There is something about flour on the bench and the smell of cardamom and cinnamon in the air that loosens old stories.

When I bake with my granddaughter in my kitchen, I notice that I begin again.
The same stories. The same tone. Often the same hand gestures.

I tell her about my grandmother’s kitchen — warm, safe, always smelling of yeast and cardamom. I tell her about baking Finnish cinnamon buns with her, about the way she would talk while we kneaded dough, as if wisdom could be folded into it. I tell her about the stories she shared with me about her own mother and grandmother.

And sometimes I catch myself mid-sentence and think, “I have told her this before”.

But the kitchen seems to ask for it.

“Did I ever tell you what it was like staying at my grandparents’ house?”
How my grandfather would be outside polishing his Peugeot, moving slowly and carefully, as if time belonged to him.
How my grandmother and I would bake cinnamon buns at the kitchen table, or feed the wild birds on her balcony.
How the grandfather clock ticked in the living room, steady and reassuring, marking the rhythm of a safe childhood.

“Did I tell you how we watched Little House on the Prairie together because she had a TV when we didn’t?”
How I would sit tucked into her side on the sofa, feeling entirely content.
How in the evenings my grandfather would take out his violin or mandolin and play, filling the house with music while I cuddled closer to my grandma.

And how she would tuck me into bed and bless me in Swedish.

Yes. I did tell her.
I know I did.

And yet I want to tell it again.

The same story, told with the same warmth — as if for the first time.

Interestingly, my grandmother did the very same with me. She told me again and again how she began working at twelve. How she missed her mother terribly when she was sent away. How she was teased for her Savonian accent when she moved to Tampere at fourteen. How she met my grandfather.

I never grew tired of those stories.
They were threads. Anchors. Proof.

I have come to believe that repeating is often not about forgetting — it is about remembering what matters most.

As we grow older, so much of what defined us begins to fall away. Our bodies change. Careers end. Friends move away or pass on. The world becomes less familiar. I watch my father age — a man whose identity was cycling — and now he can no longer cycle. Advanced Alzheimer’s has taken his storytelling and his writing from him. I say “was” when I speak of him as a storyteller, and that word catches in my throat.

But before the disease took those things, he passed his stories to us.

And I hold them carefully.

When so much is stripped away, our stories remain as anchors. They maintain and refine our sense of identity. These are not random recollections. They are memories tied to emotional turning points and deeply held self-images. When we repeat them, we are quietly saying:

This is who I am.
This is what shaped me.
This is what my life meant.

Sharing personal stories becomes one of the central tasks of ageing. It helps us make sense of our lives. It strengthens connections. It passes on lessons that might otherwise be lost.

My grandmother never sat me down and said, “Let me teach you about resilience.”
She simply told me — again and again — what it was like to give birth to my mum in May 1941, in a country that had barely caught its breath from one war and was already bracing for another.

The lesson was embedded in the story.
I just did not recognise it at the time.

I have learned over the years that emotional memories do not fade the way neutral ones do. The brain holds onto what made us feel deeply alive. Those are the stories that return to us. Those are the stories we repeat.

And perhaps, as I bake with my granddaughter, I am doing what my grandmother once did with me. I am not simply reminiscing. I am being generative. I am trying to pass something on — strength, belonging, faith, continuity — without naming it directly.

Because one day she may not remember the exact words I used.

But she may remember the smell of cardamom.
The warmth of my kitchen.
The way I moved my hands when I spoke.
The feeling of being safe while a story unfolded.

And maybe — just maybe — she will find herself baking with her own grandchild one day, beginning a sentence with:

“Did I ever tell you…?”