The
little lady was a perfectionist, a wordsmith and a ferocious lover of correct grammar...and fiercely proud to be all
three. By the time I was born, she was almost 40 and, while some mothers who
have their last baby later in life after raising older ones might be more laid
back, I would have to say that this was certainly not the case for Miss Zara.
Growing up, I never understood it when I would ask Mother how to spell a word (although I confess I did the same thing with my girls for some unexplainable reason) and her answer was always the same.
“Look
it up in the dictionary,” she would say every time. Hmm, I remember thinking as
a kid “if I don’t know how to spell it, how in the world am I supposed to find it in that big old book too heavy
to lift?” Never mind.
There
was certainly no “me and so-and-so”
allowed around her by anybody. And definitely not the commonly-made mistake of
“where are they at?”…um, “right
before the at!” this Southern belle would
say in a New York minute! And “ain’t” was never a word in Mother’s dictionary,
no matter if her buddy, Mr. Webster, said so or not.
Oh,
and the game of Boggle? Forget it. She knew how to spell and define more words
than anybody who ever played the game with us. If we dared to dispute her word,
we’d find out right quick that she knew her stuff far past anyone at the table.
It was actually part of the fun of the game just to try!
Once,
near the end of Mother’s life while she was in the hospital, a family friend
went to visit her. When he got to her room, he was really taken aback. It was
hard to see her so out of commission and not her normal little spitfire self.
He decided to read the Bible out loud to comfort her (and himself as well). She
appeared to be near comatose as he began. He read on for quite a while and
then, with no notice, out of her deep slumber but with her eyes still closed,
Mother said “that verb conjugated in the Greek means…” and went on, still with
her eyes shut, to explain the root of the word and give its definition and the
background of what he had just read to her! No wonder I never got away with
anything!
Mother
was so proud when I taught my own little girls “The Preposition Song”. What a
happy day for her when they had learned early what was and wasn’t correct when ending
a sentence! They still nudge me if we’re in public and they hear someone use
“Mom (or fill-in-the-blank) and I” or “Mom and me” incorrectly or the dreadful
“Mom and myself”! And I’m pretty sure if Mother ever hears one of us making
such a mistake, she rolls over in her grave (or stops dancing long enough to look
down and give us a good scowl). It’s enough to keep me on my toes at all times
to this day!
And
as out of place as it may sound, I will always laugh at what my precious,
intelligent, funny, little white-haired mother did while in hospice literally a
couple of weeks before she died. She really was going in
and out of consciousness a lot and I was with her every waking moment I could
be. My husband, Doc, came in her room one evening after work. She was, once
again, in a deep, coma-like sleep. She wasn’t just resting her eyes, I was
sure, as she was sleeping for hours at a time. Nonetheless, we were still
whispering.
“How
are you?” I asked as he leaned over to kiss me.
“I’m
good,” he said. Uh oh. As he said it I could almost feel the ground start to
shake regardless of Mother’s condition and although she didn’t even stir.
“Error!
Grammatical error! High alert! Hurry, take it back! Rethink that answer!” I’m
sure my face was doing all kinds of contortions as I was trying to signal him
with my eyes and expressions but it was too late.
“Well,”
she said in a soft but very clear and determined “I’m still the Mother correcting
her kids” voice.
“What,
Mother?” I put my face down close to hers. I was already smiling because I knew
only too well what she was saying.
“Well,”
she repeated. “Doc is well, not good.” As always, she had caught the mistake!
We
burst out laughing. Neither sleep nor slumber nor coma could keep this
grammarholic from catching a slip of the tongue!
Rest well, dear Mother. With love from Doc and me.
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