per angusta, ad augusta
Let me tell you a story about a person who inspires me the most. The headline can be translated in English with words ”no pain, no gain” which is quite a modern citation. Those are also the words that I would use to summarise the life of my great-aunt (sister of my grandpa).
My grandparents met during either the Winter War or the Continuation War, I’m not 100% certain. Either way, grandma lived in Karjala and grandpa was from Moscow. They both decided to leave their homes and evacuate to Finland. Grandpa also had a sister and a brother who also came with. This story tells about my grandpas sister, we shall call her Olga for now on.
Olga was bullied all trough her school years, because she didn’t speak proper Finnish, her family was poor and because she wore used clothes. She was discriminated and people called her names like beggar and pauper. One day she decided to fight back and when the biggest bully came to her, she said to him: ”one day I’ll show you. You will be sorry you ever bullied me. One day I’ll drive a car that costs more than everything you own together.”
Well, logically the bully laughed at her face.
But this didn’t have the effect on Olga that the bully might have hoped. Olga graduated, met a man and they started a truck-company together. It was a great prosperity. She started to invest on stocks and bought a couple of apartments across Helsinki which she put on rent. A couple of years later she and her husband sold the truck-company for a quite amount of money. After selling the company she also happened to win the lottory a few weeks later. Like Olga, seriously??
She also went through tragedies one can’t even imagine but Olga never gave up. She walked through the hell with carrying out buckets filled with water for those who were still burning in the flames. She lost her both children as well as her husband too (not at the same time) but she never lost the ability love. Years later she found another man to whom she’s now engaged. They live in a picture-perfect house, both drive a dream car and they own a villa near to Helsinki in which they spend the summer. She has helped many relatives financially and she has made clear that if I ever needed a place to stay her door is always open for me.
Olga doesn’t talk much about her fortune and I was completely in a dark with this until my mother told me the whole story a few weeks ago. Of course I had noticed that Olga had money but I hadn’t had any idea HOW she had gained it all. I asked Olga about this and she verified the whole story, adding the fact that her biggest bully died in an accident before she had the chance to show off her accomplishments. I couldn’t do anything but admire her for her courage to try even when everybody around her told that there was no way she could succeed. But she did.
She fucking did it.