go my own way as a woman. I wanted to accompany her on her last way with the camera, to help her to come to strengths again and as a document to express my own helplessness. I wanted to show the beauty in her old body and capture her pride and infinite will. It was aim of the project to find the beauty into something that we often bring in connection only with cruelty: dying. The photo work shall show the deep necessity of this process towards life. My grandmother died in February 2011, she lived to the age of 96.
