Hey Mikko, yr da is on Facebook!

And it seems he has a beard...

I've often wondered how long you would have held out before getting your mug on BookFace. And what other offbeat names you would have come up with for it. But I didn't expect to find Matti online. Strange days eh?  Your dad has been much on my mind since I heard about your mum - and on the minds of others who know how much we still miss you, and can scarcely imagine how it might be for him to miss you both. 

He looks well, at any rate. It's my sincere hope that he has figured out how to be okay, even amid what must have been massive change. I also hope he is no longer ashamed of you and the way you left - I'm sorry we never figured out how to show him that he had no need to be. I hope now he understands you were always brilliant, even when you were broken. And that even after being gone for 7 years and 7 days, you are still making the world a better place, because the people who have loved you are stronger, wiser and braver for having known you.

Remembering "9/11"

It's 10 years today since that evening watching the West Wing in Abbotsford, the sofabed folded out so we could cosy up under the doona, when we went to the loo during an ad break and came back and on the show some crazy hijacker had flown a plane into the World Trade Centre tower... only then we realised the newsreader had an Australian accent and it was Channel 9 news. And it was real.

You were frantic trying to call your parents but the lines were jam packed and it was maybe 4 in the morning before you could get through. And it was, I sometimes think, the beginning of the end for you.

I will never really know what it was like growing up in Finland during the 70s and 80s. I still marvel at the awareness you seemed to have even as a little kid of being from a 'western' country growing up just over the fence from the 'eastern' superpower, with about 30 minutes to live if ever Ronald Regan or any other jerk politician decided to press the button. (After accidentally ending up on the wrong side in WWII, purely because the Germans were the only ones would help to keep the Russians out, the poor old Finns must've wondered what they'd ever have to do to win a trick?!)

What WAS it that made your mind take all that to heart? Was it really so common, that kids our age didn't actually believe they had a future until they were 18, and watched the Wall come down in '89?

That era of hope was too shortlived. You felt a shadow descend again in 2001 and I watched it smother you, little by little snuffing out hope. You tore your hair out over racial hatred, got hopping mad at Bush Jr and, after being so proud to carry banners with me down Swanston St, after a while you couldn't even see the point in going to peace rallies any more.

This was not the same man who'd gone down to the docks with Liam to support the stevedores, or linked arms with my cousin, a nurse, in solidarity.

Yes, the world changed that day. And some terrible things happened, so that it did get worse before it got better. And it's not fixed yet. But you've missed some pretty cool stuff. The US got a black man as president (and if they hadn't had him, they might just have ended up with a woman!). John Howard got voted out eventually - in a landslide. You'd probably still be bemoaning the way Julia Gillard beat me to the title of 'first woman PM' - I have you pegged as a K.Rudd fan. But we got maternity leave, and a carbon tax, and a Green in the lower house (my brother Luke helped put him there!). And an African woman environmentalist won the nobel peace prize...

I wish you were here to celebrate all these things, but most of all, "history is made by those who show up". And you can't do nearly as much by being perpetually AWOL.

happy birthday... wish you were here

You would be 39 today, and as with every year that June 15 rolls around, I can't help wondering about the man you would be today, if you were still here... I can only speculate on what you would be doing in work, in love... I imagine you would be in Melbourne, cheffing or making wine and food work in ways that left others gasping... weekends away wielding a sword, late midweek evenings when you know you should be abed (much as I should be... It's 3.35am on a 'school night')... would it really be that nothing has changed?? Somethings yes, somethings no.


I wish I could know.


I still wish you were here.


The years pass, the seasons cycle, and my life has moved in ways I could never have guessed at when you were still in it... but though I think of you now as one of my much loved friends rather than the life partner that once you were, i still miss you. Sometimes, every day for a time, sometimes not for weeks, but then you leap out of the corner of some ancient building, or from the face of a stranger, and you're as real as every walk we ever took, down any street...


I miss you, at times like these. Is it somehow wrong, that I don't miss you all the time, when n ce up on a time you were my every thought? Should I now be letting you go? Where, exactly, doest the middle ground lie? I love to think that if you could see me now, you would be SO proud of the girl I am today... but it's been so long since you were part of my journey...


Mikko I love you. And a part of me will always love you. And I miss you, like a king misses his greatest councillor, like an elbow misses its hinge...I wish... but you are not here, and cannot be more than a ghost who guides my happy thoughts, and steers me away from the saddest times. I hope you found a happy place to rest, amid the bears, the snow, and the lake...


happy birthday, you bastard, I love you. xo

Shining a light on mental health

You would love GetUp! I wish it had been around in 2004. It's one of those community campaign things that might have helped restore a Certain Someone's faith in the ability of ordinary people to make a difference to the chaos that surrounds us in the world. It was Margaret Mead who exhorted us to ""Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." GetUp! helps bring such people together, online and face to face, to write messages, send petitions and from time to time, to raise cash, for campaigns ranging from saving Tasmanian forests to ending mandatory detention for refugees, paid parental leave and an end to the insane unfairnesses of the Howard Government's Work Choices legislation. I imagine it would have been one of his most commonly bookmarked sites.

Now they're turning their focus on mental health. In lobbying the government for extra funding, by asking people to pay for a candle with their personal message on it, they're also giving people a voice: for their fears as carers or people who are hurting, or for the grief of those left behind after the ultimate agony: when suicide claims another soul who was lost in a darkness they despaired of ever escaping. The messages below are from the GetUp! campaign. There are some acutely personal tales here, each told in a mere handful of words. I hope they are read by our politicians - but I also hope that they are read by people everywhere who suffer depression in some form, and by the people who care for them. Please know that you are never as alone as you think you are, and there is always another option. Always.

• "This for all those who bravely face each new day not knowing when the present struggles will subside, but always believing in a brighter tomorrow. Believing that this too, will pass."



• "For everyone affected, but particularly my husband. My hope is that he realises how beautiful a person he is and that he feels hope for the future"



• " I am buying my candle for my eldest daughter who has bipolar disorder. She has also anxiety."



• " For anyone in need... and those who love them"



• "a light of hope for those in the shadows - you do not walk alone"



• " My friend Mal and my cousin's son Andrew both suffered years of depression before they took their lives. With better mental health support services they might both be alive today."



• " I was one of the lucky ones that was treated with respect and care when I went to the hospital, suicidal because of depression. I hope that one day, everyone in the same situation can share the same story. "



• " for my mum and for all who are suffering or have suffered from debilitating mental health issues"



• "Not just for the sufferers but also the carers; without these wonderful people no amount of money would fix our mental health system. "



• "This is for my mother who has suffered for years with depression and for those, less fortunate than her, who don't have the support of family and friends or private health cover to pay for what the public system doesn't provide"



• " For our son and for all young people who are not receiving the help which they desperately need. We want our government to provide them with the support they need to lead full, happy lives."



• "The black dog runs wild in rural Australia. You can only imagine the hightened sense of loneliness of those living in remote communities and farms. We need to reach out and let them know they aren't alone."

And last but not least: For Mikko, who was so afraid of our mental health system that he felt he had only one choice left.



You are still much missed, Rakkani

Meri

Various friends have been to visit Mikko recently and have seen that he has company.
Meri Sikstrom was a brave and outgoing woman in her youth - Mikko loved telling stories about how his mum used to try to freak his friends out by telling them how pissweak modern day porn was. She was successful in business, running a series of fashion stores until the recession of the early 90s that plunged Finland into years of economic strife.
It seems something changed after that, and Mikko never understood what or why, but he was confused by the woman who, in later life, refused to learn new languages as she moved around Europe, and began to 'hate' everything: Russians, Swedes, people who drink alcohol, her diabetes, the terrible pains in her stomach that no doctor seemed able to diagnose or cure. Her failing eyesight. The vitamin-laden diet and rigorous exercise that doctors said might help.
When he died, something in her inevitably died too. Perhaps it's no surprise that she is already no longer here.
We often didn't see eye to eye, but I have always felt far more sorrow for her than anger. Parents are never supposed to bury their children. And she had, I think, so few resources to draw on in her struggle to carry what she felt was a great burden these last 6 years.
I hope with all my heart that she, like Mikko, has found peace, knowledge and acceptance now that her spirit is freed of the ravages of a body too broken for it to find balance while so confined.
I can scarcely imagine Matti's daily existance. I hope he has the love and support of family and friends.
For all that our shared journey was often awkward, some of the most powerful moments of my 20s I owe to this broken family, and I will always wish that their way in the world had been easier.

Governments still don't get it on Mental Health

Don't even start me on the fact that a manifestly inadequate system leaves paranoid and vulnerable people so scared of what they might experience in the system that they outright refuse to seek help from it... As family and friends we love and adore them, but we lack the skills to give them what they need, and sometimes, the price of failure is unspeakable.

http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/we-have-waited-much-too-long-for-adequate-mental-healthcare-20110105-19g62.html

The worst thing about living overseas

Some of the most poignant memories I have from the days just after you died are from people who weren't able to be here. Chaals. Jarkko, Sarah J. D and her "fuckoff big bunch of bright red roses" which we all heaped on your coffin.

Jonathan's email from Dublin, which began simply "The worst thing about living overseas..."
I'm reminded of these days just now because of the emotional farewell of our friend Nick, once of Islendinga, on the death this week of his great mate Raynes, whom you knew. You would appreciate Nick's tribute:"You were a true believer in all things viking and punk..."

Jonathan was right, you know. In the four and a half years I have lived in England and Italy, being away for marriages and even births is hard. You aren't there for some of the happiest moments in the lives of the people you love best. But eventually you go home, and meet the nieces and nephews, the new husbands and wives, see the new homes, the photos, or you follow unfolding adventures on blogs and facebook.

But the worst part is not being there to say goodbye, being unable to share in the final rituals, the making sure that people have the means to be okay... or at least to begin to cope. Sharing memories and laying the foundations of the mental tributes we will take forward, becoming the people we will be, because we knew you.

So if you see Raynes in Valhalla (for the gods know that some fall in battle against foes that wield weapons far more deadly than a mere blade, so we know that's where he's gone), have a drink with him, for us. Because I will have to wait a long time to tell those at home how much I wished I could have been there, for a final drink with them.

Birthday wishes

Today, you would be 38, and as always, I find myself wondering what you would look like. As the texts roll around through our little band of 'friends who remember', I wonder what kind of bash it would have been this year. I wonder where you would be working, would it be with wine, or food, or both? What gorgeous new look would you be sporting - a hat, a waistcoat, some new scarf... I wish, I wish we could see you now.

I figured out a long while ago that if Mikko could have found a way to reconcile the beautiful and terrible within (to say nothing of the way he experienced these forces in the world), he'd have done it. I have wished, more times than I can count, that I could have worked out how to bottle whatever it was that makes the difference between climbing out of a hole, and not.

He is not the only one of us to have sat alone in the dark at the bottom of that hole... but he is the one of us that is no longer here. I look at this circle of friends - all the people who leaned on one another during those terrible first few months - and even while I miss him, I am relieved - proud, even - that the rest of us are still here. I think he's a bit of an arse for missing it all. But more than that, I wish he was still here, because the more birthdays he doesn't have, the further away he drifts from the rest of us. He is falling behind.

Because whatever it is, there IS something that CAN keep rising in the face of darkness, even when the ground beneath our feet rumbles, shudders and disappears. There IS a capacity for Life, the Universe, Divine Intervention, the power of the human spirit or whatever you want to call it, to keep inspiring us to reach beyond ourselves and toward the stars.

I wish I could bottle that, and toast you with it every year, to keep you going til the next one.
But I can't, so I will toast you and drink it for me, and for all of us still here.

Happy birthday Mikko.

Blowing away cobwebs, and drying old tears

I'm back today from my first trip home in two years. I don't know how on earth you stayed away from Finland as long as you did... 9 years ... now I know why you shook as we were landing. I was a jumble of tears and excitement on the plane.

For Anthony, the break has been even longer - four years and a half. All his siblings have moved back home to Invercargill since we've been away and have been busily bringing forth the next generation.

So there was much rejoicing, but I also found myself contemplating a collision of past worlds and present that bears retelling here.

Anthony's dad has been sober for more than 29 years. On my first trip to meet Clan Cundall, it was his 25th 'birthday' (its an AA thing.... it wouldn't work for me, and I know you used to bag AA - but perhaps you were just afraid it might work? Anyway, it does work wonders for my father in law). So we had a party.

You had been gone a year and a week and a couple of days. I helped hand around food and stood with Hailey, my sister in law to the end of the speeches, blinking back tears of pride for this man I hardly knew, but whose struggle I can vividly imagine.

Then I quietly fled, overcome by a huge sense of 'if only' and a desperate desire to not cry at someone's party.

Anthony's family doesn't talk much, but nothing escapes their notice and after about 10 minutes, my father-in-law came looking for me. I could hardly speak through trying to hold back tears.... but eventually I managed to say that I hoped it was okay if I was enormously proud of his achievement, because I can imagine ... because I used to know someone, who never found his way.

I was embarrassed. I needn't have been. Next came a great big hug, from this man who still goes to meetings each week, still has hard times of his own, and still mentors others. On this latest visit, as I watched my father in law playing with his grandkids in the afternoon, pouring the rest of us a glass of wine at dinner then slipping out to his meeting, I felt an enormous bout of respect. He hasn't conquered his demons either - maybe you don't, in this life - but he is determined to take them on.... one day at a time.

Han...

I bought myself the West Wing on DVD for my birthday in February. All seven series, twenty-two episodes per season. Throughout seasons one and two I was flooded with memories of Tuesday nights in Abbotsford, evenings of popcorn and "doona on the couch", of red wine with biccies and cheese, of hours-in-the-making risotto. And the West Wing.

Tonight, I'm on Season 5. "Han" is the episode about a brilliant young North Korean pianist who wants to defect. Anti-nuclear negotations are underway with the "Dear Leader's" government so the president says no.

"Han" is presented as the Korean word for a feeling that has no direct english translation. "It's a state of mind, of the soul, really. A sadness so deep that no tears will come. But still there is hope".

I have known this feeling in both its parts.

It's the "But still there is hope" part that makes us able to overcome even the most aching loss, the most gasping grief, the deepest sorrow.

It's the part that makes us able to keep the best of someone in the world long after they themselves have lost the courage to remain, that teaches us to smile through our tears, to keep the remnants of dreams and evolve them into something wholly our own.

I'm changing. I think you'd be proud of who I am becoming, (even if your pride might be a little dented at the idea that I have, by necessity, learned to live without you)... but that's not why I am going through this. You will always be the greatest love of my twenties, and this great grief is still painful. But I am in my 30s now. And I am going through it for me.