About Utøya and the grief.
I'm ok. Never update this thing anymore, but right now I need to ramble, and this place is close to designed for that kind of thing. Sorry in advance.
The first two dead have been named; Tore Eikeland (21) and Monica Bøsei (45).
Today flags were on half mast in the whole of Scandinavia. Tomorrow there will be one minutes' silence at twelve o' clock in remembrance of the victims of the attacks in both Norway and Sweden. That, combined with the growing list of condolences gathered in this wikipedia article is really comforting me today. People care.
My house mates and I watched the church service earlier today together. I cried. The king and queen were both crying, something I've never seen before. The prime minister started to cry when he spoke about Monica and her part in making Utøya the beautiful camp it was.
Nordal Grieg, a poet shot down over Germany during the second world war, has been quoted repeatedly through this, both his poem "to the youth" which urges people to use peace and understanding as weapons against hatred and a line from one of my favourite poems by him. "We are so few in this country, each fallen a brother and friend" describes some of the reason this is hitting us so hard. I know people who survived the bomb. I know people who survived Utøya. I can't believe this is happening here, though it is slowly dawning on me, like it's probably dawning on the rest of Norway.
Yesterday we held a spontaneous memorial in the centre of Bergen. "The blue rock" (den blå stenen) is the gathering point we always use when we meet someone in the centre of town. Yesterday we transformed it into a memorial for the fallen. Candles, flowers and cards now cover the rock. People have been standing wake around it for over a day and a night. New candles keep on coming, as well as flowers. I'm going back there tomorrow to do my part in keeping the candles burning. We're eight hours away from Oslo, this is the one thing I can do, so I will.
There will be a torchlight procession through most cities of Norway tomorrow. In Oslo they will use roses instead of torches, as the rose is the symbol of the labour party, and since torches will present a fire hazard. I will not attend the one in Bergen, as I just can't handle the thought. What has happened is dawning on me, and I can't take it all in at once.
The first two dead have been named; Tore Eikeland (21) and Monica Bøsei (45).
Today flags were on half mast in the whole of Scandinavia. Tomorrow there will be one minutes' silence at twelve o' clock in remembrance of the victims of the attacks in both Norway and Sweden. That, combined with the growing list of condolences gathered in this wikipedia article is really comforting me today. People care.
My house mates and I watched the church service earlier today together. I cried. The king and queen were both crying, something I've never seen before. The prime minister started to cry when he spoke about Monica and her part in making Utøya the beautiful camp it was.
Nordal Grieg, a poet shot down over Germany during the second world war, has been quoted repeatedly through this, both his poem "to the youth" which urges people to use peace and understanding as weapons against hatred and a line from one of my favourite poems by him. "We are so few in this country, each fallen a brother and friend" describes some of the reason this is hitting us so hard. I know people who survived the bomb. I know people who survived Utøya. I can't believe this is happening here, though it is slowly dawning on me, like it's probably dawning on the rest of Norway.
Yesterday we held a spontaneous memorial in the centre of Bergen. "The blue rock" (den blå stenen) is the gathering point we always use when we meet someone in the centre of town. Yesterday we transformed it into a memorial for the fallen. Candles, flowers and cards now cover the rock. People have been standing wake around it for over a day and a night. New candles keep on coming, as well as flowers. I'm going back there tomorrow to do my part in keeping the candles burning. We're eight hours away from Oslo, this is the one thing I can do, so I will.
There will be a torchlight procession through most cities of Norway tomorrow. In Oslo they will use roses instead of torches, as the rose is the symbol of the labour party, and since torches will present a fire hazard. I will not attend the one in Bergen, as I just can't handle the thought. What has happened is dawning on me, and I can't take it all in at once.