Finn Willy Gilbert Wicklund 1915 - 2012

F.W.G.W reached the end of his life last week, quietly, peacefully, and most of all with the greatest decency, he left.

This blog has sort of been about him.

He was one of the most real persons in every way you can imagine, he was only 97. Even if I tried to catch some of his personality and spirits, he of course was so much more, his attitude in life in general was for us something unique and totally special. No matter how the situation was he always seemed to be totally stabile, you could trust how he was and still he sometimes surprised us. He certainly was a different generation.
He also had a peculiar way of looking at life and even if he had an accident and had to go to the hospital and later a carecenter, he would request clean shirts, shaving equipment and a comb, because he always wanted to be presentable and decent, no matter if he was 96 or 97 years young or where he was. To have the spirit to try to fight for decency at a Norwegian carecenter is something worth a lot of respect, and I hope you never have to witness it. Decency is not a word we proudly can use when it comes to how we take care of our elderly.
If he ever had a friend like Big Gunnar I do not know, but I sort of hope he did, and to try to describe all the things, small and big, regarding him, would be absolutely impossible, but we are nevertheless for ever thankful for it all, and foremost for the teachings regarding how to handle life, and of course of the common decency.

It will be a little less of everything now that he is gone, but he is impossible to forget. The footprint he left is there for ever. Same as with our other grandparents, of which he was the last. Same with all grandparents in one way or the other.

I wish all grandparents would have had a blog, so their spirits and stories could be with us, to teach us, and maybe guide us when we are a little lost.

Thank you for having read F.W.G
Take care of your grandparents please, because the Norwegian welfare system for our elders is a totale disgrace even if the people working there are fantastic and doing their best.

Best wishes to you all.

The Good, The Musical And The Bad Bug.

Hello peoples of the Internet and bugs of the world,

Last week, or maybe the week before, or it might be next week? Big Gunnar and me had found a nice and decent bench to sit on. At our age this can be the total plan for any day. We just wanted to sit there quetly together for a little while contemplating all that had been, which is a lot, and all that would come, which we do not, or something similar.

Anyway, we of course were interrupted in our exercise in doing nothing.

Big Gunnar being interrupted in doing seemingly nothing on the bench.

"It is strange." Big Gunnar said while we sat on the bench.

After a while I decided he really would not continue what he wanted to say without me asking, so I said:
"Yes, it truly is." I thought by saying this I might have put him of his balanse and he would ask me to ask him what in fact was strange, but it turned out he was thinking about the strangeness and did not really listen to me, so he just leaned forward and continued motivated by me answering something. I could probably have answered anything.

Big Gunnar leaning forward motivated to give his explanation on the strangeness.

"It is strange how one can be interrupted when one is doing nothing, and of what the interruptions actually are." He said.

When one have been friends for as long as we have it is easy to understand what the other is thinking of, because there were bugs and product of bugs all around us. I nevertheless said:
"But we like bugs, they are important, probably more than us humans."
"Not all bugs, still you are sort of correct in what you say, allow me to explain." Big Gunnar said. "We cannot stay on the bench forever, so I will just say something about three bugs we sort of are influenced by here on the bench now."

First you can see the web of a spider, how it reflects the sunlight. It is beautiful to look at and it helps in balancing nature. They have found spider webs as old as 140 million years. It is one of the strongest most sticky substances we know of and almost as unique as the bug that produces it. You have to be impressed by spiders. Some claim spiders are not bugs, but they are of course mostly wrong.

"Secondly do you hear that? I do not think you need to turn up your hearing aid machine to notice the musical hum from the bees? They make the sound with small almost hornlike tubes on the sides of their thorax. That means that they can then make that happy bee almost orchestral sound also without their wings. If you studied more you would also know such things." He gave me a patronizing but on the same time ironical look. "So they are not just extremely usefull in their pollination, they are also entertaining."

"And last but worst we have the Litter Bugs, us humans, look around the bench on which we are sitting."

Big Gunnar sitting on a bench surrounded by product of litterbugs.

I had to agree with him, it was a really sad view to look around us. People had been throwing all sorts of litter around the bench and it just seemed as everybody expected someone else to pick it up after them.
"So" Big Gunnar said. "We should not call ourselves bugs, not even litter bugs, because bugs are much better than that and do not deserve to be used in our negative namecalling of our selves."
I agreed with him, he had found the bad bug and besides sitting on the bench doing nothing we could suddenly do someting.

Ashamed and surrounded by beautiful spiderwebs and with the buzzing of other bugs in our ears we started picking up litter around our bench and other places nearby.

The walk home took a while because we found litter everywhere.

Big Gunnar is not very into carrying litter, so I had to do that, but he was highly involved in pointing where it was so I could pick it up.

Maybe you can study a bug without becoming one and you might just learn something usefull.
http://www.bumblebee.org/  is a nice page with bumble bee facts.
Have a nice week people!
F.W.G

Contemplating The Time That Goes By.

Hello Internet Gentlemen and Madame,

We were having a small conversation after dinner, mostly due to the fact that it has been so long since I did any writing here. I felt sorry for this, but lack of time combined with unreliable internet access was mostly my defence against my own judgement on this. So I turned to my friends for help in hopefully feeling better.

Big Gunnar of course was conversingly present.

( I know conversingly is not a proper word, but it sounded so nice and decent.)
Anyway, above he is present in whatever form one chooses.
( I choose conversingly because this best describes his presence.)

I very shortly presented my dilemma for my friends.
"How to apologize for being absent for period that was too long to ignore, but at the same time too short to really be important when compared with our age in general."

Big Gunnar leaned forward to give me what I hoped would be a full and satisfying answer.

Big Gunnar leaning forward, and then he said:

"This obviously is to blame the politicians and how their system treats the elderly. You can also claim we had no internet for almost two months. Both are obviously the politicians faults."
"That is not true." I said. "We only had no internet for one month. I do not want to lie."
"Yes, but the Madams and Gentlemen of the Internet do not know that, and if the perception of time controls how we see it, then I see it more as two months, since it felt as at least five months, and thereby you actually make an understatement instead of lying." Big Gunnar said.
I wanted to see it from Big Gunnars point of view, but it somehow felt wrong.
"It is the same with the elevators." Rolf Rolls suddenly contributed by saying, and then continued: "They have stolen those too, same as they did with the internet."
"I think nobody can steal the internet? And who are "they"?" I asked.
"The politicians." Big Gunnar said and looked at me as I had the slowest mind in our retirement home, or maybe any retirement home. (Something you really do not want to have.)
"And by the way, nobody stole the elevators, they just hid them from Busk so he would not escape anymore. It was nevertheless probably on orders from the politicians. Come on I will show you the elevators Rolf." He said.

I walked with them pondering what had happened with them helping me with my dilemma, and if I really had got any answers, and if I maybe was one of the slower ones at our retirement home and therefor could not see the solutions to my feelings.

The hidden elevators.

(You can see how our caretakers have put a piece of paper to cover the switches and thereby fooled some of us into not finding the elevators anymore.)

"So the elevators are there?!" Rolf Rolls happily exclaimed when Big Gunnar showed him, and then he said: "I must show Busk, he will be so happy. He feels he has been trapped here for years since the elevators was stolen." "They have only had the paper covering the switches for a couple of weeks.." I said.
"You see? It is the perception of time, not time in reality that counts." Big Gunnar smiled happily at me while Rolf allready was gone looking for Busk. "Your friends at the internet might not even have noticed your absence and then you feel sorry for no reason at all. Also, same as with Busk and the elevators, the most important thing is to re-appear."

I would never call my friends geniuses, but sometimes they are, at least for me.
Hope you have some genius friends, maybe even without knowing it.
F.W.G