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Vieraskieliset / In-english

Blog: Mother

Vieraskieliset / In-english
31.3.2020 6.15

Juttua muokattu:

27.3. 16:18
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Mot­her ma­kes sure there is a kam­pa­ni­su for each of her friends. For her, the comb-sha­ped kam¬pa¬ni¬su past­ry is the best treat she can ever give to any­bo­dy.

Mot­her is ni­ne­ty-one ye­ars old and ho­pes to be ab­le to spend some more time on the warm Ca­na­ry Is­lands du­ring our cold nort­hern win­ter. “If on­ly I could get there one more time”, she says.

Mot­her is a li­ve­ly per­son in­te­res­ted in all pe­op­le around her. She wants to know how eve­ry­bo­dy is get­ting along. She sha­res What­sApp mes­sa­ges with her child­ren, daugh­ters- and sons-in-law, and grandc­hild­ren. She looks for­ward to mes­sa­ges and al­wa­ys res­ponds to them. Mot­her has a lar­ge he­art and many friends.

She was still on the kitc­hen crew at ser­vi­ces when she was eigh­ty. She made flatb­re­ad for bake sa­les. Her flatb­re­ad was the best in the world. It seems to me she ba­ked so­met­hing of her per­so­na­li­ty in­to her flatb­re­ad. I don’t know for sure how she did it, but some of her friends might know. You know, a pie­ce of warm flatb­re­ad with a pat of but­ter, can there be anyt­hing that tas­tes bet­ter?

Mot­her told us that re­cei­ving the grace of re­pen­tan­ce was the big­gest chan­ge in her life. Her fat­her had gone to the mil­ler’s, and so­me­o­ne there had as­ked him if he had a girl who could come and work for a lo­cal fa­mi­ly. Her fat­her said they had a girl, but he could hard­ly have ima­gi­ned the events that fol­lo­wed. Mot­her came from a home where no-one tal­ked about God or read God’s word. The fa­mi­ly that emp­lo­yed her ar­ran­ged ser­vi­ces. She was touc­hed by the word of God, and God ope­ned her cons­cien­ce. She re­cei­ved the grace of re­pen­tan­ce, be­lie­ved her sins for­gi­ven and the­re­by be­ca­me a mem­ber of God’s king­dom.

When we ce­leb­ra­ted Mot­her’s ni­ne­tieth birth­day, she wan­ted us to sing the hymn “I re­call the day of rap­tu­re when the Son of God drew nigh”. It was a big fa­mi­ly gat­he­ring with more than two hund­red gu­ests. We re­mi­nis­ced about Mot­her’s life and sha­red many hap­py me­mo­ries. We laug­hed and sang to­get­her, qui­e­te­ned to hear the Word, and na­tu­ral­ly ate flatb­re­ad and kam­pa­ni­su.

No-one has ever writ­ten about Mot­her to com­me­mo­ra­te her birth­da­ys. There has been no re­a­son for that omis­si­on, but that’s how it has gone. I think that all the mot­hers who wor­ked hard on farms would have de­ser­ved more at­ten­ti­on. They took care of the child­ren, coo­ked the me­als, ba­ked the bread, did the laund­ry, took care of the cat­t­le, and did count­less ot­her cho­res.

Mot­her said there were on­ly two week­da­ys a month when she got to go shop­ping: the day when they got paid for their milk and the day when they got the child be­ne­fit pa­y­ment. On those days she paid the gro­ce­ry bill and bought some ma­te­ri­al or clot­hes. There was not al­wa­ys enough mo­ney for even that. I gu­ess some of the sa­les clerks loo­ked for­ward to the vi­sit of the cheer­ful and ener­ge­tic far­ming lady who brigh­te­ned up their day. They sha­red their joys and sor­rows in the store and en­jo­yed a good laugh.

Mot­her has been he­alt­hy for most of her life. A doc­tor had on­ce won­de­red why she had had no blood­work done for ten ye­ars. Mot­her had said there had been no need, pos­sib­ly be­cau­se she had gi­ven birth to twel­ve child­ren. That was her kind of hu­mor.

Still, her life has had its share hards­hip. There have been ad­ver­si­ties and tri­als. The il­l­ness and de­ath of her dear hus­band was deep­ly shoc­king, but she gra­du­al­ly got over it. She was on­ly six­ty-five when my fat­her died.

Wi­dow­hood mar­ked the be­gin­ning of a new kind of life. Mot­her had al­wa­ys like mo­ving around, and sin­ce she did not have a dri­ver’s li­cen­se, she de­ci­ded to get one. With the help and sup­port of the dri­ving inst­ruc­tor, she got her li­cen­se.

Hu­man re­la­ti­ons al­so chan­ged. As a coup­le, they had en­jo­yed the friends­hip of many ot­her mar­ried coup­les. Wi­dow­hood al­te­red some of those friends­hips. But she found lady friends with whom to share thoughts, go to ser­vi­ces, and spend time to­get­her. They laugh, cry, talk and lis­ten to each ot­her.

Mot­her says that the gift of faith and the joy of be­lie­ving are the most im­por­tant things in her life. God has hel­ped and pro­tec­ted her. The gos­pel has gi­ven her strength, and the es­corts have sup­por­ted her. She has al­so wan­ted to re­mind ot­her pe­op­le about the im­por­tan­ce of faith.

Some time ago I was wal­king with Mot­her on a sun­ny wa­terf­ront pro­me­na­de on the Ca­na­ries. The wa­ves of the oce­an were be­a­ting on the shore, and the wind blew up swirls of sand. We stop­ped for cof­fee, and I ate a kam­pa­ni­su that had been ba­ked par­ti­cu­lar­ly for me and brought all the way from Fin­land.

Text: Vesa Kum­pu­la

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

You will find the ori­gi­nal blog post here.

1.12.2024

– Hoosianna! Siunattu olkoon hän, joka tulee Herran nimessä! Siunattu isämme Daavidin valtakunta, joka nyt tulee! Hoosianna korkeuksissa! Mark. 11:9–10

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