{"id":5576,"date":"2025-05-15T21:04:19","date_gmt":"2025-05-15T19:04:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/?p=5576"},"modified":"2025-05-15T21:04:19","modified_gmt":"2025-05-15T19:04:19","slug":"exit-but-make-it-at-a-five-star-hotel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/2025\/05\/exit-but-make-it-at-a-five-star-hotel\/","title":{"rendered":"Exit but Make It at a Five-Star Hotel"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cExit<\/em> but Make It at a Five-Star Hotel<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Author:<\/strong> Leah Didisheim<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I sigh, pull my suitcase and open the door of the five-star hotel. I still don\u2019t understand why we\u2019re doing this. Does she even want to be here? Oh, but yes, I know about our dear traditions. More important than life, apparently. Every year we come here. It\u2019s always the same. To use our heritage together. As a united big happy family. How true it is this year is unreal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHi! So good to see you. How are you? Oh, you know\u2026, fine\u2026\u201d, we basically all say at the same time after checking in at the reception desk. It all started with a phone call from my dad not even two weeks ago. I think in some ways, I knew it was going to happen eventually. Yes it was a shock. But I can\u2019t say I was surprised to learn about it. What I was surprised at however, is that the plan to come here hadn\u2019t been cancelled. That it was still an option \u2013 and a wished-for option at that \u2013 to come here. With her. For the last time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My cousin is already in the room when I open the door. It is nice to be together in some ways. To share our sadness together. I can\u2019t think of what the staff is going to think seeing us cry together every day in the lounge though. \u201cI cried a lot when I learnt about it. Now I\u2019m ok\u2026 it depends on the days I guess,\u201d I answer my cousin. I didn\u2019t know yet that I was going to cry every day. Seeing the others cry or hurt won\u2019t help. Or you could say that in some ways it will. She hasn\u2019t cried once. But she wants to. She feels her body wants to, she tells me while I unpack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We talk a bit while we get ready for the evening. Am I happy with who I drew for our Secret Santa? Not really. She\u2019s fine with hers. \u201cImagine the person who got her<\/em> though? How horrible is that? I thought about it last week,\u201d I tell her. We ponder on this while we finish getting ready. Our room is beautiful, as always. Outside, it had started to snow. And it won\u2019t stop for the next two days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I look at the mirror in the lift. My cousin went downstairs already. You know what, I\u2019m sick of being sad. When someone dies, you\u2019re sad because they\u2019re dead, because you didn\u2019t know it was going to happen. You couldn\u2019t plan it and act accordingly. But when someone lives with an expiration date, you\u2019re sad because they\u2019re still alive. And everything they do. And everything you see them do. Well, you can\u2019t shake the feeling that it\u2019s the last time. Yes it\u2019s great. We\u2019re all here together. As this big family. But every picture taken isn\u2019t taken because of that. It\u2019s taken because, deep down, we know it\u2019s the last one. I sigh, wipe the tear on my cheek, glue a smile on my face, and the elevator opens on to the first lively evening of our stay.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cExit but Make It at a Five-Star Hotel\u201d Author: Leah Didisheim I sigh, pull my suitcase and open the door of the five-star hotel. I still don\u2019t understand why we\u2019re doing this. Does she even want to be here? Oh, but yes, I know about our dear traditions. More important than life, apparently. Every year […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1002970,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[37],"class_list":{"0":"post-5576","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-2025-spring","7":"tag-prose"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1002970"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5576"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5692,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5576\/revisions\/5692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.unil.ch\/musemagazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}