The blond woman speaks as if someone is behind her with a stopwatch. Short sentences, economical gestures, focused on the essentials. Ester Peter doesn’t have much time. In fact, almost every thought of hers revolves around taming time to gain at least a little reprieve. “Sometimes I’m a bit tired,” says the 46-year-old, smiling briefly and sipping from her coffee cup. She volunteers 80 to 100 hours a week – and that’s still not enough.
Ester Peter from Hamburg set up Germany’s first day hospice for terminally ill children and their relatives with “KinderLeben eV” . Everything on the two light-flooded loft floors is her work, she even laid the laminate. She definitely doesn’t want to be seen as a heroine. “It’s not about me,” she says firmly. But about the five to seven children who are cared for here during the day by nurses and volunteers. They can romp around on the large playground, at table football, in the music room or under the colorful “wishing tree”, live a piece of everyday life and forget death .
Only in the rest room does a burning candle in a quiet corner remind you that this normality is temporary. Next to it is a book with photos of the boy, who until recently was still coming regularly. He was an HSV fan. Someone added a little ball. “We need much more time to mourn,” says Ester Peter emphatically. “Children can and intuitively know this much better than adults. Even if they don’t say it.”
Some come for a few days, others for weeks . Ester Peter always hopes that it will turn into years. In 2010, “KinderLeben eV” started work. Not only for the children, but also for the parents, who should be given time to breathe deeply, for the siblings, who often miss out. 25,000 euros in donations have to be collected every month in order to be able to pay the rent, the six-strong nursing team and two office workers. That’s why Ester Peter writes countless emails to potential financiers every day, makes phone calls, presents her club at trade fairs, organizes benefit tournaments and even distributes leaflets at the Wacken Heavy Metal Festival. “For me, luxury is when I can shower in peace,” she says. A faint smile crosses her face again.
Then she talks about the “turnaround in my life” that started it all five years ago. She had an abscess behind the uterus. Cramps and chills set in suddenly. She had to be operated on immediately. The anesthesiologist asked her what his last words should be for her three children. “It was then that I suddenly realized that I could die. Right away. Without a grace period,” Ester Peter recalls. “And I started negotiating. I prayed, I offered God an exchange: If he lets me live, I will give him something in return.” She kept her word: now she is giving her time so that others can have more of it. A few moments of happiness . As short as they may sometimes be.
Info: hamburg-kinderleben.de, Tel. 0 40/33 42 84 11
