Speaking of my dead mom...

[conuly]

all my practice finally paid off.

I spent a lot of time saying the words "Unfortunately, my mother passed away in September" in preparation for somebody whom I haven't already told asking after her health, and when it finally happened that somebody said "How's your mom?" I was able to say that instead of "Oh, she's dead, how's yours?"

The latter, believe me, was my very first instinct, and the words were right behind my teeth when my rehearsed script asserted itself.

Most of my neighbors, I must assume, are used to me by now, and probably the rest would think something like "Poor thing, she must be out of her mind with grief and has no idea what she's saying", but I'd rather not dump that level of awkward on them, not unsuspecting like that.

Comments

[fred_mouse]

Well done on the self-knowledge, and getting to the point of not having your natural response happen. I will need to keep that one in mind for when it is relevant (ah, not that people ask after my mother, but I imagine that I will have other loved ones pass)

[greenwoodside]

Well done! I prepare scripts. Sometimes they work, sometimes they at least prod me into avoiding whatever I might have come out with automatically.

I mostly don't mention that my dad is dead because I'm not sure how I'll react to it. I don't think I'll say it and burst into tears (but what if I did???)

Except in Welsh, weirdly, where I do tell people in order to practice the bu farw (irregular: died) structure. Then I hurry onto cheerful stuff to avoid awkwardness.

[conuly]

I mostly don't mention that my dad is dead because I'm not sure how I'll react to it. I don't think I'll say it and burst into tears (but what if I did???)

That's actually one of the reasons I went out and told as many people as possible as soon as possible - I wanted to get used to saying it, with whatever wording, very quickly so I could at least talk about it without sobbing.

I really hate crying. It makes my eyes and throat itchy, and also my glasses get gunky. Plus, the sound of crying is just annoying to me. I rarely say that, because it's such an asshole thing to say when other people are crying, and not much less of an asshole thing to say when it's *me*, but I do not like it.

[greenwoodside]

I'm okay with it physically, but I do find it really really embarrassing to cry in front of people. I think I've only done it once as an adult, and that was when I was about twenty and was very stressed about essay-writing for university.

That's actually one of the reasons I went out and told as many people as possible as soon as possible - I wanted to get used to saying it, with whatever wording, very quickly so I could at least talk about it without sobbing.

I'm glad it's working for you.

[hudebnik]

Except in Welsh, weirdly, where I do tell people in order to practice the bu farw (irregular: died) structure.

Do tell! My wife started studying Welsh on DuoLingo two years ago, and I started about a year ago when we decided to go to Wales over the summer. I'm finding the language structures fascinating, but I haven't had any lessons yet about dead relatives.

Of course, everybody we met in Wales spoke English, so we didn't actually need to speak Welsh for anything, but it was nice being able to throw in a few words of Welsh and impress the locals that Americans would actually try to learn it. And it's always interesting to see how different languages solve the same problems.

[greenwoodside]

Bu farw - third person singular: he/she died. The conventional way to say or write it in Welsh.

Marw is irregular in that I don't believe it conjugates. So instead of becoming marwodd (like cerddodd (walked) or canodd (sang)) it's combined with bu.

Bu is from buodd. I'm not sure if you've come across it yet, but Welsh has an additional past tense whose meaning is a little difficult to align with English. Someone in class with me had studied Spanish and Portuguese, and it was familiar to her from there. One of my Welsh tutors called it the 'I be-ed" tense. Some discussion over on SSI.

Bues i
Buest ti
Buodd e/hi
Buon ni
Buoch chi
Buon nhw

Glad it sounds as if you enjoyed your holiday!

[conuly]

I don't appear to know you, and I recently was beset by a spammer, so just to double check - are you a human trying to say "Yes, I upvote this!" or are you a bot?

[redsixwing]

Well done you.

[conuly]

I feel weird not saying anything when now everybody else has a reply, but I'm not sure "thank you!" hits the right tone, so just fill in the appropriately polite and appreciative response.

[dewline]

Good to know.

I don't think I have scripts worked out for my own situation at the moment. Occasionally, I consider it and then set the idea aside. That may be a mistake on my part.

[conuly]

I habitually make scripts to handle my low-level anxiety about new social situations. In this case, the script was warranted! Usually, not so much.

[zhelana]

I had "that moment" and utterly failed it today. My new PT was like "why haven't you watched the second season of the mandelorian" and I was like "uh. was watching it with my husband. he's dead now, so I haven't been able to make myself see it"

[conuly]

Blech, what a shit situation to happen in the middle of PT.

[adafrog]

Is it wrong that I like your first inclination? Go you for working on something reasonable.

[conuly]

Not wrong. May be a neurodiversity thing. But then, I often assume a lot of things are, and who knows?

[adafrog]

Who knows.

[gwydion]

I admit that is still my instinct all this time later.

[conuly]

Honestly, I don't know why people need polite euphemisms.