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| Picture taken by my Mum yesterday |
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.
3 comments:
Eve: I once gave your father and you a ride in my shabby and worn out car. He couldn´t thank me enough for the ride. It so happened that he had a bottle of soda with him, coca cola I think it was, and a teeny weeny drop was spilt on the back seat. He literally almost fainted. He was ahocked and horrified and showered me with apologies. I tried to tell him it was ok, I asked him to please look at the car he was in. It was not a limo, it was a mess. I felt touched by his anguish. He was so sorry. I hope he forgot about that incident. I never forgot - not because of the "damage" (haha!) but because of his shock. Most people would just say ooops - not even ooops sorry. He wanted to pay for the cleaning which of course was out of the question. God bless him!
He's in a better place now but still with us, and he knows how much we all love him <3 .. :'(
There once was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his mother asked him what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said, "Nothing, I just helped him cry."
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