it’s hard to explain. it’s hard to explain to those who share this motherland and it’s harder to explain to anyone in the US. I think my step-dad would understand. maybe my grandpa might too, but he was long gone by the time I realized I yearned to hear it from him. or tell him how much it meant to me what they did.

this little piece of land matters so much to the handful of people that live here. it matters little to anyone else. the people who inhabit this cold and bitter slice of land are moved by the stoutness of their desire to defend this soil. the fathers and sons of this country have many times over bled to keep what they claim to be theirs. theirs to share. many of whom I know have since passed. in the past few years, since I left, I begged my grandmother to record the stories she used to tell when I was a child. these stories are engrained in my childhood. I knew what they fought for. but I never really understood the meaning of this until I was older. I thought surely, everyones granddads had been to war, in their own backyard. I always assumed it was a part of our the natural history that repeated itself.

much later I understood the profoundness of these acts. had they not, my life would be wildly different now. in fact, I might not be here at all, and if I were, we might live under Russian communist rule. instead. I got a life of luxury. instead I got to choose what I got to do with my life. they gave me a choice. true freedom. true democracy.

I miss my country terribly. I miss being here. I miss being with my family. I miss being in their light. though I have been gone, and I feel like a foreigner in finland, when I come together with my family I make sense. my life makes sense, I am grounded, I am no longer lost, I am no longer wondering, I am home. I can taste the dirt in my blood, my motherland. there are many things that affect me incredibly. little things make me cry. little things move me to tears. the holyness of the bravery and the misery of it all. I am proud. and I am thankful.

me and my mom had a sing-a-long at the hotel yesterday. every song was filled with words of how dear this land was. how it meant nothing to someone, but how it was everything to them. how irreplaceable it is. how nothing compares. sometimes I feel like I have no real home or nationality. but when I come here, I understand. when I walk into the church, when I walk through the grave yard, it’s like I can hear them whispering. the honor. they lay here because they lived and died for us. not jesus, but these women and men, they build this country and I owe them everything I have today. it’s bitter sweet flavor, a heritage that runs in my veins, something I can hear when I set foot here. these old roots.

I’ve never felt such stout patriotism. inkling to the stoutness of religion, I feel it when I light a candle at their grave to remember what they gave. there is this deep sense of grave and a of bravery. a gratitude in their silence.