My dear godc­hild, I de­ci­ded to write you a let­ter. I have been plan­ning to write this let­ter for some time al­re­a­dy. I would like to re­mem­ber each of my godc­hild­ren like this. I was promp­ted to write a let­ter when I read an ar­tic­le about god­pa­rent­hood in a ma­ga­zi­ne.

I go back in my thoughts to the won­der­ful mo­ment when I held you in my arms for bap­tism. The mi­nis­ter of­fi­ci­a­ting at yo­ur bap­tism spoke about the va­lu­ab­le duty of god­pa­rents.

When I have so­me­ti­mes as­ked child­ren what a good god­mot­her is like, they have said that she brings pre­sents. But brin­ging pre­sents is not the god­mot­her’s on­ly task or ob­li­ga­ti­on, alt­hough it may seem so to het godc­hild­ren. The most im­por­tant task of god­pa­rents is to sup­port the child’s Chris­ti­an faith to­get­her with his or her pa­rents. God­pa­rent­hood may re­sult in a li­fe­long friends­hip bet­ween the child and the adult.

My dear godc­hild, we have ex­pe­rien­ced many won­der­ful mo­ments of to­get­her­ness while doing or­di­na­ry eve­ry­day things to­get­her. I re­mem­ber the ti­mes we ba­ked ca­kes to­get­her and went on trips and pic­nics. I have al­so en­jo­yed the spe­ci­al oc­ca­si­ons of ce­leb­ra­ting yo­ur birth­da­ys and ot­her fes­ti­ve mo­ments to­get­her. I al­wa­ys ea­ger­ly look for­ward to yo­ur vi­sits. I hope we can con­ti­nue to have such nice mee­tings even in the fu­tu­re.

I feel that the god­mot­her ret­re­ats in­to the backg­round as the child grows up. But that does not mean that she for­gets about her godc­hild­ren. Each of them still has their own place in my he­art and my pra­yers.

Knit­ting a sock

I think about you,

at the thres­hold, ope­ning the door in­to life,

full of the op­ti­mism of yo­uth.

I think about you,

and knit many qui­et pra­yers,

many whis­pers

in­to the stri­pes of the sock.

One of the most pre­ci­ous tasks of god­pa­rents is to re­mem­ber their godc­hild and his or her fa­mi­ly in pra­yers. Many of my pra­yers have been on­ly qui­et sighs. I have es­pe­ci­al­ly re­mem­be­red you, dear godc­hild, when things have been dif­fi­cult for you.

While wri­ting this let­ter, I re­mem­ber with spe­ci­al warm fee­lings you, dear godc­hild of mine, who have gi­ven up yo­ur child­hood faith. I will pray to the He­a­ven­ly Fat­her that you will hear His call. ”Show me yo­ur ways, Lord, te­ach me yo­ur paths.” (Ps. 25:4).

We sat at the tab­le

dra­wing pic­tu­res,

I lis­te­ned to the light­ness of yo­ur speech.

Next to me anot­her face,

ey­es full of child-like joy.

Now I stand at the win­dow

lis­te­ning,

fall le­a­ves have

rest­less ec­ho­es.

The le­ast I can do

is to fold my fin­gers in pra­yer.

I want to thank you, dear godc­hild of mine, for all the lo­ve­ly let­ters and cards that you wrote with yo­ur chil­dish handw­ri­ting as well as the pic­tu­res that I have re­cei­ved. I feel very good to have been re­mem­be­red. Now that hard­ly any­bo­dy is sen­ding let­ters or cards any more, I would love to get a card from you or a new pic­tu­re of you and yo­ur fa­mi­ly!

With lots of love,

yo­ur god­mot­her

Text: Vau­la Es­ke­li

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

You will find the ori­gi­nal blog post here.