I've always known we get our english noun "souvenir" from the french verb meaning "to remember".
I've always known this humble brass vase my Mom keeps on her mantle:
As you age yourself, you become more interested in family history and family heirlooms so, for the first time, I recently asked about the origin of this vase. "Oh that is a repurposed, spent artillery shell from World War One," she casually informs me.
This floored me that this (for me) quotidian item that I have known all my life should quietly harbor such a profound and violent past. Maybe a great uncle of my Mom's served in WWI, we are not sure.
In any case, how cool is it that my family has an actual swords-into-plowshares keepsake?
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Let Us Beat Swords Into Ploughshares, Evgeniy Vuchetich 1959 |
"They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." - Book of Isiah
Thank you for beating your artillery shells into vases, French infantrymen. I will souviendrai you every time I look at this souvenir.
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