Grieve

It was tingling in my mind these afternoon and out of nothing I was thinking about this old friend of mine – Piet.

And I got the answer in the evening, among the new emails arrived today, this sad news brought me to weep. Piet Feddersen has passed away.

About five years ago, in the cold September he picked me up from Flensburg train station, managed to take my extra heavy luggage to the second floor of student dormitory, and was still able to make me laugh with his jokes despite of the miserable & depressing situation I had to face, being an alien in a strange place, leaving my family back home.

Later on I knew that he helped all of us, the international students who arrived from many countries. And he did more than helping us, he took care of us.

One day he had a heart attack. I and Antonieta were not allowed to see him in his room while he was hospitalized, so we decided to visit him soon as he was back home. He told us how he bravely call the medical aid right after the attack and that was how he survived. That day I got to know him better, he told us about his broken family, his long lost love, and his passion on the boat he was constructing himself. He was 68 years old in 2007 when he finally sail his boat which he named Lucky Castle.

The last week of my stay in Germany, he did me a big favor by help me to find a place to bind my final work – a four hundreds page document which was promptly rejected by 3 photocopy shops since they can’t handle the thickness.

Goodbye Piet, thanks for being a very good friend, for lending your helping hands, and for the courage you taught me even when you did not mean to do so.

Piet’s page is http://www.pietfeddersen.de/