In Memoriam of Fredrik Ahlerup

About my friend and colleague Fredrik Ahlerup.

It is with a great sorrow we have to announce that Fredrik has left us – very unexpectedly. We are many - in the “Bliss world” and as well outside it - who miss him so much.  He learned his first Bliss-words when he was five years old and understood very soon why they were so important. Later in life he was often concerned about young non-speaking people without a good way to communicate. He tried to “sell” Bliss – because he knew the great value of it! We worked together for several years, I as his Bliss-teacher and he as my student but I believe that he often taught me more than I him. He, as well as myself, just loved to create new Bliss-words for complicated concepts which came up all the time.

A few years after Fredrik finished school, he became my colleague. He played an important part in many of our Bliss-workshops and his contributions were always much appreciated. He was a great inspiration for other Bliss-users in Sweden! Another part of his job was to translate books for children into Bliss. There was and still is a never ending need for that.

Fredrik was a fighter in many ways and he had a constant fight with his body. He said once: my body does not obey my head! It bothered him that he always was depending on other persons for practical matters. But his thinking was always independent!

I am very grateful for the possibility to get to know him and to have him as a colleague as well as a friend.

Britt Amberntson

Fredrik was born June 5, 1972 and died October 28, 2008. His home and family was in Malmö but he lived also in early days some time in Stockholm and several years in Göteborg as a student. After he had finished high-school in Göteborg he returned to Malmö. He lived in his own apartment and employed his assistants himself. He worked as an AAC and Bliss-expert in the South Unit of the Swedish Institute for Special Education.