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This is an excerpt from the book Celebrating Women.
Anna Sorensson was last year's Jämtland
county Sankta Lucia. Perhaps she was destined for it. “There are
pictures in the family album of me when I was two years old wearing
my first crown,” she confides over lunch.
“Most county winners are 18,
but I was 23-- a grandma!” she laughs “I was crowned in
the Big Church. Every day for a week after that, we got up at six AM
and there was something every minute. One day: the hospital, all thirteen
floors, every room, every door. You’re so tired of the Lucia song
you want to puke,” she laughs, recounting how the young women
sing hour after hour at schools, corporate offices, hospitals, and elder
care facilities. “We visited hospice care—people dying
soon of cancer. We just sang in the corridors because they were too
sick for visits but they wanted to hear the music for the last time.”
Later, I discover that Anna and her
court were criticized for acting “too human” while visiting
hospital patients. “Lucia is supposed to be like an angel, heavenly,
untouchable. But to be distant would be rude. If someone was crying,
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we stayed with them
and held their hands and waved at them as we left; they were lying
in bed waving back, so happy.”
“Right before I became Lucia,
my grandfather had a bad fall in the kitchen. I was so busy during
Lucia week that no one told me. So I came into one of the hospital
rooms, and there was an old man who looked like my grandfather sitting
in bed. He died this autumn, but you couldn’t mention Lucia
without his crying because he was so proud.
“In one private nursing home,
an old man had written a speech for Lucia. He wanted to stand but
he was in a wheelchair and he would have landed on his knees if he’d
tried. His nurse held him up while he spoke to us, “I’m
sorry I cannot stand up like a gentleman. I probably won’t
live until next year, so I am happy that Lucia took the time to come.’
“They say Lucia comes to spread
the light. That’s true. If someone takes time to visit people,
it makes a difference. It was really nice to be Lucia,” Anna
smiles, “It was about being kind.”
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