The Friedenslinde (Peace Linden) 🌳

Green is the color of hope. I can still remember the first time I heard that saying. I was asked to choose the color for a game called "Mensch ärgere Dich nicht!" (Man, Don't Get Angry!) and I chose green. I didn't win.

Still, I stuck with this color. Because you should never give up hope.

The Villa Stark in Markneukirchen was my home for two years. An important chapter in my life. You are not automatically rich when you live in a villa. You are rich when you experience love. This building is a children's home. A place where fates meet. A quick tutorial on the meaning of life.

We were 20-30 children and teenagers, divided into three groups. Nobody comes to a children's home when everything is okay. Some of us have spent our entire childhood there. It was 1998 when I got there. That was 8 years after the end of the German Democratic Republic. The children's home was just being modernized. I moved into a newly renovated villa - cool! From my mates and the childcare workers I learned how it used to be. When there was only one bathroom and how they used the same washing machine for all laundry and warming up sausages. When the furniture was old and the floors were worn out. But that at the time they were satisfied with what they had.

Having something is what most people want. Having a family is very nice. But life is fleeting. And it has its own plan. Whatever you have left is you. Your heart, your wishes and your dreams. With it you fill life wherever you are. That's exactly where the whole point lies. You can't buy love. You can never earn, force or demand it. You can only be a person of love. Nobody can take that away from you, except yourself. That's the energy to freely shape your life.