This blog tells the story of my daughter Saimi Aina, who passed away at the age of five, from my perspective as her father. I write about Saimi’s life and our journey together, one post at a time, from the womb to the memorial grove. I don’t have a detailed plan for the content of the blog, nor do I know how many chapters the story will eventually include, but my aim is to write weekly. If you wish, you can subscribe to email notifications for new posts from the bar at the bottom of the page.
I began writing about Saimi’s life shortly after her death, when I wrote her obituary. Writing it felt therapeutic, and it gave me the idea of taking on this larger biography project, which I finally decided to start about one year later. The blog’s home page shows the most recent posts, while the Saimi’s life page lists all the published chapters of the story in chronological order.
My main motivation for writing is my desire to look back on the time we shared with Saimi and to preserve those memories. As I write, I go through photographs, messages, and other documents from the period each text covers, using them to bring memories back to mind or to sharpen them and piece them together. However, to my horror, I have found that most of the photographs I took in 2020 and 2021 have somehow vanished from my phone. Fortunately, the pictures sent through messaging apps are mostly still there, although they are often quick snaps.
I write in a style and with a level of detail that feels right at the time of writing. As a result, the quality of the texts may vary, but I try my best to resist the temptation to edit the texts after I have published them. My first aim is to get the main outline of Saimi’s story told. After that I will return to individual posts and possibly expand and improve them.
As well as for myself, I write about Saimi’s life for our family, for our friends, and for everyone who knew Saimi. Some of the people who were important to Saimi, as well as some of our friends, don’t speak Finnish, which is why I translate the texts into English. These translations are done fairly quickly, so they may occasionally be a bit rough, but I hope they still convey the meaning and feeling of the original texts. I also think that Saimi’s story and our family’s experiences may be of interest to others, and I hope the texts will reach the people who might want to read them.
I won’t be enabling comments on the blog posts, but anyone is welcome to send their feedback or comments by email to: saimi.aina.blog@gmail.com
~ Hans, Saimi’s father
Updated July 2026