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Anke - In - Brandt

@ankeinbrandt

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A place where grief has space
Rebuilding life: lost my soulmate to cancer - HealingTogether
love:⛺️🪂🏄🏼‍♀️🤿🤸🏻🧘🏻‍♀️🏂
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5 months today. 🤍

Coming home on exactly this date felt particularly potent.

For days, maybe even weeks, I had been bracing myself for this moment.

It’s a strange feeling. You know your person is no longer there, but somehow your neurological wiring hasn’t caught up.

Somewhere in that old wiring, there’s still the expectation of seeing you standing at the airport.
Flowers in your hand.
That big, cheeky smile on your face.

I had been thinking about asking someone to pick me up. Something I would normally never do.
And before I even asked, a friend offered.

All I had done was allow myself to be a little vulnerable in our conversation.

And then there were the flowers.

I had actually thought about asking him to bring me some. Just to recreate a little bit of that special moment of coming home.

But I didn’t. I thought, “I can always buy flowers for myself.”

For days, I had been talking to you, JM.
Asking you to stay close.
To guide me through coming home alone for the first time.

And somehow, the whole journey unfolded in the most beautiful way.

Friends appearing unexpectedly during my layover. Lovely conversations.
People checking in on me throughout the day without even knowing I was travelling.

So much laughter and connection on a day I had been dreading.

And then I arrived.

There he was, my friend, waiting for me.
With my favourite flowers. 😍
He had no idea.

I was completely floored.

And suddenly, all those little moments felt connected.

I had spent so much time preparing myself for your absence, and instead, I felt surrounded by love.

I feel you, JM.

And I was reminded once again how beautifully life can unfold when we stop trying to control every little thing.

Five months without you physically here.

And somehow, still feeling so deeply looked after. 🤍 by @ankeinbrandt

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4 days ago

This bottle came from Mount Etna in Sicily.

Filled with potent energy.

An Italian princess’s wedding, climbing active volcanoes, long boat rides, kitesurfing together, diving through caves, endless hikes and the possibility of a new life.

It felt like the perfect trip.

We brought this bottle home for THAT special moment.

Ours never arrived in the way we imagined.

Today, I stopped waiting for the perfect moment and we opened the bottle.
The future we imagined is gone, but we celebrated the life that had actually happened.

There were tears, stories, laughter, and glasses raised to you my love, JM. So much gratitude for the light you brought into our family.

How wildly life spins together dreams, hopes and expectations…
and how differently the story can unfold.

---

5 month coming up..
Feels like forever and yesterday at once. by @ankeinbrandt

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7 days ago

🩶 The story we don’t tell

In the last 24 hours of his life, my husband told me about a stone he had bought for me. He said it was in his motorcycle jacket and that he had wanted to make a necklace out of it, but he hadn’t had the time.

To him, its beautiful layers represented the different realms of existence.
And he told me, “I know we are already together in the next realm.”

After he passed away, I took the stone to a jeweler. I explained what I wanted, but I didn’t share the story. I simply said it was important to me.

When I returned, he told me he had stopped working on it. Something didn’t feel right, he felt he needed to speak to me before continuing.

As he shared his thoughts, I started crying. And finally, I told him the story.

He was deeply moved, and together we created something far more meaningful than I could have imagined.

But that encounter also made me realize something else:
If this stone had carried happiness, I would have shared its story without hesitation.

Yet because it was connected to death, I had stayed silent. I didn’t want to make him uncomfortable with my grief.

And suddenly I wondered:

Why do we share our joy so freely, yet feel the need to protect others from our sadness?

When I finally opened up, I didn’t burden him. Quite the opposite. It created a beautiful moment of human connection.

And I realized that sometimes, by hiding our grief, we also hide the depth of our love.

Although JM wasn’t able to finish the necklace, somehow, through this experience, I feel we completed something together.

When I look at it now, I see all those layers he spoke about. The different realms. And how clearly he saw us already together somewhere beyond what we can see or understand.

But I also see something else:
A reminder to speak my heart.

To share the stories that matter, even when they are painful.
To stop assuming that grief is something other people need protecting from.

The jeweler didn’t need protection from my grief. He needed to know the story to understand what he was creating.

Perhaps we need to become a little more comfortable with each other’s sadness, so we don’t miss the beauty that can come from connection. by @ankeinbrandt

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9 days ago

The longer I grieve,
the more obsessed I become with life.
Not only the life I used to live,
but the life I’m still able to create.
And this is how I carry our love forward.

Movement. Laughter. Human connection.
Medicine for my broken heart. ❤️

This is all just a video game..

And the reality is: “There is no timeline, no “right” way to grieve. Some days will be heavy, and some will feel lighter. Some moments will bring unexpected waves of sadness, while others will fill you with gratitude for the love and life you were lucky enough to experience..” (by Jim Carry)

And with all the play
I feel you all around me ☺️

Until we meet again.
Maybe not in person,
but in everything You and I loved. by @ankeinbrandt

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13 days ago

If you’ve ever lost someone, you already know — grief doesn’t stay in your head.

It sits in your body. The breath. The bones. Some days the weight of missing them makes you wonder if they’re really gone.

But maybe they’re not. Maybe they just changed form.

Because loss isn’t something you fix. It’s something you carry — in how you love now, how you show up, the quiet kindness, the awareness.

Maybe that’s not just memory. Maybe that’s them — still moving, carried forward through us.

Maybe this is why loss doesn’t need to be fixed.
Only carried.

Because we become the carriers of their love and light.

Never lost always found by @ankeinbrandt

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18 days ago

Loving you changed my life
Losing you did the same

Never did I meet a man so connected with his home soil.
You opened up worlds to me — indigenous trees, large mammals, insects, snakes and birds.
You looked at nature differently to anyone else: never with fear, always with curiosity, entangled in a way few could understand.

We traveled far but stopped for every little creature crossing our path.
We watched birds fly high, dust- and sunbathe, or catch their prey.
Through you I learned to appreciate every nuance of their calls.

You brought me so close to the Big Five that I could almost feel each animal’s breath, with such confidence that no cell in my body doubted you.
You found the craziest wild camping spots — through thick bush, muddy roads, storms and sunshine — always safely tucked away somewhere.
— always with a plan, true fuel to my curiosity to create, learn and my sense of adventure.

We flew high together around the world, gliding through thermals into sunsets.

We experienced love on a soul level.
I witnessed a man growing into his truth, a soul transforming into light.
Our hearts opened in a way I never expected — with utmost honesty, vulnerability, and raw, real love.

There was something sacred in how you moved through the world.
Not a god above it, but within it — in the soil, the storm, the breath of every creature. You lived it. Mother Nature held you as one of her own, and holds you still. You haven’t left her — you’ve returned to her completely.

Solid as a mountain, firm as the earth.
I live in you, you live in me.
I promise to keep learning, for as I am close to nature I am close to you

Never lost always found ❤️🕊️ by @ankeinbrandt

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a month ago

You had Africa tattooed on your back — right where I'd often rest my hand.
And where I held you as you slowly transitioned.

Today this is a tribute to you.
Not to remember you but to carry you forward.

You gave me a feeling of home.
You made me feel that I belong.
You made me feel safe.

Today you truly got under my skin.

Birds, because we migrated together.
The birds also represent our meeting ground, flying high together in the clouds.
You also opened up the bird kingdom to me and we spend many hours watching them.

I also see in them the African fish eagle.

The day after you left our earthly realm, I was walking near the hospital, looking down at my phone, sorting out „must dos“ for us when I heard it calling..
I looked around but couldn’t see it.
Then I looked up, and there it was, right above me, thermaling in slow circles, In the middle of Cape Town, calling again.
I know it was you.

African fish eagles mate for life
And defend their territory fiercely against intruders.
This was us.

So as long as I live, you live — on me, in me, with me, through me.

Never lost always found. by @ankeinbrandt

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a month ago

Three months today.
Quarter of a year.
92 days.

I used to think grief was about learning to live with an absence.
I’m starting to think it’s the opposite — learning to live with a presence that changed shape.

He’s not gone the way I thought gone would feel. He’s just not here in the way he used to be here. There’s a difference, and I only found it by living inside it.
Most of the world, for most of history, actually didn’t seem to believe presence ends when a body dies.
It seems as if it is really only the part of the world I grew up in that seemingly insists on the ending.

When I look around, learn, and reflect, it seems as if in many other places it is different—every older culture, every tradition I’ve been reading — the dead don’t leave. They, kind of, change rooms.

From the start I talked to him.. I thought I was strange, but it felt good. So I kept talking to him.
When I see two birds fly together, when I land somewhere we once landed, when something is funny in the exact way only he’d find funny — I tell him.

I don’t know if he hears it.
But I know that saying it changes something in me every time.
Maybe that’s what “living on” actually means — not that they’re watching from somewhere far away, but that they’re close enough to still be spoken to.

Three months. Still talking to you. ❤️
You are in me I am in you by @ankeinbrandt

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2 months ago

taken in World Between Worlds by @ankeinbrandt

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2 months ago

I challenged myself to finish the video about this week before everyone departs. I think the sleepless night was worth it - everyone had a memory to take home.

It has been an awesome week. Every day is different, you never know what you will encounter.

Big thanks to our incredible skipper @emilpirzenthal, our guide @wildcoastcalling, and @swellecolodge for hosting us in this unique place with amazing food.

Thank you also to our amazing guests @wildlife_nomad @consciously.connected.living @guy_forster @jaimecoue @ankeinbrandt

Now we start week 2 - who knows what we will see…

Filmed and edited by @storyofjess
Footage of whale mama and baby kindly provided by @ankeinbrandt taken in Wild Coast, South Africa by @ankeinbrandt

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3 months ago

But do you feel free she asked...

The level to which we are conditioned is the level to which we are free
Every time we protect ourselves from pain our walls only grow taler
Imprisoning our soft hard until we can no longer feel the world
Every tragedy becomes a distant event that doesn’t concern us
Every joy becomes fleeting and cut off by numbness
Love says: „My heart is with your heart,
I will walk with you through the dark nights of your soul
Your fear is a map to your freedom“

When you think your life is falling apart remember it is merely those walls around your heart crumbling away so life can rush in

Allie Michelle by @ankeinbrandt

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4 months ago

This day could have not turned out any better.
The weather was perfect, for flying, for crying and for a lunch in the afternoon sun.

Mother nature provided.

It was a hard day without you today, very hard..
This was us.
I was looking out for your landing and to see your big smile you always had after each flight.
It will always live in my heart.

I am in you, you are in me.
To the moon and back.
With so much love and gratitude for you. taken in Sedgeview: Sedgefield Paragliding by @ankeinbrandt

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5 months ago