Fête des Mères
by wjw on May 8, 2016
- EPSON scanner image
It’s Mother’s Day here in the States, so I thought I’d post a photo of my mom dating from her period as a lingerie model.
I vaguely remember this photo being taken. We were on vacation in a lakeside cabin in northern Minnesota, where I spent the day on or in the water, my dad fished, drank beer, and grilled steaks, and my mom finally got a chance to relax.
I owe a great deal to my mother, who clawed her way out of poverty, out of the cult in which she was raised, and into a university education. She had sisu. Thanks to her determination, and her decision to marry my equally upwardly-mobile father, I was spared the poverty, the cult, and having to work in an iron mine, like so many of my relatives. (Not that I’m above that sort of thing, I’d just be lousy at it.)
My mom also knew how to have a good time. So I think we should salute her, and moms everywhere, by having a little fête of our own.
Cheers.
A salute with the same grade your son always earns
A plus plus plus plus plus plus plus plus plus plus plus!
She lived an incredible life!
Ah. First, Sir, sorry for the hard travail, and thanks for the beautiful recollection of your mother. Sisu! Now it all ties together. Your use of the word took me back fifty years in an instant, to my adolescence and Robert Heinlein’s novel “Citizen of the Galaxy.” “Sisu” was the name of the Free Trader ship that carried the orphan boy Thorby away from the slave planet Jubbul. Sisu’s captain, in order to repay a heavy debt of honor, then adopted the ignorant barbarian child, and thereby made him one of the People. So “sisu” means tenacity, grit, strength, determination, and honor. Fifty years later, and you’re helping me see another layer of Heinlein’s genius. As always, WJW, thank you.
I haven’t read that particular Heinlein since I was a teenager, but I remember my surprise at the starship culture having adopted Finnish as their trading language, confident that no one else would ever understand it!
Comments on this entry are closed.