I recently read about a bird so extraordinary it took my breath away. The Bar-tailed godwit — known in Finnish as kuovi or more specifically isovesipääsky — is not just another pretty bird. This long-legged, long-billed wonder is one of the world’s greatest flyers, performing an annual feat that seems nearly impossible. It migrates from the Arctic coasts and Nordic tundra — including Finland — and from Alaska, flying non-stop to Australia and New Zealand for the non-breeding season. Yes, non-stop. These resilient little bodies can fly across continents in just over a week, navigating vast oceans and entire hemispheres with no maps, no breaks, and no complaints.

Reading about the godwit’s extraordinary journey brought a lump to my throat — not just because of the sheer wonder of it, but because it reminded me of someone I dearly loved. My grandfather was a Bar-tailed godwit in human form.

He migrated to Australia with us when he was already well into his seventies, a time when most people would prefer to stay put, keep familiar surroundings, and rest their bones. But not him. After my grandmother died, he began a new migratory rhythm of his own. For the last twelve years of his life, he became a bird between homes — spending half the year in Finland, half in Australia. Just like the godwit, he had two homelands, and he loved them both.

In those twelve years, he never experienced winter. It was almost as if he too was instinctively chasing the sun, the warmth, the ease that summer brings to aging bones. And much like the birds that lift off from the Arctic ice to soar toward sunlit southern shores, my grandfather would pack his bags and his violin, board a plane, and follow the seasons. He was grounded in family, not in geography.

When he died in the month of January at the age of 93, he was in Australia, and so Australia became his final resting place. Had he died in June, he would now be resting in the soft soil of Finland’s green countryside instead. Like the bar-tailed godwit, born in Finland and destined to cross time zones and climates, his journey ended where he happened to land — but it doesn’t make one place more ‘his’ than the other. He belonged to both.

There is something profoundly poetic about migratory creatures — those that defy borders, climates, and expectations. They carry with them stories of resilience, of belonging to more than one place, of adapting, and of enduring. And perhaps that’s why the godwit struck such a chord in me. It’s not just a bird. It’s a symbol — of movement, memory, and the beauty of life lived between worlds.

We often think of roots as something that go deep into the earth. But there is another kind of root — the kind that stretches across oceans and ties us not to one place, but to multiple skies, languages, landscapes, and cultures. Some roots grow not downward, but outward — anchoring us under the Midnight Sun and beneath the Southern Cross. My grandfather lived this truth. The bar-tailed godwit lives it still.

So here’s to the godwits. And here’s to the people like them. May we always honour those who carry home in their hearts, no matter where the wind takes them — those who live between worlds, who love in two languages, and who leave traces of themselves in the places they touch. May we never forget that some journeys are measured not just in distance, but in devotion to more than one place.