Deeply sad day: When it became dead quiet in the Blick editorial office

I admire my Blick colleague Mathias Germann, who had to report on it as a cycling reporter. He worked there very unconsciously, he said recently during Christmas dinner. Perhaps this is an automatic protection that you can simply allow to function in such a painful situation in which you are personally affected and still have to do your job. Mathias did a damn good job.

It was also he who, three months after Gino’s death, went to the accident site at the Albula Pass with father Andreas Mäder and thought about life and death with him. And before Christmas, Mathias spoke to Gino’s sisters Jana, Laura and Lisa – about missing, grieving, commemorating.

Shock diagnosis of early dementia

These are the stories that touched me the most this year, that got under my skin and that I will never forget. Also because they make you realize how close happiness and unhappiness are. How quickly everything can happen, how grateful you can be and how consciously you have to experience and enjoy every day.

I recently met a fellow footballer who I once played with in the early 1990s. He is not feeling well. He suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. Martin Ogg is only 55 years old. The former defense chief of FC Schaffhausen no longer fights the attackers to prevent them from scoring goals. His great, unyielding opponent is the disease, which gradually destroys the nerve cells in his brain and steals his memories.

This is also a sad story. Martin wanted to tell it while he still could. And I wrote them down. That was emotional and touched me. But it was also positively moving to hear him talk about his future plans and reveal that he is getting married to his partner in February and that they will then take a long trip to Thailand.

Ogg does not want to hide, accepts his fate – and takes it into his hands. This impresses me, as does his partner, who only met him after the diagnosis and now accompanies him hand in hand with love on his journey.

Hopefully Gino is smiling

Illness and death are facets of our lives that make it difficult for us to accept and come to terms with them. A challenge that demands a lot, but also teaches us a lot. We have to find ways. Like Jana, one of Gino Mäder’s three sisters. She recently started racing bikes again. «If I want to say something to Gino, I drive away. I tell him about my day and what I experienced.”

And sometimes, when there is another steep climb, Jana scolds Gino. Then she asks him reproachfully: “Couldn’t you have chosen an easier sport?” Maybe, I really hope, Gino will smile at his sister in these moments and help her up the mountain. That would be nice. And reassuring.