After three weeks in Canada with her family, Anneesa and son Wesley said a tearful goodbye once more, and made the long flight from Toronto back to Russia, changing planes somewhere in Turkiye.

While in Saskatchewan, they obviously did a boatload of shopping, because they had four times the amount of their original luggage on the return trip. She also left her parents in the midst of selling and packing up the house they’ve lived in since she was three years old, which meant saying goodbye to her childhood home as well.

Meanwhile, back at the farm in Nizhny Novgorod, Arend and little Finley had made preparations to drive to Moscow to reunite with the two missing family members. Because of the late hour of the arriving flight, they rented the same house they had stayed in once before, but just for an overnight stay this time, before facing the long drive back to the farm the next day.

And after the usual delays involved in getting through security and customs, they were back together — Arend saying that three weeks was the longest they had ever been apart, and that it had felt like losing a part of himself.

So all of the Feenstras are now back on Russian soil, where they apparently feel they belong. Though I still can’t comprehend their rationale in choosing Russia over Canada, I will say that I have never seen such a close-knit, devoted family.

Hopefully, that will continue to sustain them through the years ahead.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
4/25/25