Sabrina Görlitz
I was born in the heart of Schleswig-Holstein, and to this day I prefer to be where the ocean is not far away. After studying journalism and media communications in Hamburg, I moved to my Dublin, home of my heart, for a few years. There, I worked as a project coordinator for the Irish Cancer Society. Ireland is the land of storytellers – and I too love stories, especially those that dying writes.
Dying and death have both frightened and fascinated me from an early age. Looking back, I would have liked something like ‘death education’ as a school subject, or at least a more open approach to our transience. I would have liked to have had a mentor to help me with these issues, but in our Western culture such people are hard to find.
When I became a mother, I realised that it was now my responsibility to be that person for my child. I not only wanted to prepare my son for life in the best possible way, but also for death. I asked myself: What can I do now, at the beginning of his life, to prepare him for the end?
To answer this question, I started working in hospitals and hospices in Hamburg as a palliative biographer. Sitting at the deathbed of lots of different people, I found out more about letting go, holding on, wanting to stay here and being able to leave. Together with dying people, I write down their stories – I let them tell me what is important to them in the face of approaching death, what they believe in, what they hope for and what they want to remain of them. We marvel together at the miracle of dying and try to find words for it. Most of the time, this helps us both to be a little less afraid of it and a little more curious about what is to come.
I’ve always believed in the transformative power of stories, which is one of the reasons I studied journalism. However, it has always been the quiet stories that have particularly touched me, which is why I have found my own personal niche in „palliative journalism“ – and created a profession out of my vocation. My range of services is constantly evolving, and in addition to my first own training course, I have other great projects lined up for 2024 that I will be sharing here – such as an art exhibition with a very special patient at the end of May.
And if you want to know what answers I found for my son, and not just for him, you can read my book or have me read it to you on audible.