Blog: Shame

On the 7th of Sep­tem­ber 1986, the cas­ket of Ur­ho Kek­ko­nen, who had been Pre­si­dent of Fin­land for a qu­ar­ter of a cen­tu­ry, was brought in­to Hel­sin­ki Cat­hed­ral. Af­ter the fu­ne­ral ser­vi­ce, eight lie­u­te­nant-ge­ne­rals car­ried the cas­ket in­to a he­ar­se and wal­ked by the side of the he­ar­se as far as the Hie­ta­nie­mi Ce­me­te­ry. All church bel­ls of Hel­sin­ki rang throug­hout the jour­ney. All Fin­ns see­med to share the grief for his pas­sing. I lis­te­ned to the ce­re­mo­ny bro­ad­cast on the ra­dio, watc­hing the lar­ge ro­wan tree that had tur­ned red out­si­de my win­dow. Flags were flying at half-mast.

Blog: Pandemic entertainment

We are well in­to the se­cond ye­ar of the co­vid pan­de­mic. What a stran­ge time it has been! So­me­o­ne told me about their use of time, sa­ying that if they need to go to the post of­fi­ce to get a pac­ka­ge, that is the on­ly thing they can fit in­to their day. How hap­py I would be now to have even one pro­per thing to do eve­ry day. But that is not al­wa­ys the case. On those days I read the dai­ly pa­per more ca­re­ful­ly than ever. If there is not­hing el­se, we will go to the ne­ar­by rail const­ruc­ti­on site to see if the work is prog­res­sing well.

Blog: Group work for one person

I star­ted in a new job, and du­ring the first few months al­re­a­dy I have had many things to think about. As if I did not have enough on my plate al­re­a­dy! Our child­ren of­ten laugh and say that I could write good de­tec­ti­ve sto­ries with my wide-ran­ging ima­gi­na­ti­on. My ima­gi­na­ti­on brings a lot of co­lor to our dai­ly life, of­ten on­ly in my dre­ams but so­me­ti­mes even in real life.

Blog: For the last time

There are many last ti­mes in hu­man life. They in­vol­ve great joy and ex­pec­ta­ti­ons, but of­ten al­so pain and lon­ging.

Blog: Left by the wayside

I have been mar­ve­ling at the num­ber of pe­op­le with com­pu­ter skil­ls du­ring this pan­de­mic. We have on­li­ne ser­vi­ces and live-stre­a­med pre­sen­ta­ti­ons as a rou­ti­ne. In our home zion, for ins­tan­ce, we had a cong­re­ga­ti­on eve­ning on­li­ne. Eve­ryt­hing was done re­al­ly pro­fes­si­o­nal­ly. I could not have ima­gi­ned this a coup­le of ye­ars ago.

Blog: Beautiful silmät

May 9 was a Sun­day and Mot­hers’ Day this ye­ar. Nine ye­ars ago it was a Tu­es­day. On that day we had a baby boy with lo­ve­ly ey­es and long ey­e­las­hes. Throug­hout the preg­nan­cy I had gone for re­gu­lar ap­point­ments at the an­te­na­tal cli­nic, as all ex­pec­ting mot­hers do in Fin­land.

Blog: Oh, the good old times!

I sud­den­ly re­mem­be­red a small, see­ming­ly unim­por­tant in­ci­dent from my yo­uth. I was about twen­ty and al­re­a­dy awa­re of my in­na­te im­pa­tient rest­les­s­ness, which I con­ti­nue to feel oc­ca­si­o­nal­ly. “Where should we go?” I of­ten as­ked then and still do to­day.

Blog: Jesus with Daddy

It was eve­ning. The lit­t­le ones were sit­ting and pla­ying with their lego bricks. My hus­band was pre­pa­ring to go to work. He went round to each child and bles­sed them with the gos­pel. Then he came to me, and we hug­ged and bles­sed each ot­her. Sud­den­ly, when he was al­re­a­dy le­a­ving, our yo­un­gest child loo­ked up and said: “Dad­dy! You did not bless me!” My hus­band said he had al­re­a­dy done that. But the child had ap­pa­rent­ly been so se­ri­ous­ly con­cent­ra­ting on her play that she had not no­ti­ced it. She in­sis­ted: “You did not bless!”

Blog: Fragile

The pac­ka­ges had white stic­kers with a pic­tu­re of a red crys­tal glass. They had stic­kers on all si­des. In ad­di­ti­on to those stic­kers, there were ot­hers that said: ”Fra­gi­le. Hand­le with care.” From fif­ty ye­ars ago, I still re­mem­ber the inst­ruc­ti­ons for hand­ling such pac­ka­ges: “Do not throw. Do not le­a­ve un­der ot­her pac­ka­ges. Hand­le with care”.

Blog: The gift of crying

One mor­ning I was so sad that I just cried. All things see­med dif­fi­cult and frigh­te­ning, l was di­sap­poin­ted, and I felt my va­ca­ti­on had been far too short. Eve­ryt­hing see­med ut­ter­ly op­p­res­si­ve. I hug­ged my dog for con­so­la­ti­on. I lay down by its side, fee­ling my he­art weig­hed down by all my sor­rows. I just stro­ked the soft fur for a while, let­ting te­ars stream down my face, and the dog then lic­ked them off my face.