A Memory of Father

Our father was a tall, dark-haired man, a simple, honest man who loved Estonia. As far as I remember, he never had a large beard on his chin or a moustache under his nose, as men of his generation often did. When going to town he always tidied his appearance, put on his riding-breeches, polished his high boots, harnessed the horse to the cart, fitted the yellow wooden bow over the harness and set off.

I remember him above all as a man who loved order. Every tool had to be kept in its own place so that it could be found immediately when needed. He expected the same from the rest of the family. He was a farmer to the core well into old age. Even under the collective-farm system, when he was eighty, he still went to work, driving a horse to carry feed to the animals and doing whatever other jobs happened to be needed.

But horses were his weakness. His last horse was a small light-bay young horse called Kanni, rejected by the collective farm and kept on poor feed. Father pampered and fed her carefully, and that starved animal became a very beautiful horse, a glossy-coated, patchy beauty.

We no longer had our own farm, so it was not possible to keep her for long. During the collective-farm years horses began to be marked and bought up. That dear little animal too had to make a long journey. They were sent to Holland. Father was very sad. He did not even go himself to take her to Tapa railway station. Later we heard that the normally gentle animal had gone almost wild among the other horses there. They were being taken for slaughter, so perhaps she sensed her fate.

When Father was still a middle-aged man, he loved going to fairs. Horses were often bought, sold or exchanged. If the deal had gone well, he and the neighbour would seal the bargain with a drink and a song. The neighbour boy and I then had to sing 'Waves of the Baltic Sea', 'The Forest Murmurs' and other songs they liked. Father himself sang old soldiers' songs that he had sung while serving in the Russian army. I learned a few of them too, such as 'Far Away Alone Among a Foreign People' and 'There Beyond Lake Baikal in Siberia'. Military service lasted a long time in those days, not like now when one does not even need to serve a full year, and can do so in one's own homeland. Though sometimes even service in the Estonian army may be harder than it was in the Russian army.

There are so many memories from a life that has been lived, memories that remain and make the heart ache. But that is how life is made. He too had made mistakes in his life, things he bitterly regretted in old age and for which he asked forgiveness.

But about those things I will remain silent and will not write. I loved my hardworking father very much, and our little home where we grew up and where, even as adults, we were always awaited and felt safe.

So may all these memories remain bright in the dimness of passing time.