Twenty years can be a very long time.
It can also feel like yesterday.
For Malin Sävstam, it's both.
Total Horror
It's now been two decades since that terrible morning in Khao Lak when her entire life was shattered into a thousand pieces.
What happened in Thailand was a total inferno. Even today, it's difficult to talk about. We had eaten a fantastic breakfast and were getting ready to go to the beach. Then... it was total horror, total chaos, she says.
In total, around 230,000 people died in the tsunami disaster on December 26, 2004, 543 of them were Swedes. Malin's husband Mats and two of her three children, 12-year-old Harald and Elsa, 9, were among the deceased.
Early on the morning of December 30, I received the first death notice, they told me that my husband had died. Then the children were gone, they were missing. It's impossible to describe how it was.
A few days later, Malin and her son Axel, then 15, landed on Swedish soil. They themselves would move on, pick up the pieces, and try to start over.
It didn't work at all.
I thought I had a life-threatening disease called grief and that I would die from it. I was completely convinced. Physically, it hurt so much.
The first few weeks, we lived in a hospital and during that period, we made home visits. We practiced being at home, fetching clothes, washing, and such things. Then moving home, that was terrible.
The Three Lifesavers
Already in Bangkok, at the hospital, Malin was asked if she wanted to contact a priest, and when she and Axel came home, she met Louise Linder. A priest who became Malin's first lifesaver, as she herself calls it.
Louise was and is completely fantastic. What she has done for me goes beyond everything else. It was completely crucial. Louise is a wonderful person.
When it was darkest, when Malin's thoughts were heaviest, then both Louise Linder and her friends were there for her.
During this period, my focus was on fixing things as best as possible for Axel, then I would disappear. I told one of my closest friends and said "you have to take care of him."
Talking About Taboos
Friends and Louise Linder saw to it that Malin got help from psychiatry. Spring became summer, life became a little, little easier to live, and somewhere along the way, Malin began to feel something.
The whole time, I had a fine person by my side. He was also my boss. He traveled down to Thailand to help and was in our vicinity all spring. Previously, we hadn't had a private relationship, but something happened in all that sorrow. I could get a text message from him and feel like a 14-year-old.
I didn't understand. I started talking to Louise about it, and I felt that it was terribly taboo. How could I be attached to a person when I was actually dead? I was, after all, still with Mats. It had been half a year, and my conversations with Louise no longer only concerned death. They also began to concern life. There was a small door to life.
The man's name was Ulf. He became Malin's second lifesaver.
Today, they are married.
Somehow, I got my feet on the ground. I started caring about how I looked. I usually think that you have two scales, one for death and one for life. The scale for life was so light, but gradually, it filled up, so that it eventually became heavier than the one for death.
Yoga Gave Strength
Malin's third clear lifesaver became yoga. A friend suggested that she try it – reluctantly, she agreed. Now, it's a big part of her life. She leads retreats and says she can't be without physical yoga, breathing exercises, and meditation.
At first, I said "are you completely crazy, I'm grieving". But I took a beginner's course, and I felt how I softened on the inside. When I came to the classes, I felt like a bundle of anger on the inside, I was angry at everything. But afterwards, I was soft inside and out.
After a few times, something happened, something kicked in. I'm privileged to have stumbled upon yoga. People usually say to me that I'm so strong to have coped, but I'm not stronger than anyone else. I just found a tool that has worked for me.
Choosing Love
There isn't a day that goes by without Malin thinking about Mats, Harald, and Elsa, whom she lost that morning in Thailand. But the thoughts are different now, what happened no longer takes up the same space.
Mats and the children are always within me. I often get asked how I've moved on. It's so individual. Everyone carries their own answers. The important thing when you fall into a dark hole is which direction you choose to go. And I want to go towards the light and love, she says.
Age: 64 years
Family: "All who want to be part of my life."
Hobbies: "Spending time in nature and enjoying its power. Developing through meetings with other people. Film, theater, and books."
