My dad
My dad was a typical stubborn Finnish male oaf. He didn't outwardly display most emotions and sometimes literally ran away to his garage so as not to display them. To some degree that caused the start of the downfall of his health and negatively contributed to his recovery during the years thereafter. He was at times stern and serious, though always fair. But he had a big heart. He really cared for his family and he showed that through actions and unspoken moments of support, and he never drew attention to it - so well in fact that it's taken me years of reflection to realise it.
My dad was always ready to help me out, no matter how stupid the request was. When I was a little kid I asked him to modify a toy shotgun I had to make it look more like the cool sawed-off from an action film I'd seen, and not only did he do it but he took extra effort to make the job look nice and neat, with a proper weighted head where the stock had once been. If I mentioned that I needed an extra shelf or box to store something in, a day later he'd suddenly turn up with one he had pulled together in his giant garage/workshop of wonders. If I looked idle or bored on a summer vacation day, he'd offer to drive me to the big tech and media store an hour away as a mini road trip and maybe treat me to a game. One of those games I picked up was Sonic Adventure 2: Battle for the Gamecube and if you really want to start working your way through the domino blocks of my life, maybe we can credit his eagerness to drive me to that store with my current obsession with that hedgehog.
My dad was a teacher, working his entire life in a small countryside school, of which he eventually became the headmaster of. He loved knowledge and learning new things, absorbing books and documentaries, and he cherished the opportunity to share all that information even if it sometimes felt overbearing to others (maybe that's where I get that from too). If he realised that you engaged with a particular topic, he would support it and share his wealth of knowledge with you on the subject matter to deepen your understanding. Because of all this, he was also a fiend in Trivial Pursuit and most of the time during our household board game evenings the rest of the family else basically played against him. One time he got too cocky and confidently boasted that if I knew the answer to a particular historical music question, he'd give me €2; to his credit, after being stunned by my sudden knowledge of classic rock trivia, he did actually get up and get the coin for me.
My dad was really into computer technology when it started becoming more mainstream in the early 1990s and it's thanks to the games he got with the new PCs he bought for himself that I got into video games properly - though I still don't understand where he got 50-odd floppy discs of obviously pirated games with the 286 PC our computing life started with. When I got more and more into games, he'd build PCs with me, paid for the subscription fees for the gaming magazine I adored and asked me about the games I was playing even if he had no idea what I was talking about. Eventually I "outpaced" him when it came to understand PC technology, but he was always engaged and eager to chip in when he could.
My dad loved music. We didn't share our taste in music for most parts and I didn't discover the magic of music through a cool parental record collection like so many other people have, but if music runs through DNA then it's through him that I got the passion for the art form from. In the 1970s he built his own bass - that awful, super thick, clunky monstrosity was the first bass I learned to play with. He stopped engaging with modern music after a point but was always ready to buy a random compilation or box set from discount shelves on the back of one song. He loved The Beatles, but mainly their early Merseybeat days and when the band started to become more interesting, he thought they lost their touch; we bought him one of the big Beatles box sets as a Christmas present in the mid-late 2000s and a year later, all but the first 2-3 albums were still in shrinkwraps inside the box. Despite that he tried to get me into The Beatles so many times over the years; a few years ago he got really into digitising his CDs and gifted me a USB stick with all the Beatles and Beatles-adjacent albums he owned in it.
My dad would sometimes ask me to pick a CD from my collection for one of the aforementioned drives. Sometimes during a song he'd comment and call it "levotonta musiikkia" - "restless music". That phrase lives on in my internal lexicon and pops up in my head from time to time when I listen to music of a certain kind.
My dad wasn't much of a gift-giver but in his later years he suddenly became very proud of always giving something for his children for Christmas that my mom had nothing to say over. These were always practical items like tools or gadgets that he had discovered in an offer somewhere and thought that every household needs one. Some of those are in fact in constant use in our household.
My dad had to go through a lot of twists and turns with his only son out of his three children. I opted to skip the mandatory army conscription and went with the less manly, less normative civil service option, and though my dad protested and tried to change my mind, I think in the end he respected the fact that I had made my own decision and stuck with it. I came out gay and though there was a little bit of awkwardness at first, it all faded away quickly and it meant a lot to me to see that he treated my partner as part of the family in the same understated manner he treated my sisters' partners. I moved countries and though I think he would have ideally wanted me to live closer, he sometimes alluded to being proud that I had the guts to make such a big step in my life. I think the distance also made it more obvious to us both how much he really did care about me - of course nothing that he'd ever say out loud, but you could tell through his mannerisms how much it meant for him that I was under the same roof whenever I came to visit.
My dad, even during his worst moments in the later years, never lost his big heart. I could see it every time he interacted with his grandkids, and I bet that if my dad had been healthier those kids would now also have modified toys and handmade items in their rooms, and memories of little trips here and there.
My dad gave so much of his time and effort to ensure I had the best possible childhood.
My dad passed away in the early morning of 18th December 2024. I think he knew the end was coming - from speaking to the people who were among the last to see him, they said that his words and farewells seemed more final than normally. From my understanding the Issues that ultimately lead to his demise first began to surface a good decade ago, though much of it was kept hidden from me as I lived so far away; the real beginning of the end was during the COVID lockdowns when he was rushed to the hospital and we all thought he'd perish while his children were stuck long distances away unable to get to him. Somehow he pulled through, even to the doctors' surprise, and the five years since have been a constant up and down that are too complicated for me really get into here (or to want to get into here). I visited home a few times in 2024 and each time he'd begin to allude in conversations about what happens to all his collected memorabilia and libraries of words and music once he's gone, and we all tried to avoid those conversations. Early this December he was taken to the hospital again and according to my mom, during his more lucid moments he was more reflective and earnest about his thoughts than he normally was. He was discharged a few days before he passed away and he got to spend a cosy, normal evening at home for one last time before things took a sudden downturn; after everything, I'm glad he got to spend that one last moment of dignified normality here, in the house that means so much to my family and that he took so much care of during his lifetime.
My dad was my dad and I wouldn't have changed him for any dad in the world.
Kiitos kaikesta, iskä. Olet rakas.