Theater

In this touching story about love, saying goodbye and carrying on, Arjen tells about losing his husband to cancer.

February 2019. Arjen's husband is diagnosed with cancer and not much later it turns out he has metastases. After believing that it is curable for a while, that hope fades after six months. On 18 March 2021, he dies. 

What is it like to live with someone you have to say goodbye to? How do you deal with the fact that everything you thought was certain is suddenly uncertain? How do you live on after that? 

Based on how he experienced this period of saying goodbye, mourning, fleeing and getting up again to carry on, Arjen Barel shares his own story. In all honesty and vulnerability. 

Arjen Barel (1973) spends much of his professional life listening to stories and training people in the art of storytelling and using story sharing for transformation. Until 2017, he was responsible for the programme of the International Storytelling Festival Amsterdam. He regularly coaches and directs storytellers, both amateurs and professionals. 

Arjen teaches storytelling and he also provides training for professionals in the use of storytelling in social social work in different places around the world. He studied Darama Studies and Cultural Studies at the University of Amsterdam.

Credits:
Narrated by Arjen Barel, 
directed by Marjolein Frijling 
Production by Joris Buis