Letters to Hannes, day 3
Helsinki, August 24, 2003
Dear Hannes,
I am sorry that I haven't been writing to you. I actually did write to you once, but the power was out for 40 minutes in Helsinki, and I couldn't post the letter.
Anyway, you'll be coming home tomorrow, and I can't wait. Like I said before, I have a few new tricks I want to show you. I have become quite the master with the yellow ball.
Today, I thought I would tell you a story about when I was a kid. I have always been pretty good at school, so I have been lucky that way. I got good grades most of the time. Then once, we had a math test where we had to add and substract (maybe 2nd grade) on a line, and for some reason, I always started from 1, instead of 0, which meant that all my calculations were off by one. So I failed the test. And I was miserable. But you can bet your ... hockey puck that I learned my lesson. And the failing hasn't bothered me much. So, it's OK to make mistakes.
Now, I went home with my "4" (= "F") and showed it to Mom. And then we decided that it was best to not tell about it to Dad. And Hannes, that has bothered me much more that the fact that I failed. Was Dad going to be mad at me? We don't know. Was he going to be sad? We don't know. So, Hannes, whatever you do, remember that you can always come and talk to Mom and me. Even if you think that we won't like what you have to say, say it, because a) you won't know until you say it, b) we'll always try to help you any way we can.
Sleep tight, my prince. Give Mom a kiss for me.
Love,
Dad
