Last night I saw a musical that quietly undid me. It exceeded every expectation I carried in with me. Anastasia was exquisite — moving, tender, and deeply human.
One song in particular stayed with me long after the curtain fell.

“How can I desert you?”
At eleven years old, I didn’t have the words for this question — only the ache of it.

“How to tell you why?”
How do you explain to a child why leaving is necessary, when staying feels like safety?

“Coachmen, hold the horses”
I remember wishing time would slow, just a little — one more season, one more familiar day.

“Stay, I pray you”
This line broke something open in me. It sounded like my heart, even then.

“Let me have a moment”
Migration rarely gives you that — moments are packed away too quickly.

“Let me say goodbye”
Goodbyes at eleven are unfinished things.

---

“To bridge and river”
I think of Finnish rivers, dark and steady, carrying stories older than I understood.

“Forest and waterfall”
The forests that raised me — quiet, sheltering, constant.

“Orchard, sea, and sky”
The land that shaped my sense of belonging long before I knew I would leave it.

“Harsh and sweet and bitter to leave it all”
Leaving was all of those things at once — excitement tangled tightly with grief.

“I’ll bless my homeland till I die”
Because loving a place doesn’t end when you leave it.

---

“How to break the tie?”
You don’t. The tie stretches — across oceans, years, and languages.

“We have shared our tears”
My tears came quietly — confusion, homesickness, longing.

“And shared our sorrows”
Even as a child, I carried the weight of what was being left behind.

“Though the scars remain”
Migration leaves marks — not wounds, but seams.

“And tears will never dry”
Some tears are not meant to disappear; they become part of who we are.

“I’ll bless my homeland till I die”
A blessing whispered in two languages.

---

“Never to return”
That was the fear — that everything familiar might vanish.

“Finally breaking free”
And yet, freedom came too — slowly, unexpectedly.

“You are all I know”
Finland was my first knowing.

“You have raised me”
In resilience, in quiet strength.

---

“How to turn away?”
You don’t turn away — you carry it forward.

“How to close the door?”
Some doors stay open in the heart forever.

“How to go where I have never gone before?”
With a child’s courage, borrowed faith, and my hand held tightly in my father’s hand.

---

“How can I desert you”
I didn’t desert you — I brought you with me.

“How to tell you why?”
Because life unfolded, and I followed.

“Coachmen, hold the horses”
Still, part of me pauses there.

“Stay, I pray you”
In memory. In language. In tradition.

“Let me have a moment”
To honour where I began.

“Let me say goodbye”
And hello — again and again.

---

This song is a farewell, but it is also a prayer.
A collective lament for migrants everywhere — for those who have stood between worlds, holding love in both hands.

“Harsh and sweet and bitter to leave it all”
Every migrant knows this truth.

“I’ll bless my homeland”
In the stories I tell.

“I’ll bless my homeland”
In the values I pass on.

“I’ll bless my homeland till I die”
Because leaving did not erase my roots — it revealed them.