The Sweetest Save

Earliest Days

Savonlinna wasn't the most populated city in Finland. In fact, if you were to rank the cities and towns, it was around thirtieth, being the home of just over 25 thousand people. On the particular day of March 10, 1989, one of its youngest inhabitants was going skating for the first time.

"We're lucky that your birthday is one of the last days of the year that Lake Saimaa is still frozen over," Inka Raskinen told her two-year-old son, Tuure, as he skipped along beside her. Inka's husband, Esa, was following close behind, snapping pictures with his Kodak.

"Skating!" Tuure shouted, then tripped and fell face-first into the snow.

Inka helped her son stand and brushed the snow off the front of his jacket. "Careful, my boy. Don't run too fast. See, we're at the lake. Let me tie your skates, and then we'll get going."

Esa Raskinen snapped yet another picture as his wife took their son out onto the ice. Tuure struggled to stand immediately. He cried out, and his mother caught him just before he crashed to the ice. Tuure's father told his son to keep his ankles straight and lean forward slightly. Once Tuure was doing this, Esa and Inka let him skate very slowly without their help.

Tuure skating slowly turned into him gliding across the ice quicker than kids who were up to ten years older than him. His parents, ecstatic that their son had found something that he was talented at, decided to sign him up for hockey lessons. The problem was that the class was just for boys three and up.

"Welcome to tryouts," an instructor walked up to the Raskinens, then curiously glanced down at Tuure's short stature. "How old is this little guy?"

"He's three," Inka cleared her throat. "Tuure just turned three."

Shortly after Tuure's actual third birthday, he received the present of a little brother. His mother had given birth to a lovely baby boy named Juuse. Tuure excitedly told his teammates about his new sibling as they greedily munched on cookies at the bench.

Tuure always remembered how delicious those desserts were. They were sugar cookies shaped like little bears with brown frosting and rainbow sugar crystals as decoration. He never counted how many he ate in one sitting, which didn't make his mother very happy. Tuure, being a toddler, didn't care.

Finland was a country that Tuure had nearly no memory of, but he did recall a number of other things. He always enjoyed how he and his teammates, who were his first ever best friends, would hold hands and sing as they skated around the rink. He remembered how tightly they'd hug him when they won a game.

When it was snowing hard in Savonlinna, which was often, they would sink their boots into the deep piles of fine white dust, or they would form snowballs to toss at each other. Sometimes the force of the snowball colliding with the three-year-old bodies was so strong that the toddlers would topple over. This would just make the little Finns laugh and laugh until one ran and got the sled. There were many screams and laughs of joy as they raced down the hills, but Tuure would always be the one yelling "Faster!"

In July of 1990, Esa and Inka informed Tuure that they would be moving him and his infant brother to Dubrovnik, a large city in Croatia. As their plane climbed through the European skies, Tuure cried at the realization that he was leaving his home. He tried to distract himself by looking out the window, but all he saw were the turrets of the many castles of his hometown. Savonlinna was famous for its castles, and Tuure knew that.

What could Dubrovnik possibly be famous for?

The plane touched down in Croatia three hours later. The first object Tuure saw when he stepped into his new home country was the flag. It had three stripes colored red, white, and blue. In the center of the flag was a checkered shield with other symbols on top of it. The young hockey player admired the banner, since it was much more colorful than the blue-and-white flag of his old country of Finland.

"Look, Esa," Inka pointed at Tuure as she cradled baby Juuse. "Tuure is already excited to be Croatian. Take a picture of him by the flag!"

Esa Raskinen told Tuure to smile, and the little boy tried his best. Esa snapped a quick photograph of his son, then moved him along so that they could get to the immigration department on time. The two adults in the four-person family were given paperwork as well as visas that they would live on for up to a year as they finished the paperwork. Once everything was completed, they would be legal Croatian immigrants.

At three, Tuure did not know all this. All he knew was how strange everything around him looked. Tuure could not read yet, and he couldn't speak that well either, so the language wasn't a problem. He did know, however, that he didn't recognize the streets at all. Tuure rocked back and forth on his feet, nervously wiggling his hands and thinking that he would always get lost trying to find his way home when he got older.

"What's wrong?" Esa kneeled beside his son when he noticed his odd behavior.

"Finland is home," Tuure mumbled. "Croatia is not home. Croatia is never home."

Esa wrinkled his brow. "Tuure. I know you are disappointed about leaving Finland, but this is where we live now. You will come to love the beautiful country of Croatia and this city of Dubrovnik. I just know that you will."

"In addition, our house is big," Inka explained to her toddler as she held her four-month-old baby. "And it's on Stradun, the very famous street in the heart of the Old Town. It is so pretty, my son!"

"More pretty than the castles?" Tuure asked, intrigued.

"They are both beautiful," Inka smiled. "But I think this place is a bit better than Savonlinna. You, Tuure, will soon decide for yourself. Right now, I think this city of Dubrovnik will be your favorite."

Tuure Raskinen hoped his mother was telling the truth.