Written by Jaana M. H. Jokinen
Told by my mother, Mirja Anneli
September 1949, Kallio, Helsinki, Finland

Slowly but surely, the days were growing colder and darker. School had started again, and autumn had arrived. I have always been a summer person, so even as an eight-year-old, I was not at all pleased by the changing season.

There was a chill in the air overnight, and frost lay on the ground in the mornings.

When the school bell finally rang, telling us the day was over, I gathered my books in a hurry. I was eager to get home, because I had a new kitten.

She had the tiniest little meow. I loved the feel of her downy tabby fur, so soft and cuddly in my hands. I simply adored her. But I knew she was still too young to be left alone for long.

I was hurrying home not only because I wanted to play with my kitten, but because I had an important task to do. Before my mother had left for work that morning, she had asked me to give the kitten some milk when I came home from school. Mum had said she would leave the kitten in our living room and lock the door, so that my friends would not play too roughly with her or toss her about.

We always had a cat at home, so I had learned to love animals from a very early age.

I was an only child, which meant my cats and the neighbourhood children were very important to me. They were my playmates.

When I was given my kitten, my neighbour Soili got one too. We were beside ourselves with excitement and had endless fun with them, pretending they were our babies. We dressed them in doll’s clothes, tucked them into our doll-prams, and covered them with blankets. The kittens were still too little to run away, so they patiently endured us, their very devoted new mothers.

Dry autumn leaves crunched beneath my feet as I hurried home along Neljäslinja. My school was only half a kilometre from our home, so it would not take long to reach Näkinkuja, yet I was already puffing from the cold. Each breath rose before me like a little cloud.

My little safe neighbourhood consisted of eight timber townhouses arranged in a square, with a courtyard in the middle.

In winter that courtyard filled with high snowbanks. All six of us neighbourhood children had such fun there, building snow castles and playing for hours. I could not help but giggle as I remembered the time my mum and I had watched our cat Maikki outside when the first snow fell. Snow seemed so strange to her. With every step she took, she stopped to lick her paws, and sometimes she stood there balancing only on her hind legs. She was so funny to watch.

Even though we lived only two kilometres from the centre of Helsinki, and only a hundred metres down the road the trams rattled along their tracks, it was a peaceful neighbourhood where nature still felt close. Maple trees lined the streets, and lilac bushes grew in our courtyard. In spring, tulips added bright splashes of colour to our surroundings.

My childhood was a happy one. I received much love from my parents. Our home was warm, homely, and welcoming. The neighbours all knew one another well and felt almost like part of our extended family.

My mother had returned to work when I was only one year old, while my father was away fighting in the war. Although the war had ended, she still needed to work. When I was very little, a close friend of my parents had looked after me. But I was a big girl now, trusted to walk home from school on my own and wait there until my mum came home from work.

Life was peaceful. I was more fortunate than many others. Even my dear friend Raili had lost her father in the war.

At last I reached home.

By the front door lay a woven mat made from coarse string, darkened by the mud from countless shoes, a quiet testimony to the life that passed in and out of that house.

I smiled, slipped off my shoes, and picked up the key from under the mat.

As I unlocked the front door, I was greeted by the familiar sanctuary of my happy home.

I ran into the dining room. Afternoon light streamed through the windows, filling the room with warmth and colour.

But then, in an instant, my heart filled with panic.

For the life of me, I could not remember where my mother had said she would leave the living room key.

I paced the wooden floor back and forth, my heart pounding with worry. I could hear my kitten crying, and suddenly I was certain that my forgetfulness was going to cost her everything.

I began to shake. I was terrified. My chest tightened until it felt as though the very air around me was closing in. My tiny, beautiful little kitten was going to die of hunger because I could not get milk to her.

My eyes filled with tears. I did not know what to do.

In my desperation, I knelt beside the solid wooden sideboard. I folded my hands on top of the linen tablecloth, and in my helplessness I cried out to God to help me.

And then I felt something hard beneath my hands.

I lifted the tablecloth, and there it was.

The key.

A few hours later, I sat by the kitchen window, waiting eagerly for my mother to come home from work. I loved my mum above everything else.

Then I saw her coming, carrying a little bag of goodies in her hand.

My heart filled with such joy that I could hardly contain it. I ran to her and told her all about my day, every last bit of it. My mother gathered me into her warm embrace.

God had heard my cry. My kitten had her milk. My mother was home. And my little world was happy and carefree once again.

Note from Jaana:
I grew up hearing this true story. My mother is now 81 years old and lives just around the corner from me.

She still has a soft spot for cats and all other animals. Interestingly, that love of animals has been passed down from generation to generation.

As I wrote this story, there were moments when I felt I could just as easily have been writing about my daughter’s daughter, Elina, who is now ten years old. She too has an enormous, tender heart for her cat Archie, as well as for all animals.

Writing this story has been a powerful, moving, and soul-stirring experience for me. At times my eyes filled with tears. I felt as though I had been transported back in time and given a glimpse into my own mother’s childhood. And in some mysterious way, I felt my grandmother’s embrace too, because it was the same warm, comforting squeeze I received so many times from her when I was a child.

My mother tells me that her faith in God was strengthened by this experience of having her prayer answered. So it has been in my own life. It is those simple, childlike prayers, spoken in moments of need, and answered time and time again, that have built, nourished, and anchored my faith in God.

My mother’s childhood home no longer stands in its place at Näkinkuja. A new modern building has taken its place. But in my mother’s memories, that home still stands.

And now I find myself with a new desire: to walk that half kilometre between Kallio Primary School, where my mother went to school, and Näkinkuja, the place of her childhood home.

Dare I dream that one day I might walk it with my mother one more time?

P.S. The photograph is of my mum, taken in 1949 when she was eight years old, around the same time this true story took place.