Katarina lived to be nine years, one month and nine days. There are people who think Katarina should never have turned nine years, one month and nine days. Preferably she should have been discovered as a tiny fetus and been nicely aborted and we, her parents, should have created a new life of superior quality.
There are even celebrated philosophers who think that we, as we blew the chance discovering the low quality our little girl was of already in utero, should have been given the possibility to, in delivery-room, decide that our girl be killed. Because thus not only our lives, but the total life of the world would have reached a higher level of happiness.
But how can the joy of getting hold of a funny toy be measured? How do we evaluate the pleasure in having learned how to wave off a glove? Where, on a scale from 1 to 10, are the happiness in having learned how to stand up? And is the joy in having once again outsmarted the personal assistant, by hidden behind a pretended warm hug sneak oneself to rest by leaning towards the assistant instead of working hard with the standing-exercise, measured in ohm, laughs per minute or decibel?
Please accompany me at a visit by Katarina and promise me to dedicate a couple of minutes of your life in contemplating over this: which one of us unperfect humans have the ability to know anything about how another human experience her life and has therefore the ability to, with a straight back, say this: Your life is not worth living. Therefore you shall die before you have even had a chance to live.
I built this site the months after Katarina died, but it is not a site on the subject of Death, but a site on the subject of Life. My ambition was and is to provide some knowledge on all the disabilities Katarina had. And to share the happines in a life with a Special child. Life with Katarina was a Special life. It was not a Bad life.