The author left her toddler at home to travel with her parents.
Courtesy of the author
At our first dinner on Hurtigruten's MS Trollfjord, my parents and I spent most of the meal imagining what my 3-year-old son would have thought.Aksel would have picked at the bread, asked how many courses of "real food" were left before dessert, and probably driven his Hot Wheels through the butter.Instead, he stayed home in Denmark with my husband while my mom, dad, and I sailed south from Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the High Arctic.Outside, black mountains and sharp cliffs rose from the Arctic waters. Inside, the aquavit was so strong my mother took one sip, winced, and passed the glass to my father.Since Aksel was born, I hadn't spent more than a few hours alone with my parents. Without his commentary and toy cars, the quiet felt unsettling.My parents are grandparents in short bursts. They fly from Connecticut to Copenhagen, where my husband and I have lived for almost a decade, spend a few jet-lagged weeks with us, then go months without seeing Aksel except on FaceTime.When Aksel was born, they became "Momma G" and "Poppy," and I became "Momma." When they visit, he becomes the main event.With an ocean between us, they get little time simply to be my parents.Traveling with my parents made me feel like their daughter againBefore we boarded the ship, we spent three days in Longyearbyen, Svalbard's largest settlement. My parents rarely visit Europe, except to see us.
