Last week my grandmother died. It wasn’t entirely unexpected since she was 98, but part of me thought she would never die. I think it’s because she was always sharp as a tack. She had a love of language that ran deep. Being from Montreal, she spoke both English and French (well, Quebecoise), but it was deeper than that. She was always reading, whether it was the paper, a magazine or a book. One day when she was over 90 I went to her apartment. She had a bunch of dictionaries spread out over her coffee table with her trusty magnifying glass. When I asked what she was doing, she said that there was an English word that she heard earlier and she was sure it came from the French. She was scouring her English and French dictionaries to find the link. Somehow, even at her age, she just had to know. I think that this quest for knowledge, even about just one word is what kept her alive, and in many ways young.
The picture for this post is when she was a young woman. It’s undated, but it’s my favorite photo of her.
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