Bound by Loss, Still Open to Joy

Dear friends, you probably remember Steffi Ewald, who lost her son, her husband, and her daughter, and whose story we've followed here many times. Ann-Christin has since become a close friend of hers, because she, too, lost her husband and her daughter. The two have become the kind of friends only shared heartbreak can make. They simply know how the other one feels, how much missing them hurts, and how hard it is to bring a new life with new people together with everything that came before. So moving.

Dear Ann-Christin, you and Steffi Ewald are close. You two have a bond few people would ever want to share. How did you two meet? 

Steffi and I met in the fall of 2014 at the university hospital in Lübeck. My daughter Lotta had already been in cancer treatment for a few months when Steffi's daughter Neele was also diagnosed with cancer. The girls were the same age, we hit it off right away, and we spent time together outside the hospital, too. 

What exactly was your daughter's diagnosis? 

Lotta was first diagnosed in 2014, when she was a year and a half old: cancer in both kidneys. Then came dozens of rounds of chemo and major surgeries, and for those we had to go to Munich for several weeks at a time. Two years later things looked pretty good, and we were living something close to a “normal” life. 

What did the situation do to you as a family?

The diagnosis was a shock, of course. “How fast life can change!” I remember thinking. I had taken Lotta to the pediatrician for a checkup because at over a year old, she still wasn't walking. The doctor just wanted to take a look at her, check how she was developing, and examine her. During the ultrasound he found “unusual growths” in her abdomen and sent us to the university hospital.

“Probably a harmless cyst,” he said, trying to reassure me. I called Lotta's dad, and just a few hours later we were in the pediatric oncology unit. It all felt so unreal, and at first I honestly struggled to say the word cancer out loud. Yes, my daughter had cancer. As a family, it brought us closer together. We accepted our fate and made the best of it.

Lotta was unbelievably brave. She never lost her cheerfulness, and she won everyone over. In spite of everything, in between rounds of chemo, we took our camper van to Spain, bought a house, and got married. Our families and friends supported us through all of it in ways I can't describe.

Her (half) sister Lola, the daughter of my husband Olaf, was especially important to Lotta. After Lotta had kidney-sparing surgery in Munich in 2016, she started preschool, and we had three carefree years. I have to say they really were carefree. Of course, the checkups always came with a queasy feeling, but I firmly believed everything would turn out fine.

In the summer of 2019, three years later, Lotta's dad got the devastating diagnosis of pancreatic cancer. He died of it a little less than a year later. In the fall of 2019, shortly after Lotta started first grade and while Olaf was in cancer treatment, Lotta was diagnosed with a relapse. She had a nagging cough, and we thought it was pneumonia. Lung cancer, far advanced. That's what we were told.

Giving up was never an option for us. Once again, Lotta bravely went through countless treatments and surgeries with all the side effects, and her joy in life stayed untouched and contagious. Schoolwork in the intensive care unit (her idea), musicals, hotel stays, and great weekends with her sister and her friends. Her energy was limitless. 

Once she said to me, “But we'll keep being happy like we always have, right? No matter what comes…?” “I promise you that!” I answered! In March 2022, one week before her ninth birthday, Lotta died from her illness.

How did you stay in touch with Steffi afterward? 

We stayed in touch all those years, mostly in writing. We saw each other a few times privately and at checkups at the hospital. During Covid, we only wrote. We really saw each other again in 2022, after our girls had died. Since then we've been in regular contact and see each other very often. We don't live far apart, either.

How do you hold each other up? 

My friendship with Steffi means the world to me. A shared fate connects you, and you feel truly understood. It's just different when someone has been through the same thing, or something similar. As much empathy as my dearest friends have, she's the only one who really knows how I feel. No one else can put themselves in that position. Before this, I couldn't imagine exactly what it really feels like when your own child dies, either. 

It feels good to talk with Steffi. We often talk about what we've been through, we cry together, and we also laugh an incredible amount together. I think we hold each other up, and there's an unspoken understanding between us. She's all heart!

When, how, and where did you last feel really close to each other?

The last time I was at Steffi's for breakfast, we talked about all the changes in our lives. We both noticed how fast everything changes and how much new has come into our lives. Her family situation has changed, and a lot has happened for me, too. In that conversation we felt very close, because we both realized that it isn't always easy to bring new happiness together with the old life and the loss. But it was exactly that unspoken understanding that truly connected us in that moment.

How are things in your family now?

Since Olaf and Lotta died, I've been living alone in our house, and I'm in the process of downsizing. I'm still in close touch with Lotta's sister Lola, and I'm glad we have such a good relationship. After Lotta's death I bought a camper van, and this summer I spent several months on the road. Pretty spontaneously, I also drove to a campground near Valencia where I had been with Lotta and Olaf.

There I met someone from Hamburg who used to come there with his family, too. Completely unexpectedly, he found his way into my heart, and I never thought I'd fall in love again. But sometimes life has other plans. I'm truly incredibly happy, and he's very caring. My whole situation surely isn't always easy for him, either, and I'm so grateful that he's by my side in this new chapter of my life. 

Is there anything you'd like to say to people going through a hard time? Maybe a little encouragement?

I'd like to tell people that even in hard times, there are small moments of hope. Lotta's joy showed me that even with all the sadness, we can experience beautiful things again. Just as I've found happiness again with my new partner, I want to show that it's worth going on — and that there are always small bright spots. It's important to me to stress that everyone grieves differently and there's no right or wrong way. I just hope I can encourage someone, even a little.