Where do the years go? They slip past so quickly, and yet, when I close my eyes, I feel them near — close enough to touch, close enough to step back into.

I still hear the tick-tock of my grandparents’ clock, steady and sure, marking time that I never thought would run out. I still smell the pulla baking in my grandmother’s kitchen, that warm, sweet scent wrapping me in love and loss all at once. I feel that final, desperate hug before we left for Australia — our tears soaking into the moment we said goodbye to everything we knew.

After the long flight, I found myself in the backseat of a Holden station wagon, a child caught between the world I had left and the one just beginning. I pressed my face to the window, staring out at this strange new land. I was terrified. I was filled with wonder. My heart beat with both fear and fragile hope.

Out the window, the landscape rolled past in colours I had never seen before — wide skies, parched earth, and gum trees instead of birches. Every turn of the wheels carried me further from Finland, closer to the unknown promise of the migrant hostel, where our new life would begin.

Years later, I remember the weight of my firstborn in my arms, the tiny fists curling and uncurling, her skin impossibly soft. The pride that swelled in me, fierce and overwhelming. Her first night, her first steps, her first words — etched into me forever. And as the years passed, each child that came after added to my story, expanding my heart and my store of treasured memories.

For twelve months we lived in Finland, letting my children taste the homeland that had shaped me. I remember the four seasons — wild, harsh, breathtaking — wrapping themselves around us, as if welcoming me back, only to release me again when we returned to Australia. And I carried those seasons back with me, tucked deep into memory.

I remember my daughter’s wedding day, radiant and magnificent, when joy and beauty spilled over, each detail still glowing inside me, and my heart swelled with a pride and love too vast for words.

I remember the early Saturday morning I became a grandmother, holding a brand-new baby boy, his softness and his breath against my chest, love breaking me open once again. In that moment, I felt the circle of life turning, a new chapter beginning, and I knew my heart was forever changed. It was as if time folded in on itself, and I could see both the past and the future cradled in my arms.

But I also remember the shadows of sorrow. The long days of cancer treatment, when pain was a constant companion and hope felt so far away. The darkness that crept in, the fear that lingered, the prayers whispered into silence. I remember calling out to God in the darkest hours of night, begging Him to spare my life, and trusting He had not left me.

I remember the sting and the ache of friendships lost, the ones who walked out when life grew heavy. But I am equally grateful for the friends who stayed — steady and unshakable — who lifted me at times when I could not stand on my own, and who have remained friends for life.

I remember happy days and sad ones. I remember laughter and tears. I remember laughter so loud it seemed to rattle the walls, and nights of weeping when I thought I might shatter. I remember love and happiness so vast they lifted me beyond myself, and loss so heavy it carved me hollow.

And I remember the ordinary days — the quiet, unremarkable ones I let slip past — realising now that they were the golden threads, quietly holding everything together.

And still, life moves on, waiting for no one.

The years stretch behind me, filled with memories that rise like flickers of light in the dark. They are gone, yet they live within me, shaping who I am. And though time cannot be held, I carry it all — the beauty, the heartbreak, the wonder — as proof that I have lived, as a quiet testimony that God has been with me through it all, and as a gift I pass on to those who come after me.

Perhaps that is the gift of time — not in how fast it goes, or how much it takes, but in what it leaves behind. Every life is stitched with beauty and sorrow, with laughter and tears, with moments we think too small to matter until we see how they held everything together. If we choose to carry it with gratitude, our memories become more than the past — they become a light for the days still ahead.