Giggly
No moss growing on me
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2008
- Messages
- 9,661
- MBTI Type
- iSFj
- Enneagram
- 2
- Instinctual Variant
- sx/so
Today I met this lady on an airplane who sat next to me. She was Vietnamese, jovial, warm, sincere, and surprisingly, started talking to me first. We talked for almost the entire two-hour ride home.
She is 73 years old, and an only child, born in Vietnam. She got married at age 21 and her husband (who sat behind us) was a Commander on a big navel ship in Vietnam during the war. Even though he was gone a lot at sea, they still managed to have 8 children!!!
She said she would be happy when he would come home from leave but she would also be sooo scared at the same time because she was afraid that she'd get pregnant......And apparently she did! Almost every year even. She said she took all sorts of birth control that people would give her (this was a looong time ago remember, and in vietnam). Pills and tonics and such but nothing worked.
She said no matter what she did, whenever her husband came near her, she would end up pregnant. lol Her and I giggled so much at that together. hehe It was funny. She was quite pleasant and friendly.
Anyways, I just thought it was remarkable that she was an only child herself, had 8 children and now has 18 grandchildren.
She and her husband came over here in 1975 after the Vietnam war ended with their 8 children with nothing but clothes on their back. They immigrated here on a big ship with the help of a Lutheran church. The church ended up sending them to Vancouver, WA and she and her husband both immediately started working manual labor jobs for $3/hour (her sewing bathing suits, she said) graveyard shifts and overtime, etc, and put every single one of their 8 children through college.
She kept thanking God when she'd say that they all finished college and they are all successful now, I guess considering the life that she and her husband came from. Among their children she boasts having a lawyer, doctor, engineer, and a NASA something or other. She seemed extremely proud and I loved hearing her story. We traded phone numbers and she invited me up to Portland/Vancouver, WA to visit. I could tell right off that she was good people so it made my day.
She is 73 years old, and an only child, born in Vietnam. She got married at age 21 and her husband (who sat behind us) was a Commander on a big navel ship in Vietnam during the war. Even though he was gone a lot at sea, they still managed to have 8 children!!!
She said she would be happy when he would come home from leave but she would also be sooo scared at the same time because she was afraid that she'd get pregnant......And apparently she did! Almost every year even. She said she took all sorts of birth control that people would give her (this was a looong time ago remember, and in vietnam). Pills and tonics and such but nothing worked.
She said no matter what she did, whenever her husband came near her, she would end up pregnant. lol Her and I giggled so much at that together. hehe It was funny. She was quite pleasant and friendly.
Anyways, I just thought it was remarkable that she was an only child herself, had 8 children and now has 18 grandchildren.
She and her husband came over here in 1975 after the Vietnam war ended with their 8 children with nothing but clothes on their back. They immigrated here on a big ship with the help of a Lutheran church. The church ended up sending them to Vancouver, WA and she and her husband both immediately started working manual labor jobs for $3/hour (her sewing bathing suits, she said) graveyard shifts and overtime, etc, and put every single one of their 8 children through college.
She kept thanking God when she'd say that they all finished college and they are all successful now, I guess considering the life that she and her husband came from. Among their children she boasts having a lawyer, doctor, engineer, and a NASA something or other. She seemed extremely proud and I loved hearing her story. We traded phone numbers and she invited me up to Portland/Vancouver, WA to visit. I could tell right off that she was good people so it made my day.
