“We are Loewens! That means lions!”

“We are Loewens! That means lions!” is Tina Loewen’s exuberant declaration of maternal family identity at a moment of illness and separation. Spoken to Yolandi Von Riesen in the hospital, the phrase is both a joke about the Loewen name and a forceful expression of solidarity: Tina asks Yolandi to make sure Elfrieda Von Riesen knows that she is loved.

The Hospital Exchange

Tina is preparing for heart surgery when Yolandi visits her. After asking about her cousins and arranging to collect Sheila and Frank from the airport, Yolandi kisses Tina; Tina holds her tightly and asks her to give her love to Elfrieda. She insists that Elfrieda needs to hear that Tina loves her and knows the feeling is returned. The declaration about the Loewens follows as an emphatic afterthought, linking this private message of affection to a broader family bond.

The line’s meaning is made explicit in the scene: Loewen is the maiden name shared by Tina and her sister, Lottie, Yolandi’s mother. Tina turns that shared name into a family slogan, announcing its meaning with comic grandeur. Yolandi answers with a smile and asks a passing nurse to handle her aunt carefully because she is the king of the jungle. The nurse laughs and squeezes Yolandi’s arm, extending Tina’s joke into a brief exchange of warmth among family and hospital staff.

A Name Against a History of Loss

The phrase carries extra weight against the family’s history. Tina and Lottie have buried fourteen siblings, as well as daughters, husbands, and parents; of the original sixteen children, only the two sisters remain. Their lives are shaped by accumulated bereavement, not by an uncomplicated story of triumph. Calling the family lions does not undo that history. Instead, Tina’s joke offers a lively name for the closeness and force with which the sisters continue to face it.

Other family memories place this humor beside grief and inherited silence. Tina once whispers “Schlope Schein,” the Plautdietsch bedtime blessing she used for Yolandi and Leni when they were young. The family’s Plautdietsch is also described as a language of shame, bound to persecution and pain passed between generations. Against that background, Tina’s English declaration is strikingly public and direct: she names the family, explains the name, and makes affection unmistakable.

Affection, Humor, and Care

Tina’s words are not a general boast detached from the hospital scene. They come immediately after a specific request: Yolandi is to carry love from one sister to the other, because Elfrieda needs to hear it. The phrase gives that message a memorable, playful form. Its confidence coexists with vulnerability—Tina is a pre-operative heart patient, and her embrace and request make clear how much the connection matters.

The exchange also establishes a contrast in the book’s depictions of hospital care. Yolandi observes that nurses in the cardiac ward are more playful and friendly than those in the psychiatric ward where Elfrieda is being treated. Here, a nurse meets Tina’s joke with laughter and responds warmly to Yolandi. The moment cannot resolve the family’s distress, but it briefly makes care feel companionable: a name becomes a joke, the joke becomes reassurance, and the reassurance carries Tina’s love toward her niece.