Returning Home: Reflections and Hopes

The last night that we were in Norway was the eve of Vivi’s birthday. We very much wanted to celebrate that event with her. We planned a dinner at the restaurant at the Akerhus, a special location for celebrating special days among Oslo’s residents. Vivi called her elder sister, Randi, to join us. Randi was delighted.

Randi spent a few years in upstate New York starting a retail business for fishing and other outdoor pursuits. She came to visit my parents with her mother when she was in New York. Ken and I were living in Melrose; Kurt was just 3 and Steven was 6 months old. Randi is the first Norwegian cousin I had met so she was the first cousin who helped me understand and appreciate the Norwegian heritage we share. Randi now  lives near her daughter Tanya and grandchildren in a flat about 30 minutes outside Oslo.  We arranged to meet her near the entrance to the Akerhus park.

Kaelen was so interested to meet Randi. They had such an easy conversation as we made our way to the Akerhus restaurant. Dinner was lovely. Kaelen ordered a hamburger that she thought was her “best beef burger ever”…and the waiter brought her her own bottle of  very special apple juice. The four adults had a medley of shell fish that Vivi had had before. It included lobster, crab, shrimp, oyster, Scandinavian all the way. Cheesecake with strawberries was the preferred dessert.

We walked briefly through the Akerhus park walking Randi to where she would get her bus to return home. When I first arrived in Norway in June, 1999 I stayed in a hotel very near the park and spent a good amount of time exploring the buildings and the grounds. I even did a fair amount of sketching. In an interesting way, the place was familiar to me and I recalled how delighted I was 20 years ago by the warm light of the sun late in the evening as it reflected off the water.  Those hours I spent in the park before Ken arrived to join me in the sightseeing were very special to me. And I remember being so pleased that I could share my familiarity with this place once Ken arrived.

As we walked back to the National Theater Station, we passed the Grand Café…the favorite of Henrik Ibsen. (And Ken Beardsley, too.) It is easy to see why it is such a grand meeting spot (and hotel) along this main thoroughfare in Oslo. It is close to the parliament, museums, the University. Sitting along the outdoor area one can see the city moving by you.

As we were passing by,  I was surprised to see that a copy of the Fearless Girl (from Wall Street) near the entrance to the Grand Café. It made sense to me. Norway’s parliament is well represented by women. The historic role of women was characterized by “they wore the keys” to the storehouses and properties while the men sailed everywhere.  They took care of things. I certainly see this legacy of strong, “fearless” Norwegian women reflected in the cousins of my generation. Randi, Vivi, Turid and Rita have all been successful in their career endeavors, whether in business or academic pursuits.  The comfortable life styles that Randi, Vivi and Turid enjoy as “pensioners”  is the way their government acknowledges the contributions they have made to their communities.

When we arrived back at the flat, Vivi took some time to show us her National Costumes. The Norwegians are very proud of their “bunad” and consider them a family heirloom. Many people like Vivi have sewn their own costumes by hand and done the embroidery that makes these costumes actual works of art and examples of the heritage of the area of Norway from which the ancestors came.  Vivi wears her bunad on very special occasions…weddings, celebrations of May 17^th  the national holiday. When she was the head of Bilardexperten, she would wear a bunad to marketing conferences and international business events. Kaelen and I were so delighted to see Vivi’s bunad that I forgot to take a photo! (I’ll ask her to send me one to include here.)

Our last night in the Oslo flat also meant we focused on packing and getting our gear ready for the long flights home. As Kaelen remembers,

“At the end of our time in the city,  we had walked back to the train station and went back to the flat for our last night. We slept and then when we woke up we had finished our packing ate our breakfast and left for the airport.”

Yes; we were once again in travel mode… mindful of that “ layer of details that includes a hyper awareness of What time is it? Where are we supposed to be? Where’s that document? What number is my seat?” (We actually were a bit late departing from Oslo so the Amsterdam flight held the doors open for us and a contingent of travelers from Berlin whose flight was also late arriving to make the connection. We will ever be grateful to that Delta/KLM flight crew!) We also said our good byes to Erik and Vivi at the drop off point…hugs as warm and eager as the hugs we had just a few days ago when we arrived.

And my hope for the future is to have many future occasions to visit Norway….more chances to introduce my grandchildren to this Motherland from which their great great grandmother ventured forth to establish a new home in a new nation. It is hard to explain but I think of those brave women from every country that braved the ocean travel and arrived in the US in the early 20^th century a great deal when I am in Norway. And I always feel a deep sense that a part of me…a little bit of my DNA?...feels very much “at home” when I am in Norway. I feel so fortunate to have had the opportunity over these past 20 years to visit Norway, to know Norway, to meet cousins and know the warmth and hospitality of these dear people.

As is the custom at special birthday parties in Norway, I gave a speech at Erik’s 60^th Birthday Party on August 12, 2005. I said this:

‘We came across the Atlantic Ocean yesterday in just a few hours. It is remarkable to realize that the Vikings traveled that same route over a thousand years ago by harnessing fair wind in their sails and rowing! Those journeys are the stuff of legend in our history books and have been called as “earth shaking and expansive achievements” as those of any recent space exploration. The legacy of the Viking has always been with us in the United States; in fact, we named our first spacecraft missions, which traveled to Mars, Viking 1 and Viking 2.

When the Norse people came to the “new world” they brought with them their deep love for independence and freedom. The settlers of places like New Sweden in Delaware, Oslo in Minnesota, and Norway, Maine were always ready and able to demonstrate how to turn  these strongly-held ideals into vital, long-lasting communities.

In the United States, unless you are fortunate enough to be able to trace your family roots to the Native Americans, we are all profoundly aware that we are people whose ancestors came from some place else. In many cases, those people who came to the United States from other countries, like your beautiful Norway, had difficult decisions to make and endured a great deal. In many cases, they were leaving places and people they loved in hopes of providing a better life for their families. We feel privileged in that we are able to return to a place that our mother’s mother left and we are able to unite the past with our present and see first-hand how many of the customs, traditions and joys we treasure in our families belong to this very place.”

That was 2005. In the US in 2019, it is especially important to remember that we are all virtual “new-comers” to the United States, to this land first settled by Native Americans. So I feel deeply grateful that I have been able to give Kaelen, my eldest grandchild, a real way to understand her own “roots” and journey. I know that over the next months we will both think carefully about what our trip has meant to each of us. And I hope that we will always honor the land and the ancestors with whom we now share our being.