Evening Sky in Somero

I love the fact that this is the view of the sky in Somero this evening. But even more than that I love the fact that my eleven-year-old son Cameron called me outside to come and look at it.

Hope you are all having a peaceful Easter Saturday.

Endings, Beginnings and Friends

It's been a sad and heavy week, there is no denying that. But with all endings there are also new beginnings, and that is what I am trying to focus on right now. We said a final goodbye to my Dad this morning. I don't have words to describe the way I felt inside. Or now, for that matter. At the same time, the service was a simple and fitting tribute to a man who did not like extravagant and complicated things. The organist played "Jesu Joy of Man's Desiring", one of my Dad's favourite tunes. And we placed daffodils and white and yellow roses on his coffin.

The vicar, Mark East, was lovely. Very genuine and thoughtful and kind. I hope maybe one day I can persuade him and his family to visit us in Somero.  The funeral director, David Preston, was also very supportive and understanding. It made it much easier that I had met him a few months ago, as his wife and my parents were in the same care home. Somehow I felt as though I was among friends.

And now the funeral is behind us, it is time to go back home. This time I am bringing both my parents back with me to Finland. My Dad very much liked the idea that his ashes would come back to be with the family in Finland. And as for my Mum, she is making a new start back in her home town of Lumijoki (near Oulu) where many members of our family still live.

In the midst of all the tears, there was also some happy news for our family last week. After months of living a sort of "in-between" life, we have now finally found a new home. Last Friday it became officially ours. We can move into it as soon as we get back to Somero. That has to be a good thing.

And another good thing is the tremendous amount of friendship and love that has been shown to us over the past few weeks. Something I will never forget.  The messages continue to come, and each one has made a very sad time just a little bit more bearable.

Thank you again to everyone who has been part of this stage of our journey. Let's hope the journey now continues as one which is less sad, more positive and full of good health and happiness for us all.
It's certainly what my Dad would have wanted.

Remember to Say Thank You

If my Dad was here now, I know exactly what he would be saying to me.

Picture taken by my Mum yesterday

"How extraordinary that all those people have remembered a silly old fool like me. How kind of them. I hope you remember to say thank you."

Anyone who knew my dad will tell you that those are the words he would have used. He never learned to accept that he was truly valued by other people, although I think he knew that his family loved him.  But courtesy and gratitude and politeness were fundamental to who he was. Right until the end. That is why everyone always described him as a gentleman, and also probably why, when I am teaching Finns to speak English, I always emphasise how important it is to remember to say please and thank you!

It has been a week of tremendous loss, as anyone who has lost a parent will know. But over the last two days I have also been overwhelmed by the amount of love and kindness which has come through messages we have received from literally all over the world.

I even received a message from Paloma, a reader of this blog in Brazil, someone I have never met, but who took the time  to write anyway. I found that amazingly kind. My Dad would also love the fact that someone had thought about him as far away as Brazil.

If my Dad is out there somewhere watching all of this, he will be overcome with gratitude, and he would absolutely insist on me passing on his thanks to each and every one of you. In Finnish, when someone dies, the expression we use is "otan osaa". Which translated into English means "I take a piece of it" (the grief). I like that expression very much. We all go through challenges and losses in life and sometimes have to face things that we really do not want to face. But our strength as human beings lies in supporting each other through these times and holding the hands of our friends and family when they need it. Taking a piece of the grief. That is certainly the experience I have had over the past few days - and there aren't really words which are sufficient in a situation like this. All I can say, on behalf on both myself and my Dad, is thank you. That is the very least he would have expected of me.  I can only hope that some day I am able to give back all that I have received.

Goodbye Dad

Rest peacefully Dad. I love you. 

In the early hours of this morning I received the phone call I have been dreading for months. My Dad had fallen asleep for the last time.

He went peacefully at the end and I am grateful for that. I also know that it is what he wanted. He was tired, and his life had no real quality to it anymore. But of course I can't help the fact that my heart feels as though it has broken into a thousand pieces. Anyone who has been through the bereavement of a loved one will know what I mean.

My Dad was a character. All the nurses loved him. But he retained his stubborn side right to the end. When the buzzer went off in the corridor of the care home a couple of days ago, he still told it to "shut up" several times. And even after he had just collapsed last Friday he was correcting the nurse's use of English even before he was fully conscious again. If he is reading this now he will be telling me off for starting a sentence with the word "and". But he will also forgive me because I have at least acknowledged that I am breaking a grammatical rule. (Same with the word "but").

My Dad was wrong about one thing though. He always thought that he wasn't much of a Dad. I spent years trying to persuade him otherwise, but he would never listen. the truth is that he was GREAT Dad. More than anything, he gave me the knowledge that I have experienced the love of at least one man in my lifetime. And what greater gift is there than that? It is because of him that I love writing and words - and therefore because of him that this blog exists. It is because of him that my own children have been hounded about saying "please" and "thank you" and always trying to be polite. And of course spelling words the way they are supposed to be spelled. It is because of him making me practice that I am quite good at doing sums in my head. Even though he never succeeded in making me enjoy maths!

My Dad was generous and compassionate. He hated the fact that there was so much suffering in the world and that there are still so many people who didn't have enough to eat. He gave his money to those with nothing all his life, and he would have wanted me to carry on doing the same. In his last days he said he would like to win the lottery. I asked what he would do with the money. "I'd give a third to your Mum", he said "and a third to charity" he said. "Someone could do a lot with that."

He loved and admired Shakespeare. He could recite sonnets even at the age of ninety and enjoyed writing poems of his own. During his lifetime he played table tennis, then snooker. He played the violin and at one time enjoyed listening to opera singers. His favourite was Nellie Melba. His favourite colour was lilac.
He also collected pigs and owls and gramophones.  My Dad and I shared a similar sense of humour and even in his last weeks he would tell me about the 35 mile run he had been on that morning....

One of his dying wishes was that one day I would meet someone special to take care of both me and the family.  Someone who would love us all and stick around during good times and bad. I had pretty much given up on the idea of finding love again, but my Dad thought otherwise. He told me that if he had the power to send someone to us once he was gone, then he would do so. I don't know what kind of man my Dad would choose, but it will be someone who always says please and thank you. And definitely someone who is kind to others and knows how to spell. And it won't be Tony Blair.

There would be so much more to say. But only one thing matters. I was lucky to have a Dad like him. I loved him very much. I still do. And I will think about him every day for the rest of my life. Thank you Dad for everything, for being the person you were. I hope that somehow we meet again some day. Until then, as my Dad used to say "God Bless. I love you".    

Mother's Day

This week on Sunday was Mother's Day in the UK (in Finland it is not until May). I was glad to have the chance to spend the day with my own mother this year, but in many ways it was an odd kind of Mother's Day to be honest. I have been a Mum myself for almost twenty years, but in the last twelve months I have had to think about the concept of "motherhood" in a whole new way.

The recent development of my own mother's illness means that my relationship with her has changed radicallyover the past year. Quite often these days she does not remember who I am, and I can no longer tell her details about my life that I would have shared in the past. Even on the days when she does remember me, there are still whole sections of my life which she is no longer aware of. So for me, I have been getting used to a whole new relationship with a person I have known all my life. I try to look after her interests now, whereas once it was her looking after me. Of course she is still my mother, but she talks with a different voice these days. And all this takes some getting used to, as I know several of my friends have experienced with one or both of their own parents.

This Mother's Day was also the first on which I said "Happy Mother's Day" to my own daughter - Saskia, who recently became a mother herself. That was odd. Until now there's only been one Mum in the family -me. Now there are two of us!

And of course this year I approached Mother's Day as a single Mum as well, so even my own role as a mother has been totally redefined.   There have certainly been lots of changes over the last few months. Motherhood is the most wonderful and the most challenging of things, and I guess no-one ever gets it entirely right. The best we can hope for is that the children that any of us mothers are blessed with, grow up to know how much they are loved. Happy British Mother's Day to you all!

What Matters

Two days ago I was more frightened that I can ever remember being in my life. I was with my Dad at the care home where he is living. He had not been feeling well all day due to an allergy he had developed suddenly. He asked my mother and me to help him get to the bathroom, and as we did so, he lost consciousness, his body went completely weak and he collapsed.

I thought he was going to die in my arms. Without being a doctor I had no idea what had happened. All I could see was that he was drifting away from us. I was shouting for help and it took a few minutes for anyone to come - it felt like three hours.

All I could say was " I love you Dad.." because at that moment I thought that these would be the last words I would ever be able to say to him. My mother was praying. The nurses called for an ambulance and the paramedics arrived. It is very rare that I panic about something, but in this situation I was anything but calm. I was scared.

In the end it turned out that my Dad's fainting was probably just due to low blood pressure - certainly not the heart attack or stroke I had feared. Obviously this was good news, but that does not change the very real feelings that we all felt at the time. For those few minutes when we all thought that the end had come for my Dad, we automatically turned to what is really important to each of us. Love, family and the hope that there is a higher power.

There was no thought at that moment about whether it was raining outside, whether the place was tidy, whether our clothes had been ironed or how much money anyone had, or didn't have. None of that mattered   In the end, what matters is appreciating life and being with the people you love, on the bad days as well as the good. All the rest is secondary.

For me, this was one of those moments that I will never forget. But just one day later, my parents' memory loss meant that they had both forgotten (literally) all about it! As though the whole thing never happened. So I guess it all turned out well in the end. Neither my Mum nor my Dad has a traumatic memory to deal with, and I have learnt some lessons that will stay with me for the rest of my life.

 

Feel Good Music List

Somero today. Minus seven degrees. Wind. And worst of all....MORE snow. NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

You can deal with snow in November because it's the start of winter and it's pretty. Snow in December is fine because it's Christmas. You can't escape snow in January because it's still the middle of winter so that's ok. Snow in February means skiing competitions and enjoying winter sports so we can forgive it.

Good music makes you feel like this...

But snow in March is NOT ok. Snow in March means that this is the fifth month of it. And just as we get our hopes up and it starts melting and falling off the rooves then it starts all over again. That is not ok. It is too much snow and it is time to stop.

So. We need some music to being some warmth to this never-ending winter. My lovely friend Eve Mantu posted today on Facebook that she was listening to Abba to make her feel better, and I would love to hear your suggestions for other music you play when you need some inspiration, or you want to simply forget the weather outside.

My current feelgood favourite is "Yo Vengo de Cuba" (Salsa version) By FClan Band.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMAk3HgjjvE

So tell me, what's yours? Let's create a feelgood music list to fight the winter blues away....

OUR FEELGOOD MUSIC LIST

Rock Paper Scissors - Katzenjammer
Lovely Day - Bill Withers                                        (DJ Mikeb)
Calcutta - Dr Bombay                                              (Lucie)
Pencil Full of Lead - Paolo Nutini                           (Christina Tolvas-Vincent)
Dancing Queen - Abba                                             (Eve Mantu)
Anything by the Beach Boys                                    (Neil M)
Don't You Worry Child -Swedish House Mafia       (Tiana, 3 weeks)
Troublemaker - Olly Murs                                       (Saskia)
Where is the Man -Timo Lassy Band                       (Marja-Leena)
Moondance - Nightwish                                            (Katri)

Somero Library Writing Competition

If you ask anyone in Somero what they like about living in this town, I can almost guarantee that at some point they will mention the library.

We are very lucky here to have a great library in the centre of town. It is in a beautiful modern building and very well stocked, especially for a town which isn't huge after all.

And there is something special about the atmosphere. I love being around books pretty much anywhere, and I love libraries. But this one has something extra. I've tried to think of the right adjective for it - and the one that comes to mind (even though it might seem a bit odd) is "warm". Somero library is a warm place. And I am not talking about the heating.  It's a place in which you feel welcome, which makes you want to read, and a place where it feels comfortable to stay.



Eija Kopponen and Outi Junell

Eija, Cameron, Anniina, Karoliina, Outi and Arsi

Anyway, this evening we were invited to attend an exciting event there. Earlier in the year a competition was announced to all children in the Somero's 5th and 6th forms to write an adventure story, and a week ago I received a call to say that Cameron was lucky enough to have been chosen as one of the runners up. Outi Junell and Eija Kopponen were our hosts for the evening and it was lovely to see their genuine enthusiasm in encouraging children to write stories. The animated way in which Outi reads a story brings it to life and makes you want to pick up a pen and start writing one of your own.

Eighty-one entries were received in total and this evening the results were announced. The overall winner was Karoliina Andersson with her excellent story called "Täysikuu" (Full Moon). Anniina Vääri was the winner of one of the runner up prizes, and Cameron was the other.

The stories had been displayed over the past few weeks and visitors to the library had been invited to vote for their favourite entry. The winner of the public vote was Arsi Virta.

All the prizewinners were invited to choose a prize book, and special thanks were given to Maarit Laurento from Joensuu School for coming up with the idea in the first place.

Cameron with his prize book - about wizards, obviously.

I love writing. Obviously. Like some people love cooking or gardening or knitting socks. I like words and trying to put them together. I think you know when you love something because you do it even when you are tired and on the days when you don't have to. And in these days of text messages and emails and facebook, where everything is so temporary - I can't think of anything better than something which encourages children to use their imaginations and use real words and ideas and put them together on paper.

Well done Somero library for this competition, and to every child who had the enthusiasm and patience to enter it. And thank you Somero library for what you do for us every day. You are one of the town's greatest resources and on behalf of all the people I have spoken to in the town, I hope all of you who work there know how very much you are valued.

And one last thing....never forget to keep writing! It's what libraries are made of.