These are interesting times…
That is how I have been feeling about the situation most of the time. Some days are easier than others but I'm so lucky to have amazing friends around me to bring me back to my center when I need it most.
Life really has changed in both big and small ways.
Many of my friends tell me that their homes have never been so clean, tidy and organized. I guess that is what happens when we are forced to have extra spare time, break the busy-ness addiction and spend a lot of time at home. During one of my Covid-cleaning projects, I found some things that reminded me of cleaning up my grandmother’s house just after she passed away about five years ago.
It was a very difficult day; sorting through her things and memories was emotionally challenging. I noticed something interesting that day: many items we keep are only valuable to us. So much of her stuff was just stuff. When the owner leaves life then things seem to die with them.
One of the things that really had deep value for us were the photographs. My grandmother had this cheapest plastic film camera from the middle 90s and she used to chase us with this all the time. So, imagine being a teenager, you wake up and the first thing you see is your grandmother's camera flashing to your face. “Stop, grandma, please!!!!” See, I believed the only way anyone could see me these times was only and ONLY with superheavy makeup. And now she caught me before I had time to put a ton of powder on my skin and paint my eyes nicely dark black? She was always there with her camera at the most inappropriate moments; finally we gave up and it became a bit of a family joke.
If you know about my love of photography, you might think that I got my photography genes from her and that grandma's pics were amazingly artistic. Well…no. Most of her pictures were foggy, awfully composed, and many of her family group pictures were missing some of the people or their heads. Her angles were… well randomly chosen from the place she happened to stand. On the other hand, while her pictures were not the best quality, they did capture real moments.
As I looked through her albums I saw blurry pictures; some were blurry because of her photography and many were blurry because I had tears in my eyes. I realized that whatever skill or art was missing from the pictures, these were the most real pictures of our family. Not posed. Not perfect. But real. One picture that I am sure I hated at the time was me, at 15, without all the heavy makeup I used at the time to hide my face. Looking at the picture now, I loved it. I just wanted to reach into the picture and tell that little girl how cute she was; that she didn’t need that makeup to go outside the house. Looking through her pictures, I saw such lovely moments. My grandfather biting into fresh strawberries. Me working in the garden. My dad washing his car. The family sitting around the fire talking and smiling. A 16-year old me, sewing a party dress and a 14-year old me, playing the piano. My grandfather cutting wood with a saw. Seeing these natural photographs of real life moments changed my view of photography. For a long time I thought that pictures have to be perfect; the framing and lighting just right. The pose, just so. Those things can make very nice pictures but never as nice as the real life moments that happen every day.
I don't have many samples, but here are few of those memories.
From that day on I always tell people: Always use your phones! Capture the moments! Even if the quality, posing, and framing is not perfect, take the shot! I think we trust our memories too much; looking back at all these old pictures brought memories back that would have been lost otherwise. Photographs capture and keep the stories of our lives, our families, our kids, our friends, our trips, our loves, our fun times, our sad times. These shots are our history.
So, back to grandmother's house. Looking around some more, a box caught my eye. It had a label that really intrigued and excited me: “Grandchildren's letters”. It turns out that my grandmother had kept every letter we, the grandchildren, had ever sent her. Reading through these letters was one of the highlights of my life; the value of those letters is indescribable! I took all the letters and made copies for all of us. Back to today. Covid-Cleaning. And I found the letters, again. I took the letters and went to my bedroom with kids and read them to my daughters. It was fun! Several times I had tears on my cheeks from crying because we laughed so much. Reading the letters now showed me something important. Suddenly I understood perfectly why this situation has been quite calm for us. We have been through so many different times… Soviet times. So we have seen how to get through the hard times and we have skills to survive. And we also have experienced how things can go so much better! So we have hope.
Most of the families in Estonia have so many stories about how to get through difficult times. Some are easier, some are harder. Today I want to share a piece of our family story, a piece of my childhood through me and my sisters letters to our grandparents.
Middle sister, 9 years old:
“Aunt Milvi gave us 100 rubles for candies! But we had to use all that money for food. Mom promised to give it back on her wage day.”
On the same letter, my mom added a note:
“We would have starved without these food coupons I just got accidentally! I had to go to pay income tax and moaned that we don't even have a piece of bread anymore. And then they offered food coupons for that amount of money! It was incredibly helpful! So, sometimes moaning helps… Otherwise they wouldn't offer…”
Again middle sister, at 9:
“We got help packages from Finland again! We got dolls that remind us of Barbies and we got some candies!!!”
I remember that package. Each of us got a package of Fazer Marianne candies. It was chocolate covered with mint caramel, wrapped in white and red striped paper and I thought I found heaven! To extend this heaven I decided to eat only one candy per day. But you know, on the first day you get to have 2, right? Or maybe three? Okay, 5 is fair enough. I should still have candies for weeks. Second day I had to be one candie day. I broke. I ate them all in a row. Well, at least I had HEAVENLY 30 minutes! After the borders opened and we also had colourful candies in our stores I always felt these were the most special ones!
She continues: “…I had an awful accident one day! I lost 25 rubles. Our cat might have food poisoning. Goodbye.”
I'm guessing that 25 rubles might have been 1-2 eur.
My mom, writing about running out of milk for my baby brother:
“Our English relatives sent us 3 packages of baby milk substitute. It helps us for the next 9 days. He doesn't tolerate normal milk. Had red spots. Doctor said we can’t give him that. The situation is quite hard. I have to go to Tallinn one day, maybe I will find something for an affordable price.”
Me, maybe about at 10 or 11 years:
"School Bus is not taking us to school anymore. We can get to school by workers bus and walk back or try to stop the cars on the way (it was 6km). At school we don't get any food anymore. (was too expensive for us) It costs 36 eek (about 2,50 eur). One day is 1.50 eek (about 0,09 eur).”
Again, from one of my letters at the same age: "My music school costs 45 krones per month (about 3 eur). My mom just can't pay that kind of money. Finally they said my mom should write an application for support. Now we get a little bit support but for how long….?"
I added some thoughts about sisterly love!
"I had a friend from school visiting yesterday. Kristel (younger sister) did not behave realty well to be honest. She showed off so much that it was just disgusting to see, to be honest! Finally mom saved me.”
My grandmother sent me some boots when I was 12, I wrote to thank her:
"Thank you granny so much for the boots you sent me. I really hope it didn't cost you too much. They really are incredibly comfortable!”
Me, sending my granny and update on my education at 13:
"My grades from school very pretty bad this time. Many B-s. Many A-s. But a C for physical education as I didn't have skis." (We couldn't afford to buy them)
My reaction to visiting some wealthy friends when I was about 15:
"I got the most amazing food while visiting them! meat every day! Then banana! Yogurt! Waffles!!! Most amazing things! Cacao! Cake! Through all week ice cream for 3 times!!!!!”
When was 12, we received a care package from a Swedish charity organization:
“We got a huge help package from Sweden! It was two big bags of food- sugar, flour, oatmeal, pasta, coffee, toothpaste, raisins etc. Sugar of course is already gone. We also had a package from Finland! (the same one my sister tells about above). One of my biggest dreams fulfilled! We got Barbie dolls! Well, the doll is called differently, Diana, but it still looks like Barbie!”
My sister sending a report on school when she was 7; I still find it shocking to read this today:
“I'm doing very well at school! We don't get to eat at school because we don't have money. My mom sewed me a school bag!!!”
Of course there were a lot of positive things in the letters, too! We talked about the weather, our grades at school, things that happened in school, the friends we visited, about getting my baby brother etc.
Us with our dear grandparents
Still, looking back at these letters and pictures I am reminded of a few important things: 1) Take pictures. Capture memories. Your future you will love you for it. 2) Hard times are not bad times; they are just times for family to come together and be stronger. As I look around Estonia and see people handling this lockdown so well, I am sure that it is because we were made strong by the difficulties we have faced before.
So, my message for you: Let's enjoy this time. Let's keep away the fear. Let’s have faith. It's another experience we can share with the future generations and we WILL come even stronger out of this!
Now. I know we all have our stories which make us stronger in hard situations. So, what is your story?
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