Gifts of the Spirit

by Patricia Eilola

  “But I never thought…” Mother said, tears in her eyes.

  “None of us did,” I said, reassuring her. “How could we? He sounded so normal when he went upstairs to bed. Who would have thought that… during the night… we would… lose him?”

  “I think he had lost himself when he took that blow on the head,” Mother hypothesized.

  We had contacted Dr. Raihala, not to just to tell him that Ronny had died but also to ask his opinion about what had happened. He came straight away once he heard the news. “He fell and hit his head hard?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Mother said, “and the Jorgensens—the people he was working for—said he just lay there, unmoving. They feared he was dying, and so they sent the letter to us… asking what to do.”

  She told him about Ronny’s awakening, his return to speaking and understanding only Finnish, and his worry and hurry about getting home.

  “We had no idea that, once home, he would… leave us,” she cried.

  “Of course not,” the doctor said. “You did nothing wrong. In fact, you did everything you could do to make him comfortable. I think that when he awoke from the coma—which is the word used to describe the state he was in—he only remembered his past, and he yearned for it.”

  “Yes, he did,” Mother said. “It was all he talked about all the way home.”

  “And then, during the night, he slipped away?” Dr. Raihala phrased it as a question.

  “Yes.” Mother started to cry again. “What could we have done? What did we do wrong?”

  “Absolutely nothing,” he said firmly. “It’s obvious to me he was just waiting to get home before he could feel comfortable letting go. He had to feel he was in a safe place, as if he would be cared for… afterward.”

  “We certainly will do that,” Mother and I both answered.

  And we had already begun, washing and preparing his body to lie “in state” in the living room on a door that sufficed as a bier.

  Soon neighbors arrived, paying their respects and leaving food. By the end of the day we had enough to feed everyone who came to the church for the funeral ceremony, which Milma would officiate, of course.

  She spent some time with Mother and with me and with Eino, once he got home, overcome with grief that he had not had a chance to say goodbye to his brother.

  “None of us did,” I told him. “He just went upstairs ‘for a rest’ and slipped away.”

  “I’ll miss him… so much…” Eino said, not even trying to hold back the tears.

  “So will all of us,” I added. “I’m so sorry he left… and didn’t come home… until it was too late.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Jorgensen came to attend the funeral. They had driven all the way from North Dakota in their Hudson speedster, which made about thirty miles an hour. It had taken them four days. The funeral was well-attended with friends of ours mixed with friends of Mother’s mixed with fellows who had known Ronny all their lives.

  Andrea Schnell had taken the train from Minneapolis to Virginia, where Eino had picked her up. She stayed with us as she had during her Christmas visit, not so long ago.

  The ground was hard for Mr. Aalto, the grave-digger, to get down low enough. But, he assured us, only the top layer of earth had been frozen. From there down it had just been a matter of shoveling.

  This was the first death our family had to face, although there would be more as the years went by, and we grieved deeply and truly.

  I’m not sure how we would have managed had it not been for Arvo, who was there every moment, supporting Mother and me with his love and his kind shoulder. He didn’t tell us to slacken our grief but allowed us to cry until there weren’t any tears left.

  He kept the children busy with projects I know he could have done more easily and quickly alone. Nonny, for the first time, got to milk a cow. He used the small stool Mr. Leinonen had made for me, and he squirted some toward one of the cats’ open mouths just as he had seen his father do.

  Not to be outdone, Susie had been allowed into the chicken coop to collect eggs. The hens had been remarkably docile that day, thank God, and the rooster had also been on his best behavior, so her venture had turned out well. She proudly brought in eight fresh eggs.

  Little Elsie was enlisted to “read” to the baby. She settled down next to his cradle and, turning the pages seriously, recited every verse she knew and made up stories about the pictures for those with which she was unfamiliar.

  Mother and I mostly just sat. We greeted guests, urged them to have coffee and something to eat from the plenty that lined the kitchen table and the side table where we kept our dish-washing basins, and accepted their expressions of sympathy with as much equanimity as we could muster.

  But it was so difficult! So very hard! Death had not visited our home for such a long time that we had forgotten how to deal with it. We had been truly blessed by its absence, and we were not quite sure of what to do. Tears were acceptable, we knew. As was any other showing of sorrow.

  The children did not understand, of course. Only Nonny had any idea of what had happened, and even he had remained almost completely unaware of its finality. All any of them grasped was that something was making their grandmother, mother, and father feel very sad. I’ll give them credit for not adding to our unhappiness by any kind of misbehavior at all.

  When Arvo and I finally got into bed that first night, we held each other very closely, as if we could hold off the fog as well as the rain, which had eased as the day had gone on.

  “I feel just awful,” I said. “I had no idea when he went to bed it would be the last time I’d see him… alive. Had I known, I would’ve given him an extra hug and a kiss…”

  “Which you did. Remember?” Arvo’s voice was soothing. He was whispering so the children wouldn’t awaken, and I loved lying on his shoulder, my arm around his chest, his hand holding mine.

  Lying there, I counted my blessings—Arvo first, always and forever; the children, all so precious; Mother, my rock and stalwart support; Eino, whose dreams were coming closer to reality day by day, and Andrea, who it seemed wished to stay by his side whatever the future brought.

  I hoped they would find, as Arvo and I did, that having each other meant the world to both of them—just as we had vowed not that many years ago.

  “Love is the doctrine of this church,” Milma had said. And we had heard the words repeated every Sunday we attended church.

  “And God is love.” We believed that with all of our hearts. It sustained us always in good times and bad.

  We had been so blessed to have found each other in all that wide world of people, and we knew that the bond between us would never break—neither distance, time, or tragedy would sever what held us together.

  We were grateful that night and every night to come. We had not had to leave in order to “come home.” We carried our home within ourselves wherever and whenever we would go. It was made of love, always love, truly love.

  Love. Such a small word to hold such an infinity of feeling and emotion.

  It was the key that had opened the door to our lives together, and it was the lock that would always keep us safe.

  That Ronny had sought it should not have surprised us. We knew where it lived—in that little house in Korvan Kylla, not far from Angora, Minnesota—and in our hearts forever and ever.

  Amen.

  32: Happiness

  Some good news came into our lives with Eino’s wedding to Andrea, which wound up being absolutely lovely.

  Naturally there had had to be many steps taken before Andrea, who was Jewish, was allowed to marry Eino, who was Unitarian.

  I think—although I don’t know for sure—that being Unitarian helped Eino through the process because he had to be very openminded and very patient.

  For one thing, they needed permission from An
drea’s parents. That was the first step, and it took awhile coming.

  The Schnells had taken Eino into their homes and hearts when he had first started to work for Mr. Schnell, but taking him into their family was another thing altogether.

  Mr. and Mrs. Schnell had had to pray long and hard and have discussions with their rabbi—which wound up with their telling Eino that marriage between a Jew and a gentile was frowned upon for the most basic of reasons: as a Jew, Andrea’s very soul had been born into a tradition that dated back way before the advent of Jesus and involved her being a part of that tradition in her soul, not just in her mind and body. “Could she join her soul with that of a non-Jew?” That was the question. Mr. and Mrs. Schnell and their rabbi looked at all facets of the answer to that question—among them the history of unhappy marriages that had resulted from such a union. Eino, as the man, would really be the arbiter of his children’s future—their education, their cultural upbringing, their very being. Andrea would have to trust that he would abide by Jewish “rules” in every possible way before any offer of marriage could even be considered.

  Since Eino had been raised to believe that Jesus was not a God but a great teacher, his core beliefs and values were not contradictory to Jewish ones. But he lacked the Jewish “soul” that had endured for thousands of years amid persecution and mistreatment of the most serious and horrible types and kinds.

  He admitted that lack. But he told the rabbi, Mr. and Mrs. Schnell, and Andrea—many times—that he would definitely abide by his wife’s decisions with regard to their children and to the running of their home. They would observe all Jewish “holidays” and in every possible way abide by her wishes.

  I think the most telling argument he offered was one they related to strongly: he told them he felt that he and Andrea were two parts of the same whole, that they truly shared one soul. This was in keeping with the Jewish ideal of marriage.

  The discussions sometimes included him, sometimes didn’t. But they continued for months as every aspect of their union was looked at through the microscope of their beliefs.

  Finally, in May, after at least nine months of discussion and after two years of “courtship,” they were granted permission to marry… providing it be done “in a synagogue by a rabbi” and that “all Jewish elements of the marriage ceremony be observed.”

  Thus began our own learning process. We would be responsible for hosting a “groom’s reception” previous to the wedding. We offered to have it at our house, but Mr. Schnell prevailed upon friends who lived in Virginia and were Jewish to offer theirs for both the bride’s reception and the groom’s. They would be held in separate rooms.

  During our learning process we had come to know the Shiboh family, a daughter of whom was Andrea’s age. They had invited us to join them for their Friday Sabbath observation several times. Their house was huge—with a parlor that opened into a dining room on one side of the entry and a living room that ran the entire length of the house on the other side.

  At first I felt very uncomfortable even knocking on their door. We had dressed in our best clothes, but we didn’t have any really “dressy” clothes. I found I still fit into the dress Milma had bought me so many years ago, but it was way out of style. Between the two, Mother and Aini revamped it, shortening it and rearranging the top so that it bloused instead of being tucked in. I have no idea how they did it, but somehow they did, and I was grateful. Arvo had only the suit he had worn for our wedding, and he had grown since then—was much more muscular and heavier, too, because of all of the hard work he’d had to do on the farm. We settled on dress pants, a dress shirt, and a tie for him, knowing we could not afford a sport coat or a suit.

  Mother and Aini cut down Arvo’s old suit to fit Nonny and made new dresses for Susie and Elsie. Junior was left with Irma during the Friday nights we went to the Shibohs.

  Still, when we drove up to their house, which sat far back on a wide lawn with big trees and flower gardens in the front, and a carriage house for their car in the back, we all felt out of our depth.

  Once we got inside, however, that feeling changed almost immediately. We had remembered what Eino had said about bringing—not a bottle of wine —but a bouquet of flowers we had picked from our garden. Mrs. Shiboh, who told us to call her Eleanor, thanked Susie profusely when she offered them to her, and she ushered us into their living room with such a welcoming air it was almost impossible not to feel the friendliness that engulfed us. Mr. Shiboh, who said his name was Ernest, introduced himself right away and drew Arvo into a discussion about new farming methods he was interested in. Nonny, Susie, and Elsie were told there were children’s toys “upstairs in the nursery” if they didn’t want to have to sit and listen to the grown-ups talk. Elsie told us, in raptures later, that there had been a rocking horse with a real mane and tail! Susie had fallen in love with a doll house, and Nonny had found some tin soldiers he could set into rows and advance against each other.

  We talked easily about the children—Eleanor telling me that she had always wanted a larger family “but we were blessed with only one daughter, who is the light of our lives.” I asked about her, and Eleanor happily went on and on about her achievements, her intelligence, and her beauty. I listened, enjoying hearing a normal mother’s “bragging.” But then she also asked about our four, and I wound up telling her about Nonny’s misadventure with the creek and Elsie’s broken arm and about our evening reading. We found out we shared the same taste in books. She even hurried toward the bookcases that lined one wall to dig out her own copy of Beverly of Graustark.

  Once shepherded into the dining room, we were grateful for Eino’s letters. We were aware of the ceremonies that accompanied that special night.

  It wound up being the first of several Friday evenings we were to spend with the Shibohs. They came to the farm, too, to enjoy a sauna and taste Mother’s pulla and the pies for which she was evidently famous.

  Thus, by the time we were informed that the wedding had been scheduled and that invitations would be sent out—and asked “to whom did we want ours sent?”—we had become much more comfortable with Jewish ways. Eino and Andrea had visited us just before the invitations were sent out—to pick up our list—and between the two of them, they had walked us through the wedding itself.

  I thought to myself, My, my, it’s as if a princess were going to marry her prince there’s so much to do.

  Because we were not Jewish, some changes had to be made in the arrangement of the service. First of all, the receptions were held at the Shiboh’s—the groom’s on the left, and the bride’s on the right. We’d offered to provide the food for the groom’s reception, and thanks to the Korvan Kylla community, there was an abundance of it! Eleanor had set up tables all along one side of the room, and they were completely filled with many different kinds of cakes, jellos, sandwiches of every possible kind—open face and regular, an abundance of cookies, punch, coffee, and tea. We didn’t serve any alcoholic beverages because we simply didn’t do that at our own house so why should we do it there?

  I had enlisted Irma and our Eleanor Perala and Ellen Stephenson to help me arrange the food, and had instructed the children to mingle, holding plates of sandwiches, slices of cake, and cookies. Even Elsie managed to carry a tray without tipping it over or spilling its contents on the floor. I was so very proud of them and of Arvo, who managed to keep a steady conversation going not only with the guests we had invited from home but with those the Schnells had invited from Minneapolis.

  Evidently the Schnells were as popular as Eino had said because at least twenty-five people from their synagogue made the special trip north by train or car just to attend the ceremony.

  After the receptions had run their course, Eino and Andrea met in the hallway for the first time since they had last seen each other a week before. Andrea wore an exquisite gown of white satin with long sleeves that came to a point at her wrists,
a tight waist that emphasized her slenderness, and a swooping kind of skirt that ended in a short train. On her head she had a wreath of white roses holding a veil that poufed out all around her.

  Eino lifted the veil from behind her head and uncovered her face. When he was doing this, according to Jewish beliefs, he said, “I will love, cherish and respect not only the ‘you’ that is revealed to me, but also those elements of your personality hidden from me. As I am bonding with you in marriage, I am committed to creating a space within me for the totality of your being—for all of you, all of the time.”

  Then they—and all of us—left for the synagogue. Once we got there, I was stunned by the beauty. A white trellis had been formed in front of the altar. The sides and the top were covered with vines that held white roses. Bouquets of white roses stood on either side of the trellis, which I had learned was correctly called a “chuppah.” Arvo and Mr. Schnell came forward and blessed the couple.

  As they stood together under the trellis, Mother, Aini, and I smiled at each other. They were standing on a ryiju, which we had spent nine months making. It was an old Finnish custom dating back centuries that we had decided we would add to the ceremony. So we had ordered a kit from Finland getting one that was primarily white. The three of us—Mother, Aini, and I—had woven the woolen yarn into the backing so a four-by-six-foot rug had been placed underneath the trellis. Its muted color fit perfectly with the bride’s white gown and the whole meaning of the ceremony.

  A card handed to us upon entering the synagogue read: “White is an achromatic color that has no hue of its own, but reflects the entire spectrum of visible color shades. The white clothing of the bride and groom is a metaphor for the type of relationship they are now entering. Both bride and groom bring a kaleidoscope of colors into the marriage. All of these colors are embedded upon a ‘white’ canvass, the pure essence of the soul. The white clothing reflects the commitment of the couple to establish a soul connection that touches at their very core. Once this connection has been created, any ‘other clashes’ that may exist between the two can and will be resolved—because the connection runs deeper than the colors on the canvass.”