Monday, July 25, 2011

The silent minute beside the pool

How do you explain what happened in Norway to a four year old? I still do not know how to do it. I tried today, but I felt I did terribly bad and that my answers to her questions only gave her all the reasons in this world to pronounce yet another why.

We happened to get to the Helsinki city outdoor poor just as the clock turned one today. The place turned silent, no people in the pool. Until then my daughter has been happily unaware of the news storm pooring in from from west.

In the name of childhood innosence, I would say that the normally so noicy and cheerful pool in Kumpula was maybe not exactly the best pick for the national silent minute. Quite shocking to see all those sad faces on parents and the question marks in their kids eyes. Lets put it this way, I was not the only one to have a lot of explaining to do afterwards.

3 comments:

Daniela said...

dificil de verdad, un abrazazo-

Anonymous said...

I think you took it out of proportions. It was widely known about the minute of silence, if it made you uncomfortable, you should have not gone to the pool at that time, or you could have gone to the toilet then and wait. Children do not need an explanation for everything.

Mia said...

Yep yep, it was widely known, and I knew about the minute. Just was not prepared that it would happen at the pool and cause such an impact. If I had checked the time and known about it, we could have lingered some 10 minut es more in the playground outside. Now we got there exactly on time to jump into the pool when everyone else was getting out. Of course it caused some questions - questions that I was not prepared to answer. And I'm sorry, my kiddo continues asking why until she gets an answer that makes her comfortable, she needs explanations. She still talks about it, so it definatelly caused an impact.