Care instead of career: terminated to provide the terminally ill mother

It started with a contribution to LinkedIn at the end of 2023. A mail to prevent speculation. Emma-Isadora Hagen explains that she will leave Peek & Cloppenburg. You, which had been in focus for more than a decade for more than a decade. You, who had already taken on a leadership role at 22 and finally led one of the company’s top 10 houses with around 200 employees, announced at short notice. The then 31-year-old decided on her Motherthat fought with lung cancer in the final stages. Hagen said goodbye from the permanent position into the unknown. Your contribution received a lot of encouragement. As a result, she repeatedly reported on the platform about her special situation in the context of the world of work to show how linked the two areas and how strongly the mother’s disease influenced her working life. Her mother now died in mid -March. She has spoken to the star about her experiences of the past year and a half.

When it was clear that my mother would die, everything changed. I had a five -year plan and was ready to go the next career step. I had never considered termination or independence. But when my mother’s health deteriorated, we didn’t know how much time she was still going, it had to be quick. At that time it was not foreseeable that she would still have a year and a half, the signs were more on weeks.

Before that, I tried to do justice to my management responsibility for seven months and at the same time as often as I could be with my mother. I used every free time I had needed my entire vacation. Sometimes I drove the 700 kilometers just because of an appointment. At some point I had the feeling that everyone was neglected: my mother, my team, myself. I felt that I had reached my limits and had to make a decision.

Priorities can change extremely quickly. My career was always the top priority. But in these seven months my relationship with my private life and my family turned completely, my values ​​have shifted. It is bad when a person is said that it will no longer go on for them. I had a very, very good relationship with my mother. I just wanted to be there for her, spend time with her, see and listen to what she needs. I had no idea how it would be for me, but I knew I wanted to invest time.

My superiors would have liked to keep me in the company and supported me from the start, but at that time there was no alternative to termination. With that, you can say, I ended my career. Without perspective. I knew that in an emergency I would be secured by ALG1 because I had earned well beforehand. So I didn’t have to worry financially. Others may not have this luck in such a situation. And I also have no children for whom I take responsibility.

I pulled near my mother for a few weeks, then I completely broke my tents in Berlin. My everyday life suddenly looked very different, I had to completely reorganize myself. I like to work, that’s my being. I was not used to having so much time available. That overwhelmed me and I also questioned whether I really did the right thing with the termination. But these moments when I doubted were rare.

There were times when my mother was better, in others she was dependent on intensive care. During chemotherapy and radiation, she had to struggle very much with the side effects, it was no longer independent, accordingly the nursing tasks grew. Then it was no longer just about the household, then you help you take a shower and go to the toilet, put on your shoes. Things that you usually don’t do with your parents.

In other times, during the chemo break, she was in a good mood again. Then it was more about fulfilling her wishes. Nothing big, typical mother-daughter: go a cappuccino on the marketplace, shop and we sorted the pictures of the whole family together. In the end, when she was in the hospice, it was all about being with her. The cancer had scattered, it had many metastases in the brain.

I wasn’t alone with care. As long as my mother was at home, we also had support from various institutions. And my two brothers were also officially deposited with the health insurance company. We were three – and yet the whole bureaucratic complex with health insurance, pension insurance and so on was incredibly time -consuming and annoying. It is extremely challenging to agree on the bureaucratic effort, family and work. Some people have nobody and have to do it all by themselves. In my eyes it is not okay how difficult it is made in Germany.

I was worried about job and money during this time. It was never possible for me to get ALG2. At the same time, I was very afraid that I would start a job after the year and that my mother might get worse again. So I can’t give a hundred percent because I have to be with her. I dealt with many job models and also had conversations, self -employment was the most intelligent solution.

In the meantime I speak on large stages, have a newsletter and many successful collaborations. Ultimately, something positive developed for me, I switched to entrepreneurship. At the same time, I remained a maximum flexible, that was very good, because such a disease does not go linearly, nothing can be planned. I therefore canceled a lot.

In the end it went very quickly, within 48 hours. Neither my brothers nor I had expected it. I was professionally in Berlin when I got the call that my mother was dying. I was completely dissolved, at some point the automatism started. I remember howling the suitcases. I was in the hospice six and a half hours after the call. I didn’t even drink on the way so that I don’t have to go to the toilet. I was really afraid that I couldn’t be with her in her very last moment. But it worked.

On the day of my termination I had never seen it all come. If I hadn’t dared to take the step into the uncertainty, I would have lost twice: I would probably never have ended up in my dream job today and I couldn’t have collected many valuable memories with my mother.