Sometimes I come across a story that brings me pause. The story about Edwarda O'Bara is one of those stories. Almost unimaginable in its message of the unconditional love and loyalty of a mother transforming words, a promise, to her daughter, into a monument of the importance of family, and what a family is and the unconditional love of a mother.
In a time when families are marginalized more and more, maybe this is an example that is offered in the right time. 1970 before loosing consciousness Edwarda asked her mother Kaya not to leave her side. Kaya gave her daughter her word and stayed by her side for 40 years. Taking care of her when in a coma.
A family pulling together, mother, father and sister, loving and caring. No one had to tell them what was best for their daughter. No one had to teach them to love her. They didn't have to have a degree in socioligy to be able to determine how to honor, and love and cherrish their daughter and sister.
A family doesn't need law, a mother doesn't need the social services telling her what is best for her child. Why would I bring this up, certainly this is a view that all societies is founded on, the family? Unfortunately not. Not Sweden. In Sweden this amazing story and testimony of faith, family and love would be utterly impossible. I can guarantee that it could never have happened and I am sorry to say it will never happen.
There is first the issue of the Swedish health care system. It would simply not allow for someone laying in a coma for 40 years. The plug would have been pulled after a few months. Not very long ago, I experienced the nightmarish side of the Swedish "health care" system when me and my wife tried to stop doctors from terminating the life of a little baby with braindamages. The doctors refused to wait for a second opinion from a specialist in Germany that the parents had begged and pleaded the doctors to allow since the baby had started to show improvements. The doctors turned of the respiratory machines without remorse, the tears and pleadings of the parents and others couldn't even move the doctors to postpone the death sentence of the baby one single day. In Sweden there is no law, or court that has jurisdiction over a doctor. The parents had NO way of defending their daughter's life.
Secondly there is the issue of the subordination of the family and the parents to the government. In Sweden it is not the parents that decide how the children is to be raised, it is the state. Parents that have their own ideas, such as raising their children the way they think is the best or wanting to homeschool, loose custody of their children, its a fact. In Sweden family is only what the social services in your local county decides it to be.
Thirdly, the kind of faith and self sacrifice and loyalty and love expressed by this family to their loving daughter would in Sweden only be considered as some kind of extremist behavior. To prove my point, DN's artikel on the subject is void of any emotional, religious or loving subject. In comparison the Miami Herald is full of warm empathy and respect. That's because these are subjets that in Sweden only is allowed and approved when expressed in a non committing manner, balanced and calm, as to minimizze the risk of anyone thinking you are overly emotional or even worse, a religious fanatic. Dominic Johansson that I have mentioned earlier in my blog was deemed by the social services to be too trusting and outgoing, which was held against his parents, obviously they must be some kind of extremists, and as it happens they actually called them "human rights extremists."
That's why, for me, as someone that has been exposed to the Swedish society for so many years, Edwarda O'Bara is a beautiful reminder of what we are or more importantly what we must strive to remain. We are loving parents. We care for our children the best way we can. We try to never let our children down and we always try to keep our words. We never seize to love.
The O'Bara family has given the world a standard, not an unclimbable mountain or impossible to achieve, not like that at all. They have shown something better I think. They have inspired and shown that there is love. They have done this in a time when family and parenthood is marginalized in Sweden. Think about that. I think that's amazing.
