Vigdís

What a day; in Hveragerði the flower festival was still going strong, the spa had a 60 years' jubilee and in Reykjavík they had a big event to celebrate that today it is 35 years since Vigdís was elected president, as the first woman in the world, in democratic elections. I watched the event live on TV. It was absolutely fabulous, great speeches, nice music and a few memorable stories from friends and family of the group of young people who presented the program. When they started telling the beautiful memories from meetings with Vigdís I suddenly realised I also have a great one. 
My father died suddenly in 1990 and in those days there were no direct flights to Finland, but as it happened there was some Nordic conference in Tammerfors (Tampere) which a lot of Icelanders had to participate in, so they arranged a charter flight. My best friend who was a pilot got the flight, he might actually have asked for it. He invited me to go with in the cockpit (which one could do in those days). It was cramped but OK. Towards the end of the flight Vigdís suddenly appeared in the cockpit to thank the pilot for flying her (I think she often did that). Then she saw me sitting there looking sad and immediately asked me why I was looking so glum and why I was seated so uncomfortably. When I told her that I was on the way to my father's funeral she took my hand and said something comforting. Years later my mother actually thanked Vidís for it, she (that is my mother) thought it was such a great thing to do.  All the stories were like this, that she gives her time to people disregarding who they are. What a great person!