JANUARY 2012: My daughter stands in front of me in her brand new ski suit. She's holding her dog in her arms and is laughing at me. I take a photo which I will carry in my heart from now on. It is a year and a half since she has had a cerebral haemorrhage. She lost half her sight, had to learn to speak and find her way in the world all over again. She has fought her way back to life. I am full of love.
FEBRUARY 2012: I complete my legal studies.
FEBRUARY 2012: I am about to move to a new city to become a cabin crew working in the skies! I will go to cities I never dreamt of visiting. Many friends and family are envious, some jealous, some think I should not leave my medical education for «a job like this». But at this moment I am thankful for the chance to leave my comfort zone.
FEBRUARY 2012: I move to Basel with the children, the flatshare dissolves, the family too. In minus twelve degrees we load our belongings into an old van with clammy fingers.
MARCH 2012: On 20th March my twin sister gives birth to her first child: Jonas. I secretly wish that there is a heaven from which my dad can see little Jonas grow up.
MARCH 2012: On 3rd March Dad dies overnight. The worst thing for me is that I couldn't say goodbye.
APRIL 2012: My father dies after eleven years of mental illness.
MAY 2012: Being woken up after the first night in the clinic and knowing that something had changed but not knowing what that was.
MAY 2012: I move to Tel Aviv because of the theatre project 'Saving Philotas'. I discover a new life and fall in love.
JUNE 2012: My first open air. Three days of just music, enjoying the sunshine and laughing with friends. I have finished the grammar school and a long journey and a new chapter of my life lie before me. I feel happy and free.
JULY 2012: I have passed my exams. My new freedom feels splendid. The sun is shining.
AUGUST 2012: I have arranged to meet someone whose age and appearance I don't know. The square is full of people. Then I see a man and immediately know: That's him.
AUGUST 2012: So that’s what it’s like once the soul has gone, I think, seeing my father’s body laid out.
AUGUST 2012: The tests the specialist makes reveal that my boyfriend and I will have great difficulty having children.
SEPTEMBER 2012: I get to know part of my family in London. The Holocaust spread my family across the entire world. My cousin saw me just after I was born, then we lost touch. Meeting again now after twenty-six years is like a little miracle.
SEPTEMBER 2012: He wants children, I don't. It's over.
SEPTEMBER 2012: I fall head over heels in love.
SEPTEMBER 2012: My father tells me he is gay. He leaves my mother after twenty-eight years of marriage for a younger man. My mother cries a lot. My brothers are unnerved.
SEPTEMBER 2012: After many years working on cancer research at the university clinic I complete my dissertation and start working for a small private company.
NOVEMBER 2012: I sing 'Frère Jacques' with my grandfather. Afterwards we smoke a cigarette from Moscow. At that moment I know it will be the last time I see granddad alive. I am happy that I had the chance to say goodbye.
NOVEMBER 2012: I am run over by a cyclist and have a bad fall. My broken foot has healed, but I am still working on my elbow and shoulder.
NOVEMBER 2012: I am returning disillusioned from an interview. My phone rings and I have got the study grant. I get off the tram, crying with joy and forgetting my bike. I have to run after it all the way to the terminus.
DECEMBER 2012: Karl and I celebrate our silver wedding – we are well, we are healthy and contented, our relationship is right.
DECEMBER 2012: A diary that we've entitled «ILD» becomes a living history and a document of our own life story. And it remains a story of two – a little world for us only in the world of «Grüezi miteinand.»