Äiti: Giver of Love & Happiness
Story Five
Äiti: Giver of Love & Happiness
My grandmother’s given name was Femmie Sophie. However, grandchildren, nieces, nephews, friends, and even stray acquaintances called her Äiti. She found this amusing because Äiti, in the Finnish language, means mother. She would chuckle, telling me that they didn’t know that they were calling her mother. They knew.
She did not learn how to become the kind of mother she wanted to be by watching her mother. A few weeks before my grandmother died, she told me a story that happened when she was washing the outside steps of their three-story apartment in Worcester, Massachusetts. Her brother had run up the stairs with his muddy boots just as she was finishing the job. She was mad at him and told him so. Her mother, overhearing the conversation, pulled her into the apartment and began beating her. It resulted in the worst beating that Äiti had ever received from her. The story came as a shock to me, it was something that until now, she had never shared.
Äiti knew that she didn’t want to grow up to be like her mother. But how would this happen? Luckily, there was a woman in the neighborhood who was kind and gentle and enjoyed the company of children. My grandmother observed and learned from her as she grew into the person that so many people, in the years to come, would call Äiti.
Eventually, she would hone this talent, raising nine children, seven of them boys, during the depression when my grandfather was away working in lumber camps for weeks at a time.
Looking back, these are the things I remember most about her. Housework wasn’t a high priority. Comfortable clutter, mismatched furniture, and a floor that might need a scrubbing would best describe her house.
Arriving unannounced, you might find her in an old house dress with her stockings bagging down below her knees wearing a red sweater in need of darning. However, it didn’t matter if you were an expected or unexpected guest, you were greeted with open arms and a smile that lit up her deep-set eyes.
If you were extremely fortunate, you would arrive on a day when she was baking her Finnish rye bread. She would sit you down and bestow upon you a generous slice of warm bread slathered in her homemade butter.
Aside from her bread, I don’t believe my grandmother took much joy in cooking. Other than her rye bread, I don’t remember any culinary delights appearing on the Sunday dinner table.
You wouldn’t see any handiwork, typical of this period, adorning her walls. However, when you were lucky enough to have a sleepover at her house you would find yourself tucked under one of her thick, handmade afghans. Her afghans weren’t particularly colorful or beautiful. The magic of her afghans was that you felt safe and secure nestled under its weight as you slept the night away.
My grandmother would never have been featured in an issue of House Beautiful, Bon Appétit, or Good Housekeeping magazine. None of those things brought her great joy. What brought my grandmother joy was something that couldn’t be captured in the glossy pages in a magazine. What she had was an infinite capacity to love and to have fun.
I never remember her letting a load of laundry or a sink full of dishes stand in the way of having fun. She understood that housework (unlike children) would still be there waiting after a swim in the brook, a rousing game of Sorry, or, her favorite, a game of tag.
If purpose is defined as something that you have been doing all along and will continue to do throughout your life once you find it, then Äiti surely lived her entire life on purpose.
At the end of her life, no longer able to chase us around the house in a game of tag, she invented a variation to the game. Sitting in her chair, hooked up to an oxygen tank, she would lie in wait for the first unsuspecting person to walk a little too close to her. If you realized a second too late what she was up to, she would reach out touch your arm, and say, “You’re it.” Then she would giggle and her trademark smile would travel up from her heart to light up her deep-set eyes.
With Love & Energy by the Pond,
Laurel
