Cooking Dinner

Well, it is that time again.  Time to pick up stakes and head off for another unknown.  Time to clean out the closets and leave friends behind.  It has been a perfect brisk spring day.  The windows are open.  I'm listening to good music and cooking one of our favorite dinners.  Finn Sisu and I used to have our best conversations in the kitchen cooking together at the end of the day. Tonight I was hit by a wave of deep sorrow.  He was supposed to be here for this.  The prime of our lives.

I have an uncle who passed about a year after Finn Sisu.  His only daughter often posts on her Facebook page how much she misses him and adored him.  I don't feel I have the same freedom to express my feelings.  I think a child's grief over losing a parent is so much more acceptable and understandable to society, than that of a woman who loses her life's partner.  A widow's pain makes other people uncomfortable, especially when her peers are just getting their kids to move out of the house.

It was a dilemma I faced when I first arrived.  Are you single or are you married?  What to tell people who ask all about who you are?  Do you tell them everything?  That can be entirely too heavy for new acquaintances, but I am not whole without him so how is it possible to not mention him?  I think I balanced it as well as I could have.  Those who are only acquaintances have made their own assumption that I am divorced, but those who know me well know how very much he means to me.  I tell them stories all the time.

My closest colleague and friend here probably knows more than anyone how much I love him and miss him.  She said she's heard so much about him that she thinks she knows him.  I know for a fact he would have loved her and her beautiful son.

So tonight, as I cry because I miss him so badly and have such sorrow for the adventures he will miss out on, I take comfort in knowing that I have honored him by living as he would have wanted me to; that others who never met him appreciate him, his humor and his outlook on life because I will never stop talking about him. 

He truly was an amazing man. Those who knew him are better for it...and those who never met him - well, they will know they have really missed out on something great.

Honoring Finn Sisu

Today our Embassy community came together in a very large gathering to honor the life and character of Finn Sisu. We first met outside in the warm morning sun where a tree had been planted in remembrance of him. The Ambassador spoke eloquently of the life that Finn Sisu had led, the many unique experiences he had and the impact his presence had of the lives of those who met him at post. The Ambassador and I placed a bronze plaque at the base of the tree to forever mark this spot in his honor. Finn Sisu would have liked that because he loved trees and things that grow.

After this outdoor ceremony the crowd adjourned to a large conference room where refreshments were available. But the highlight was a PowerPoint presentation that played showing pictures of him throughout his life and music from his own list of iPod songs. It was heartwarming for me to watch the crowd watch the slideshow. They were very quiet, very interested and at certain moments the crowd would emit reactions in unison. A sampling of the songs included was “Ordinary Average Man” by Joe Walsh, “Spirit in the Sky” by Norman Greenbaum, “I’m Gonna Be” by the Proclaimers and “Fat Bottomed Girls” by Queen.

I spoke to everyone who came and many expressed to me not only what a wonderful, happy person he seemed to be when they met him, but that the slideshow really reflected a man who had lived a happy life. They told me they could see that he was always living life and that humor seemed to always be a constant for him. It was. And the joy he brought to my life was immeasurable.

Finn Sisu did exactly as his moniker implies, he lived fearlessly, independently and proactively conscious of what he wanted from life.

I thank all of those who came out to celebrate him and his memory.