Last Encounter
Alt Tegel, Berlin
Treat every encounter as if it was your last – for one day, it will have been.
Alt-Tegel is a place I called home for 95% of my past life.
Last autumn, we travelled back to Berlin to clean our old apartment, cancel the contract and say goodbye.
Shortly before the trip, I read about how by the time you’re 30 years old, 95% of the time spent with your parents is already history.
You already spent around 25.000 hours with your parents. And you likely won’t get more than 1.000 hours from here on with them.
This made me realize: It may very well be that I will never see this place again in autumn colours.
Tegel is a place I took totally for granted most of my life.
A place so normal for me – and yet so beautiful.
I decided to live this week as if it was my last time visiting Alt-Tegel.
Hoping to return, but not counting on it.
To capture memories, I want to cherish forever. To take in the moments fully.
Two days after I shot my first photos of this series, my grandma suddenly died.
She was in Berlin. We were scheduled to have lunch. On the morning of that day, she died.
I didn’t have a chance to see her again. Our last encounter was in spring.
Thankfully, it was a very loving encounter. I remember the laughter we shared.
And a small thing, like extending my time with her to help her with the groceries. Despite me having had other plans.
Something in me told me, “This is more important.”
But I would not have thought that this was the last time I would see her.
Treat every encounter as if it was your last – for one day, it will have been.
And you may not know it beforehand.
Thank you, Tegel. For many wonderful years of my life, I called you “home”.
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This series was also published on Behance.
