You Can Always Come Back was the sentence my friends and family repeated most often before I recently moved to Norway. The country I left behind now feels like a closed chapter of my life. And yet, this sentence that holds the possibility of returning continues to linger with every emigrant. I believe my mother must have heard it countless times as well, and that for her, too, it carried a constant reflection on the decision to leave. In 1992, in an attempt to secure material stability for her family amid war in the former Yugoslavia, my mother went to work on a cruise ship and never returned. I grew up with my two sisters and my father, while my mother built a new family in Western Europe. Ever since we have tried in different ways to sustain a relationship – one shaped above all by trauma but also by a deep need for love and understanding. There are moments when we succeed, and moments when we fail, depending on the phase each of us is going through. I want to raise questions about what is permitted to women (and to mothers) by society? How destructive can (maternal) guilt be? Is mutual healing possible? I explore these questions within the intimate framework of a single family, but also on a broader level, examining how societies on opposite sides of the European continent engage with them: the Balkans and Scandinavia, as value-based antipodes in many respects, and especially when it comes to gender roles.