Hi for everybody
This year has been full of "personal events" that are quite normal, althougoh some of them are sad. Luckily my family has stayed healthy and fine.
This autumn I started working with the restaurant services at the Parliament House. It's been hectic to say the least with long hours, but now I'm here and only God knows where next year. The most important thing in my life is to harmonize it. I'm still working on that one.
Well, I'm a great professional, but probably some think too straightforward and maybe even bold at certain situations. I try never to be offensive or impolite towards my supervisors though, but I do not like injustice either. So sometimes it's not that easy although my phone rings and keeps ringing after years from some of my former employers (not all).
I guess it's safe to say that whenever I got my self-esteem back (with my genes added) I try to stay true to myself and do feel a team player where ever I go. I seem to slip in easily. It still moves me that my former colleagues hang around in my life even after 30 years. So it's become friendship - true and real.
This Christmas I want to tell you about a very special frined called Telle. I've known her "only" 25 years. She's a real fighter. She's now at terminal care home called Terhokoti. The first time she got cancer was 8 years ago. She survived it and also the TSUNAMI running with the locals up the hill dragging her with her sprained ankle. She was sleeping on a temple floor. Lord knows where the locals got her a new toothbrush and T-shirt on top of her bikinis.
Well, the cancer came back. I know her husband well too. He's my former colleague. When I went to tErhokoti to talk with her, I was petrified. My feet felt like cement, but when I got there it was so warm, cosy and true. I could almost sing when I left the place. There was no need for facades anymore. We laughed together with all the memories we had behind us. She was coughing in her respirator. She told me also abou the dress she wants to wear in her own funeral. I promised we won't forget her dhildren or husband. She assured me that she knows that.
What have I learned from Telle? Certainly dignity and strength, but not hardness. Her life has been very hard at times. Her family member did what some of our classmates have done years ago (the worst choice ever). She's had to deal with all that and yet there's always been joy and hope in her life, too. And she's never been ingratiating or fawning. Which is great!
I just don't know how many more days she has. She's now with her immediate family, but... In a way she never dies. I told her already that I'm going to talk to her for years. She said: "Do that."
Oh, I've been angry and so helpless, but those are only my feelings and my pain. What about hers? What can I do for her family? These questions I have to solve soon.
How do friendships start? Gradually I guess. One can build the friendship during the years or destroy it brick by brick. Honesty and loyalty certainly help. It there's one thing I'm very rich of: it's friends! I've been blessed with them - with all these most exquisite pearls - none alike.
So, that's one thing that makes me believe that there is a God! Have a most Joyous Christmas and remember to live and experience life the year 2009! And most of all: stay true to yourself! Don't compromise with things that pull you down! And certainly don't keep people near you that pull you down! This advice I got from ne of you, my friends. It's a golden rule that certainly changed my life for the better.
Merry Christams!
With Love,
Merja Stenman-Bjorn
From Class of 82
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