45 Year Anniversary
Seems like 2023 will be remembered for a string of colorful anniversaries…
Yesterday, someplace along the train route from Stockholm to Malmö, I realized that it was 45 years ago this summer when I relocated from Los Angeles to Göteborg. My mother had just passed away and my father, whom I hadn’t seen or heard from in several years, popped up out of nowhere like a springy jack-in-the-box and in a matter-of-factly kind a way, offered to move into our house and take care of me and my younger brother Tyko. If we agreed (and my father couldn’t see why we wouldn’t), he’d move in from the tiny apartment where he was currently living together with his two young children and their mother Adeline, the woman he’d abandoned my mother for some eight or nine years earlier.
My aunt Lillian and grandmother Agnes had flown over from Sweden to L.A. and took care of us during this turbulent time. Both were adamant about declining my father’s suggestion. Even I remember seeing how cynical the idea was and that nothing good could ever come from reuniting with him. Instead, we, brother Tyko and I opted to move to Sweden. I’d leave first and Tyko a few months later. Before long, I was on a SAS flight to Sweden where I’d begin a new chapter in my life.
In retrospect, with fort-five years worth of hindsight, moving to Sweden was the only reasonable option. It provided a healthy distance and above all, a necessary distraction from a childhood saturated with chaos, calamity, and confusion.
That’s not to say that I haven’t subsequently been forced to unpack, dissect and deal with all those years of turmoil and madness. But I am enterally grateful for having had the opportunity to move to Sweden and start fresh.