Do you have SISU?

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I haven't been here much for 3-4 days. My son did have a very tiny apartment not far from me. Circumstances change, of course, and for now, he lives with me. There just isn't another option, and when he didn't, I was over there pretty much all the time, so something had to give. We emptied his apartment, got rid of a lot of stuff we decided he could live without, and a cousin offered to store it for him--cousin doesn't live far away from us. That worked, until the last few weeks. Cousin's job transferred him out, totally unexpected. All of the stored stuff ended up in my garage this week. Well, the garage isn't that big--it's the car or the stuff, not both. The car has been in the driveway since Monday evening, and the stuff was filling up the garage. He isn't well enough to do all of this and hey, I have limited abilities for lifting, etc. plus my leg...it's taken everything we have to muster up the stamina to get through this. We sorted, repacked, got rid of more stuff, and the car will be back in the garage shortly--right before we get hit by snow about noon tomorrow. But it's been HARD. I mean, really hard. I put a comfy lawn chair out there with a blanket, sat him in it, and I mostly repacked and he tried to help. I used muscles I totally forgot I had. I have been taking a break to heat up a casserole from the freezer and eat some dinner...and turned the heater in the garage on so that it can all get finished up and get the car back in there. When something has to be done, sometimes we just have to reach deep inside ourselves and find some extra strength. In Finland, this is called Sisu. And just what is Sisu, anyway? It's an ability to draw on your inner strength, when you think you just can't go one more step, do one more thing...you reach inside of yourself for Sisu. You draw on your inner courage and strength and this helps you through some really tough times. I had a Finnish aunt, and she lived in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, there is a large population of Finns there. She told me about Sisu when I was about 10 years old. Her comment was, don't think you can't do something that needs doing. Draw on your inner strength, your Sisu, and 99% of the time, you can do it! So this Irish girl learned her Sisu at a young age. Now, it's a popular term. A movie was even made about it a few years ago. She was so right. Pinterest picture