The Power of Words, Mother's words

    Donald Sutherland has been around for a very long time. Most likely just about everything that could happen to a human being has happened to him.  He was interviewed on tonight's 60 Minutes and he teared up recounting something his long-departed mother said to him when he was a young boy. Apparently having some reservations about his appearance, he asked his mother if he was good looking. His mother paused, he said, and stated, "Your face has character."  He then secluded himself in his room or a closet for a period of time, devastated.
     None of my children ever asked me that question. If they had, I don't know exactly what I would have said, but I don't think any words of mine would have shattered their egos. One of my children did ask once, on the birth of a newborn baby, if the child was as cute as the parent thought, or was it just a usual parental perception of their child.  I verified the cuteness of the baby, as I would have if any of my children had asked about themselves. They were all very good-looking children, but there's nothing wrong with a face that has character either. I am suspicious that an actor with such longevity actually remembers being hurt by his mother's rather innocuous words spoken so many decades ago.And Sutherland has a new movie opening early next year, so in consenting to be interviewed, he would need some touching anecdotal information. It could have happened. His new movie is "Leisure Seekers," and relates his descent into dementia so he might need a sympathetic audience.
     Maybe I'm underestimating the impact of parental influence on long-term memories, but there is one reminiscence I don't even slightly doubt.  In talking to a former classmate, Richard, at a birthday party for his mother-in-law, he spoke of a schooldays memory, when he was probably in third or fourth grade.  There was a major snowfall, and he lived  in a rural area in a house a long way from where the schoolbus picked  up him and his sister. They managed to walk that cold and stormy day through the steep banks of snow down the long and unplowed roadway to their bus stop. They waited a while until a passing driver told them that school was closed.  So back they went, trudging their way through the snow. They reached home and their father asked why they were home. They told him, and he gave Richard a whipping for not waiting for the bus.  He didn't say if his sister was beaten, but I happen to know that today she has serious emotional disorders.  Now I can understand that type of parental behavior can leave a lifelong impression on a child.  Donald Sutherland was lucky.