So just pull the trigger.

50. I'll survive

One of the hardest moments of parenting was watching from the side when an adult child made bad decisions and you no longer had any real ways to influence them. Well, other than talking and Asko had certainly tried. He was not the only one. Misha had done his best, Dima and Ivo, Joni's other friends, but Joni's mind was made up. 

Joni was an adult, soon twenty-two years old, and the final decision was his and his alone. It had to be accepted. Asko couldn't change his son's mind, he could only come with him when Joni took his first steps in the direction that seemed like a bad idea for the rest of them.

London was a big city, especially next to Helsinki and the trauma was far too recent. They had arrived the day before and seen at the apartment Joni was going to rent from a private landlord. Their intention was to stay in London for the next couple of nights and at the same time Joni could consider if he would really be ready to move.

Earlier in the spring, they had persuaded Joni to give up the previous housing offer and consider moving more carefully. Joni had gone to the therapy with Misha, but he had thought, after a couple of sessions, that it wasn't giving the right tools for them to continue. It didn't happen, because Joni didn't feel he was able to heal enough to be the person he had been before.

Misha was understandably frustrated. He understood Joni needed time to heal and he would have been more than willing to wait. But what was he to do, when Joni was so determined with his decision to go alone.

Asko knew his son loved Misha. He loved so much that he imagined this to be the best for him, to give Misha freedom to live his life without the responsibility of taking care of him.

Joni might have imagined that starting from a clean slate could somehow sweep away the horror he experienced. It was absurd. Asko was afraid, how on earth Joni would get along here alone and away from the people who knew and loved him? There was no getting past such trauma so easily.

Asko had talked to Misha. He had asked the man to be patient, to endure still. This stage was part of the journey and Asko was sure that before long Joni would notice his mistake and cancel his crazy plan or return home quite soon if he really decided to move. He really hoped Joni would come to his senses before moving.

Asko had also spoken to the therapist to address his own feelings. What had happened had been a huge crisis in all of their lives. The woman, of course, could not reveal the things she had talked about with Joni, but she gave him support to help him accept his decisions. Helped him to understand that even though it was difficult, the best way for him to help Joni was to be there supporting him when Joni made his decision. If all went wrong, it would be easier for Joni to admit his mistake and return to them when they wouldn't have been strongly against it in the first place.

This, moving abroad, had been Joni's dream since he was a teenager and Asko knew he had to let his child go and reach for that dream. But he was worried, he couldn't help but to worry. How naïve it had been, to believe that the worry would lessen when one's child grew up and reached adulthood.

But the worry was there, a constant wish that all would go well, even as an adult the child remained a child to a parent. But he couldn't stay there with Joni, he had three other children; minors! and a wife, and work, a life to lead. And though Joni was the one he worried about the most, he had to let him go, had to let him live his own life and hope he'd find his path to heal.

In moments like these, he missed his late wife the most, as a similar person, Marianna might have been better able to help their son. How different could life have been if Marianna had been allowed to live with them?

** ^^ ** ^^

"Well, how did it go?" Asko asked when Joni walked over to him from the campus in the afternoon. The day was very warm and sunny, unlike he had expected the weather to be in England.