Her name was Viveka Frykman, and she was from Sweden, with the pre-requisite nordic blonde hair and blue eyes. She and her fellow exchange-student "sister", Cecile from Columbia, were bored to tears every weekend by their host-family's insistence that they sit in a boat on the lake and fish. To break up the monotony for them, I occasionally invited them to come to church with me on a Sunday. After church, they came over to our house for lunch and to spend the time just kicking-around with us, rather than fishing. I don't know that our Sunday afternoons were any less boring, but were certainly less confining for them.
When she returned to Sweden, she remembered me, and kindly sent me a gift which was a symbol for her country - a Dala horse. It was brightly painted with a traditional flower pattern. I was delighted by it, because it was so unique and meaningful, and because she had so thoughtfully sent it to me. It was accompanied by a postcard with a colorful painting of children engaged in a snowball fight. Its inscription was "God Jul och Gott Nytt Ar" (Merry Christmas and Happy New Year). Additionally, she had written a little note about her safe return trip to Sweden, being hired at a mountain resort as a ski-teacher. and hoping that her family would be able to take a vacation and visit with her for the holidays. She also mentioned that she had been on the ice-breaker where Martin, her boyfriend, was doing his service.
I set the horse, still wrapped in the piece of Swedish newspaper, and the card next to me, as we continued to open presents. We rose from our places and as the girls went to the kitchen to help mother with preparing Christmas brunch - eggs, bacon or sausage, and stollen (German Christmas bread), and cookies - the boys, started to clean-up the living room by collecting the wrapping paper and boxes for burning. Eventually, I went back into the living room to collect and relocate my presents, and found that my little Dala horse and the newspaper it was wrapped in were gone! I searched between the couch cushions, under the couch, and all around the area where I had been seated. Finding nothing, I went out to look through the discarded wrapping papers only to find, to my horror, that the boys had already lit the fire, and flames and cinders were madly swirling above the burn-barrel. As I asked about my newspaper wrapped prize, the stunned and horrified looks on their faces told me that it was too late. It was purely accidental, and I could not hold them responsible - not with them looking so remorseful. I was so sad to have lost the gift of a thoughtful friend in a foreign land, but consoled myself that I still, at least, had the lovely card and note.
Over the years, as I thought of my little Dala horse, I would imagine that one of the cinders, containing the soul-essence of the horse rose from the flames and blew about, going on adventures, flying across the continent to the Atlantic Ocean and across, back to the woods of Sweden, where it would somehow become incorporated into another tree, grow, be harvested, and carved into another Dala horse. Somehow, in all these musings, it would be returned to me.
These wild imaginings were never shared that I can recall, but I did often speak of it (especially when wrapping paper was to be discarded) to warn others to take care that their gifts were not mixed-in with the trash, and instead were kept safe. In fact, it became the stuff of legends, and my family fully expected me to make mention of it every Christmas.
This year, as we opened our presents, I, true-to-form, reminded everyone to be sure their presents did not get tossed. I mentioned that I wished that, some year, one of them would get me a little Dala horse in remembrance of my long lost gift.
To my delight, the next package I opened, from Meg, was just that - a sweet little Dala horse!
It may not be the long-suffering and adventurous soul-cinder of my horse (... or IS it?), but it, once again, is a gift of thoughtfulness, and holds such sweet memories for me - of both of its givers.
Thank you, Viveka, for your friendship, and for your gift.
Thank you, Meg, for "returning" it to me - forty years later.
