My Mum

My mum will be turning 69 next month and I’m going to be 47 soon after that. When you do the math: she was a very young mum when she had me! Despite her age – or perhaps due to it – she was chilled AF… Over the next nine years she carried on having three more babies: my sisters Hanna, Outi and Essi. Periodically she would also care for other people’s children in order to make some much needed cash yet she never seemed stressed about the – I’d imagine – slightly chaotic situation around her.

Another thing she was also always chilled (AF) about was when we were sick: she told us that there was a reason we had fever and wouln’t even consider forcing it down with medication unless it got dangerously high. I had tonsillitis at the age of two, which was the only time I was given a course of antibiotics. As this very young mum she just had a sense that the body would heal itself given a chance. When I ask her where that stems from she has no idea! It didn’t come from home and it didn’t come from her studies to become a nurse, apparently it simply seemed like common sense to her.

In terms of her own health and wellbeing she has never really exercised: she has not gone to the gym, attended group classes, or taken up running. However she has always moved a hell of a lot throughout her days. As you can imagine with four children and pretty mucn zero help from anyone else you never sit down… You are up on your feet looking after them, cooking and cleaning. When my sisters and I grew older this would lessen somewhat but she would carry on moving by walking and cycling everywhere, which is what she does to this day. When ever I’m with her we do long walks together. No distance phases her and her pace is faster than mine…

She says that when she was younger she never thought about eating healthy. Naturally, as was common back then, she always ate home-cooked food, and that’s how we grew up too. Around midlife she became more interested in nutrition as she realised how much this mattered in how well she was going to live – both then and in her older years. Functional medicine’s approach to health made most sense to her: focusing on preventing illness with a healthy lifestyle and finding and treating root causes of any health issues rather than just medicating symptoms like conventional medicine tends to do. She reads about this a lot and applies what she can in her own life.

My mum’s meals include protein, vegetables and perhaps some rice or potatoes. She uses whole, natural ingredients and ultra-proceessed food has never played a part in her life – apart from the occassional chocolate bar (Fazerin sininen, se simppeli perinteinen). She says that her guilty pleasure is popcorn but even that she makes herself using olive oil and sea salt.

She lives alone, which she loves, but makes sure to have an active social life. My youngest sister with her children lives nearby so she gets to spend a lot of time with them.

In 22 years time I sure hope to be as healthy and able as her. “Hope” is the wrong word here though but instead: I do intentionally choose to live in a way that supports that goal.  

Minna