What do we do for a wee­kend with the girls? We talk and laugh and talk some more. We en­joy de­li­ci­ous me­als and some spe­ci­al tre­ats. And we talk again. We walk and drive around, loo­king at all the lo­ve­ly hou­ses. We shop for a win­ter coat for the mot­her and fai­ry lights for a sis­ter. We talk about what each of us has been doing and how the fall time has gone. What things we have scre­wed up, and what things we could ce­leb­ra­te and high-five.

It is not ea­sy to find a free wee­kend when one is stu­dying, one is wor­king, and the ot­her two have fil­led their ca­len­dars with a num­ber of fa­mi­ly and ot­her ap­point­ments.

But my daugh­ters and I were ab­le to ar­ran­ge such a free wee­kend at the be­gin­ning of De­cem­ber. We spent a full day dri­ving right ac­ross Fin­land to see one of the sis­ters. Alt­hough we star­ted ear­ly in the mor­ning, we had to drive in the dark for many hours. I gras­ped the wheel firm­ly and squin­ted to see bet­ter the lane ahe­ad of me, ad­jus­ted the wi­pers and the high be­ams. I lis­te­ned to the dri­ving inst­ruc­ti­ons gi­ven by the daugh­ter sit­ting next to me. I was as­to­nis­hed at my ac­hie­ve­ment. The girls said many ti­mes that they could take on dri­ving, but I drove all the way to our des­ti­na­ti­on – and ne­at­ly par­ked the car.

The next mor­ning my yo­un­ger daugh­ter took the wheel. I slip­ped in­to the back seat and found my­self sig­hing, ma­y­be with re­lief, cer­tain­ly not for ner­vous­ness. It was ea­sy for me to le­a­ve the front se­ats to my daugh­ters. It oc­cur­red to me that I would not need to wor­ry about eve­ryt­hing any more. The new ge­ne­ra­ti­ons know how to do things and will ma­na­ge. I just need to trust in them.

As I said, the wee­kend with the girls is most­ly about tal­king. The girls talk, the mot­her lis­tens. The mot­her spe­aks, the girls lis­ten. All take turns to join the dis­cus­si­on. There are si­lent mo­ments, too, lit­t­le whi­les with no words. We try to find sui­tab­le words to re­ach each ot­her. We re­a­li­ze we are all dif­fe­rent, and it is not al­wa­ys ea­sy to un­ders­tand the way so­me­o­ne el­se is dif­fe­rent – though it is ea­sy to un­ders­tand the way I am dif­fe­rent my­self. One is keen on be­au­ti­ful clot­hes and ob­jects, so­me­o­ne el­se en­jo­ys the free­dom of not ha­ving to buy anyt­hing. One is con­cer­ned about words, anot­her about sha­pes and co­lors. Yet there is an un­der­lying in­he­ri­ted at­ti­tu­de to­ward life that we share, and we have each per­so­nal­ly cho­sen to be­lie­ve and trust that all things in life ul­ti­ma­te­ly have a pur­po­se.

Is this what it me­ans to say that adult child­ren can be at the same le­vel with their pa­rents, like friends? I find that the girls even take care of their mot­her. “Mom, where did you go?” one of my daugh­ters says on the phone. (I just went be­hind the church to take pic­tu­res of some mo­nu­ments.) “Mom, I will ask them to put asi­de that coat for you”, says anot­her while I am he­si­ta­ting. “Watch out for that car!” so­me­o­ne cal­ls when I chan­ge la­nes a bit reck­les­s­ly in the dark. There is laugh­ter, af­fec­ti­on, care. With these grown-up child­ren, I re­a­li­ze I am no lon­ger yo­ung, though I may feel my­self so.

On our way home I re­mem­ber a trip I made with my own mot­her and sis­ters. We vi­si­ted our mot­her’s home area in her be­lo­ved Ka­re­lia at a time when wood ane­mo­nes were bloo­ming. I was as­to­nis­hed at how me­a­ger eve­ryt­hing loo­ked. My mot­her’s sto­ries had made me ima­gi­ne a won­der­land of green slo­pes and lush wood­land. What I saw was roc­ky ground and stun­ted pi­nes. The rol­ling hil­ls were cer­tain­ly dif­fe­rent from our Ost­ro­both­ni­an co­as­tal plain. We saw our mot­her’s home, a small gree­nish hou­se with ver­ti­cal clad­ding by the vil­la­ge road. The ap­p­le trees on the tiny yard were not yet in bloom. We then drove to the vil­la­ge church.

In the churc­hy­ard we saw a lar­ge tombs­to­ne of red gra­ni­te with tens of na­mes, birth da­tes and de­ath da­tes. Mot­her left a bunch of flo­wers next to a fa­mi­li­ar name. We al­so went to anot­her ce­me­te­ry, where we found a small moss-co­ve­red stone slab that mar­ked the grave of my mot­her’s great-grand­mot­her. My sis­ters cle­a­ned the stone on the grave of our an­cest­ral mot­her, a strong and te­na­ci­ous wo­man who suf­fe­red a lot in life. We pic­ked some flo­wers from the ne­ar­by fo­rest and left them on her grave.

I no lon­ger re­mem­ber what we spoke du­ring that trip to Ka­re­lia, but I cle­ar­ly re­mem­ber the at­mosp­he­re. I felt that it was im­por­tant for my mot­her to show us her child­hood home, to tell us sto­ries, and to share this ex­pe­rien­ce with us, her daugh­ters.

My daugh­ters and I wal­ked streets that were unk­nown to me. But they were a new home to one of them. It was im­por­tant to me that we could to­get­her es­cort her like this and help her set­t­le in her new home town.

Text: Mir­ja Heik­ki­lä

Trans­la­ti­on: Sirk­ka-Lii­sa Lei­no­nen

You will find the ori­gi­nal Fin­nish blog post here.