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A Dieu

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As kids, we were always told that dad was so tired that he died. I really did believe it for a long, that was the reason. It wasn’t until years later that I found out what had really happened. Somehow as a kid I didn’t question it; he was just too tired.

I have pretty clear memory of the police coming to our door. I wasn’t there when they were telling what had happened; we were ordered into the next room, or some other place. Then mom came to tell us that dad had died. And then the three of us sat on the couch. This is one of my clearest memories from that time: That we’re sitting so that moms in the middle, me and my brother on both side of her. The three of us.

Dad’s death was somehow really hard to understand, especially since I never got to see him. I imagine that it would still feel that same way even if you’re older. Unless you actually see the dead person, it just seems unreal. Because the last time you saw him things were normal. You get the feeling that this can’t be true.

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It was in the morning. I was at home and my brother called. He just said that now he’s dead. It was such a morbidly simple call.

I mean I give respect to those who kill themselves. I believe people have a right to take their own lives. I can understand that if some deep, dreadful feeling becomes your whole world, it must be sheer torture to live with that feeling.

I haven’t been angry at him at any point. People close to the suicide victim often feel a lot hate; they re like why did he go and do that? I mean, if you live in a terrible world and nothing helps With my father nothing at all seemed to help.

A really deeply depressed person can’t really communicate anything. In a way he doesn’t let anyone close enough to help. Once you’ve seen it, it’s so much easier to take care of yourself, because you understand that if you sink that low, you’re going to be all alone. No matter how many people you have around you – people who care – they can’t do anything for you. Maybe its simply that if you can’t take it, you just can’t take it, damn it. It’s somehow a fascist idea that everyone just has to cope until the end.

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Dad got seriously ill. It was discovered just as he was retiring. They predicted that he had about five years to live. But he lived with his sickness for eight years after the diagnosis. And led a full life until the very end.

Some amount of home care-taking was needed in the end. Mom was practically a full-time nurse at that last stage. I’m sure it meant a lot to dad at the time.

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I went to the hospital every day and spent a long time there, as if to say my farewells.

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He began to see visions, like dreams while still awake. When he was still able to speak, he would tell us that many of his dead friends had come to see him. He explained, quite realistically, that one of his close schoolmates who had died about ten years ago had come to visit; that it was precisely Antero who had talked with him. Dad knew very well that Antero was dead. It had been a really strange feeling, because it wasn’t a dream, dad really felt that way. He believed the guy had come to ask him about his condition and other stuff, just the same way my sister, me, mom or the nurses would visit him, as living people.

Towards the end, it looked like he had accepted his fate, and he was calm. He sort of changed back into a really small baby. He acted like a small child, and mom calmed him down the same way you calm down a baby: she spoke to him slowly and with a lowered voice.

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Dad couldn’t deal with the notion of death. Not at any point, you could tell. Death came as a total surprise. There was no reason for the second stroke. Nobody expected it; it just came. It was really tough, cause after he almost died once you got new hope, you felt like, hey, its nothing, everything’s gonna be fine and then just as things are starting to look up, the plug gets pulled. He got another brain stroke, and fell into coma and then spent about a week in hospital, finally dying without coming back to his senses.

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His death was a really pleasant experience: which I thought was really weird cause you never see it. I had somehow thought that people die like zap. I thought something would kind of happen. There’d be some sort of gesture, that somethings happening, some sort of change. But nothing happened, which was really strange.

We were with him the whole morning as he was dying. Me, mum and my sister were there the whole time. We all moved to moms and dads place to take care of dad.

I had painted a kind of portrait of dad which was there on the living-room wall. Suddenly mom was like, that portrait of dad looks so much more alive. The picture was painted back when dad was really fit. Suddenly his body, which was on the bed – I mean we didn’t really realize he was dead at first. But we all look at dad, so this is what he looks like now. As soon as he died he became completely empty. And there was no connection with that body anymore, like straight away, which was really strange, since you ve been looking after it all day every day. And now the painting – which looked more like what the guy looked like in our minds – was so much livelier.

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There was a really odd coincidence just before he died, the previous day. We were in the living room sitting around his bed watching television or something, when we suddenly heard knocking from the balcony. A woodpecker was hacking on the living-room window. Mom flew into a total panic.

I was just wondering how it got there? There was a tiny hole in the balcony glass, and the animal came through it. I went to the balcony and said what are you doing here, get lost, but it was trying to come inside anyway. It didn’t want to leave the balcony at all. I managed to open the balcony window and shooed it away. But it stopped and stayed in the center of the yard, on a patch of sand, and stared into our house and made noises for the rest of the day. It hung out in our yard until the next morning, when our father died. We were wondering what this was all about.

Mom thought that seeing a woodpecker was a premonition of death, so we looked through folklore encyclopedias to confirm this. When the woodpecker came, mom said: ‘Not yet, go away! Throw that woodpecker out of here, it’s got no business here!’ as if something really dangerous was intruding into the apartment. We were all left with a really strange feeling about what happened and afterwards it felt like it hadn’t happened at all, even though everybody remembers it the same.

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I don’t remember anything else from the funeral than walking in the procession to the grave. I remember walking and telling mom I don’t feel like crying. Then as we got to the grave I started crying.

But I don’t remember anything from the rest of the memorial. I have a vague memory, that we’re standing in front of the open grave in the front row and there were some people there, but I can’t remember individual faces. I just remember the grave that was open where the coffin was lowered.

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It was to be a cremation. It was dad’s wish that he be cremated.

I guess it was an ok basic funeral. I can’t remember much about it. They held the remembrance ceremony, or whatever it was; that strange event where everyones drinking coffee after the funeral – it was at our place. Everyone laughed a lot; all of dad’s friends were there and they were remembering him. They had lots of funny, juicy stories and memories about him. It left a comforting feeling. It was nice to hear those things, it really felt good.

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I’ve never felt the need to visit the grave. When I was there at the moment of his death, I didn’t fell like dad was in that grave. The grave was just part of the ceremony, it was basically a memorial. But as to where dad is: well hes here in my study, because this is the place that I’ve spent time with him and I have his picture on the wall. Every time I have a technical problem, I say to the picture c’mon give me a clue!

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The time after dad’s death was spent in a sort of cotton-wool cocoon: I didn’t really realize what had actually happened. Of course I remember feeling really sad and anxious, but somehow I was still waiting to see what would happen next, what would be the next step in this process?

My friends helped. Without them, it would have been a hundred times harder. I don’t remember any specific conversations, just the fact that everyone was there for me. And If I sometimes broke down, people understood it really well. They were really good at that, just being wonderful friends and consoling me. My friends were it, I mean they would come to take me out and they came up with all these silly things: whatever they might think of at the time to distract me. Life continued like everything was normal. For me the quiet consolation of my friends was probably the most important thing. How I felt about life, what it was like for me at the time was really far from any clear process. It was like an obscure and shapeless lump of things, out of which you would slowly understand one thing after another, and things would start to unravel.

But often when you thought you were moving forward you might take two steps back, you would suddenly feel different about something you thought you had finished with.

It was annoying cause you thought you were over that point. It was like a very confusing, incredible, shapeless lump.

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Somehow it always comes as a of surprise, the whole process of someone dying. You can never fully prepare for it. Even though it happened slowly, it sort of came as a surprise. I hadn’t prepared for it; I didn’t think he’d die yet. I guess you get used to it in time. Your basic assumption is that everything will remain the same that things will stay the way they are. And anyway that’s the way it should be, life would be pretty awful if you constantly have to worry about people dropping dead.

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Somehow I got this feeling that ok, its finally over, I don’t have to be afraid anymore and wait every night for a phone call telling me when it happened, I felt kind of light after that. In a way I had such a long time to prepare for his death that in my mind he had already died several times. He had been trying to die for such a long, that when he finally succeeded it was a relief.

He wouldn’t have to suffer here anymore, and the rest of us wouldn’t have to constantly be afraid of him leaving us. I know it’s awful to say, but I kind of feel better now that he is gone. It could be a result of many things, but everything has looked up since then. I think it has affected something – I’ve gained some sort of emotional strength or something. It serves as a powerful, warning example, you kind make an effort to take more care of yourself.

I haven’t let myself to the stage where I start remembering him. Not that I have so many remarkable memories anyway. I’ve sort of decided that this process will last for the rest of my life, you can’t help it, and anyway you shouldn’t even try. But there’s no need to rush into the process, because I think that when the times right, you’ll recognize it. You don’t have to force yourself. And you need some sort of distance too. So that you have time for the grieving. I mean I haven’t really gone through any so-called period of mourning.

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You should mourn when you’re sad. You shouldn’t push into the future, thinking you’ll deal with it later, because then the sadness will come back twice as hard. But no one can really say when you’ve grieved enough, that you can’t be sad anymore. It can suddenly surprise you and come back after fifteen years. In a way it never disappears.

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It’s important that you deal with it as soon as possible.

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I can’t say if I’ve been angry about it, since I don’t know what caused it. The thought of his children, ages six and three, is terrible. It’s shocking to think about it. I honestly don’t know what caused it. I don’t know anything else about him, except that he was serious guy. Why he was so serious I don’t know.

It’s like a ball of thread, once you start unraveling it it just keeps going on. It’s a huge job. There are so many things you want to ask the people who were there at the time. I have a big pile of letters on top of the cupboard. Letters which mom and dad wrote to each other. It’s like a bottomless pit, theres really no telling what you will find. But when you re in that situation you’re ready for everything cause you don’t know what you’re actually going to find and how you’re going to react to all those issues you haven’t thought of for years.

I feel like in a way I’ve just pushed them aside: I haven’t let things happen. The fact that I don’t have many memories about dad is quite telling, because I have a lot of memories from childhood. But I really don’t have memories about him.

I mean I do, but only a few. What is really kind of strange is that they are sort of negative. It could be that I erased all my memories of him, when he died. Nothings really left to remind me of him. If I would really dig, I guess some memories would surface. The more I think, the more good memories come out, but they’re only fragments; little memories, little events. Maybe it could turn out to be a big thing after all. But right now it’s just too hard to think about.

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Of course I have good memories too. But because I was so young at the time, I can’t really say which memories are real and which are from photographs, or stories I’ve heard several times. A story or a picture can take the place of a memory. Actually it’s impossible to tell how real the memories are, but I have some. After all it’s not that important. I’ve used the memories to build myself a life story, to make life more meaningful.

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I can’t really say if we were very close, in the same way I’m close to mom: like talking about things. We didn’t talk much with dad, but on the other hand, we worked together, and in that way he was there for me. But there never was a problem with communication: I mean he’s the same way with everyone. The emotionality of girls annoyed him. Girls had all kinds of weird problems all the time.

By doing things together, it was easier to stay on good terms with him, doing things was our way of spending quality time. It worked out this way, because he wasn’t one for just sitting down and talking about my feelings and things like that.

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It could be said that a lot of issues remain unresolved: I wasn’t able to talk things through with dad before he died. There’s a kind of a cliché that you should talk things out before the other dies. Like in the movies, I didn’t have time to say how much I loved him, and vice versa. I mean, after all I did have the chance.

Before going to the hospital, I’d been thinking, that if he’s really dying, I’ve got to tell him that as far as I’m concerned everythings alright. I told him that I have a job now, I’m graduating and I’ve been with my girlfriend for six years already. That’s what I wanted to tell him. He listened, but I said it all kind of fast. But anyway it was cool to get to say what I wanted to.

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Dad didn’t speak to us at all, which was a real shame because when he was finally ready to talk, he didn’t make any sense, he just didn’t realize that himself. The important thing about what he was trying to say was its emotional content: what he told us – the feeling of it all. He tried to tell us how to move on: that you are like so and so, and this and that must be done, and these things must be solved like this and that. He had clearly thought about it a lot and you could tell that he was relieved to get it out of his system. He must have been saving it and preparing to say it for the whole six months. Everyone was really satisfied that things that needed to be said were said. I don’t think it would have made any difference if his speech would have been any clearer.

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We were very good friends for the last six months and I tried to help him as well as I could. I went with him to his physical training and did everything I could to help, whether it was moving, eating, or other basic stuff like that – shaving or whatever. Our relationship changed into a normal father-son relationship, maybe more adult-like. If it had once been a relationship between a teenager and an anxious, irritated dad, now it was between an adult son and a father. At that point it was a good relationship.

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Somehow during the stage when dad became fatally ill, I really started to appreciate him, that even though we disagreed, it wasn’t always the end of the world. During the last years you somehow wanted to get some wisdom from him, find the things you could agree on.

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Somehow the process of handling the death is ongoing, but I’m not really that sad. When I meet my brother the feelings surface.

My brother resembles my father and I guess I do also. You think you’re a special, unique type of individual, and then you find out you’re not when you discover some similarities. Even though nobody is exactly like me, there are similar people.

It was an epic thing when both our fathers died, and then we had a child as some sort of present. Things clicked into place in some bizarre way. We stopped being children somehow and became parents. And our parents became grandparents. In away in that order of generations, everthing moved up a peg, some dropped out completely and one more person was added in. It was easier to understand it that way. But somehow you feel very old, you suddenly feel like an adult. Somehow it illustrated the cycle of life in some beautiful way.

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On a theoretical level, death is a very simple thing. We all die sooner or later, some of us die right away. We could die any time. It’s a natural thing, but when it hits you, it’s really hard to understand, and it feels really unfair. I want to have a long life and I don’t want to die and I hope no one close to me dies. But anyhow it’s inevitable. Every time someone dies you have to go through those thoughts again.

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The idea of my own death is distant to me. And I haven’t thought about it much and in a way its kind of scary, because it can happen at any time. That’s why you don’t want to think about it. My dad’s death gives me a chance to try to live a good life. It was clear that dad wasn’t happy. I will try to live my life so that I’m happy. Perhaps trying is the wrong word: you should just be happy. However, I suppose that it’s in my nature to be worried and stressed, I’m just built that way.

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I remember talking to the girl next door who was from a religious family. We didn’t belong to the church. She told us that when you die you go to heaven and become an angel. I was really angry at her, that’s not the way it goes. That when you die you stop existing. But I don’t remember if this was before or after my father died, probably before.

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I’m pretty sure that when you’re done you’re done. I really don’t believe that life continues in any kind of a spiritual or intellectual level somewhere in the afterworld. For example, just like In the case of suicide, it’s a comforting thought that the shit won’t continue in some other form.

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I don’t know what happens after death. You probably turn into ghost and stay around to haunt. I asked dad to come and visit me; I really waited. I was like give me a sign, or something. But nothings happened. Maybe the moment hasn’t been right. I hope some chance like that exists. You think of it as normal, that it happened. It was sad, but then life simply went on. The only thing that is sad is that there’s no channel of communication, no way of saying what’s up?

It would be a great idea to come up with one. To take offerings of food and stuff to some home-altar.

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Ever since I was little I’ve thought of death as a natural thing. I believe that everything is possible, but I don’t deny that the spirit could continue living. This is because everything affects everything: so everythings possible. But my own opinion or belief is that nothing happens after death. That life ends and you begin to disintegrate. You can see it as some sort of natural cycle and everything has a beginning and an end. Kind of a scientific approach.

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It was an odd experience: I was visiting my mom with my son. The picture I had painted of my father is one where he leans on his fist and looks straight ahead. Suddenly Emuli goes to the painting, waves at it happily, and then goes somewhere else. Me and my mom were like what did he see?

He had never seen that person. How come someone well under a year old walks from the other side of the room to a painting, and waves at it cheerfully. Maybe dad looks like he’s waving, or something.

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© 2008 Karri Kuoppala: A Dieu. The work is based on the interviews on six friends of mine who's fathers have passed away.

Video installation, ceiling projection, surround sound.
Audio: Finnish or English Language
Duration: 25:20 min.

Interviews and script: Karri Kuoppala
Video and video edit: Karri Kuoppala
Finnish language readers: Kaisa El Ramly and Jarkko Pajunen
English language readers: Kaisa El Ramly and Aleksi Tolonen
English translation: Aleksi Tolonen and Petri Murray
Audio recording and postproduction: Narmer Kampara
Recorded at: 3rd Rail Studio

Translation from Finnish to English language: Yasir Gaily
English language support: Enoch Bergsten
Assisting producer: Muriel Lässer
Idea, editing and audio & video recording: Karri Kuoppala

Thank you: Finnish Art Association, Helsinki City's Library and Culture Board, Uusimaa Art Council, VISEK, special thank you to the Interviewed.