Last Saturday, the cancer-stricken coach, who according to the health care has less than a year left to live, was at the place where it all began.
To the tune of the marching song “Snart shiner Poseidon” the IFK Göteborg supporters gave their love to “Svennis” and anyone who didn’t cry at those images probably doesn’t have a heart.
In the 1980s, he led his Blåvitt to SM gold and victory in the Uefa Cup. Four decades later, he was now receiving a rare tribute.
Earlier in April, “Svennis” received a similar courtship at Benfica’s home arena, Estádio da Luz, where he led the club to three league golds. Last winter, his deed was noticed at the Sports Gala. A month ago, he was celebrated by a packed Anfield, where he got to lead his favorite club, Liverpool, in a charity match.
It shows humanity in its finest form.
I think we can learn something from this: Can we be better at appreciating people who are still alive?
Before Salming passed away, thousands of people he influenced had been shown their appreciation
The trends are there. When the ice hockey legend Börje Salming told that he was dying of ALS, he had to go on a similar thank-you tour: Tributes in Toronto, where he had reaped his greatest successes. Tributes at the “Hockey Gala of the Ages” in Sweden.
Before Salming passed away, thousands of people he influenced had been shown their appreciation.
Now, most people haven’t been selected to the NHL’s all-star team six times and been inducted into the ice hockey hall of fame. Nor have most of them, like “Svennis”, led any football teams to league and cup gold in Sweden, Portugal and Italy.
Most people have at most been caring relatives and caring employees – and that’s not all.
I’m thinking of Magnus Ugglas’s punk record from 1977 with the macabre title “What should you kill yourself for when you still don’t get to hear the conversation afterwards”. He was somewhat on track.
This weekend I read a DN interview with the writer Salman Rushdie, who two years ago was stabbed in the face, stomach and neck. The knife went through, among other things, one eye and was millimeters from reaching the brain. He survived.
Afterwards, he could share in all the love. The presidents of the United States and France had spoken out. The world over the manifestation had been organized.
– It felt as if my life had been meaningful, he said.
I’ve been to quite a few weddings and 70th birthday parties, but have hardly seen brides and grooms enjoying themselves
At the same time Salman was thinking Rushdie that it “looked a bit like a funeral”. That’s exactly it.
Do we have to be dead or at least half dead first?
Sure, people marry and age evenly. They are having a party. There they receive gifts and sometimes even prescribed speeches.
I have been to quite a few weddings and 70th birthday parties, but have hardly seen brides and grooms enjoying themselves. After all, it is usually they who arrange it themselves, especially if they are women.
For them, the party often becomes an anxiety over the fact that the guests should get along, that the wine should not run out, that some distant relative should not end up alone in a corner.
Think instead a ceremony without the main character having to arrange it himself and thus indirectly saying that “now I have a party because I think I deserve it”.
I dream of something as banal as a world where everyone who has deserved it at least once is celebrated like “Svennis”, Börje Salming and Salman Rushdie.
Maybe not by packed stadiums and presidents. Most people have probably not affected more than their immediate surroundings, but it is also a deed worth paying attention to.
Preferably even before they stand with one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel.
Read more columns by Patrik Lundberg – for example “Folkhemmet viemlade av soft girls” or “No children were born here, neither rich nor poor”.
