One Day That Changed My Life

Veljo Haamer had been far away in another town. It had taken him four hours to get here. In a bus that was old and without heating. And it was the coldest winter he could remember.

He had made his way out of the bus and through the snowstorm to the other side of the town where the hospital lied.

His knees had all but frozen up and presently they were hurting badly in the warm of the room.

He knew fathers were not allowed into hospitals. Doctors feared bacterial contamination in the children's ward and only let the fathers see their babies trough a small window. Now that Veljo was silently stood behind one of those windows he couldn't help but to notice that the room was empty. There was no one there and the lights were out.

One floor up - Liivi - his girlfriend, was lying on one of those reform beds tucked deep under white hospital blankets. It was snowing for the third day in a row.

Gusts of wind rocked the windows and it seemed the thermometer was stuck on 30C below zero. The radiators were glowing with heat. All the mothers were crammed into small cabinets, sometimes up to four persons per room because the piping on the first floor had exploded and that whole ward was left without heating.

The baby was overdue and Liivi was given injections in order to accelerate her delivery. For a while it didn't seem to work but she started to feel something around 22:00 that night. And then everything went into warp speed. Five hours later at 2:55 a boy was born. That was me. At 4kg and 53cm I looked healthy and contented. She decided to call me Kris.

This was how my birth happened. Veljo was a skinny 19 year old; my mother was 23.

They had hooked up when he was still in high school and I was an accident. So I think it was an extraordinary accident indeed. It changed my life more than anything later has. And it even changed the lives of others.

I like to think for the better.