I found out yesterday that my mother has passed. My mom was born in Zurich near the end of World War II. At 19, she travelled to the United States with her mom and ended up staying in Chicago. She spoke no English when she arrived, but was accustomed to learning languages as she spoke French, Italian, German, and Swiss German at the time. She found work almost immediately in a camera shop where she learned English by speaking to customers. She found friends quickly and got an apartment with a roommate. Coincidentally, my father and his longtime friend, Buddy, also lived in this building.
My father was a musician, but he was also a bit of a linguist (he had a degree in French). He took a liking to my quirky, cute, outgoing, multilingual mom and they married a few years later.
I am still processing this…