Grammar

Monday 18 June later

My son, Bouke, wisely remarked the other day that he had known Lara longer than he had not known her in his lifetime. Now aged 33, and a father himself, Bouke must have been 14 when Lara came onto the scene. When we got married, he was 16. Lot was 20. They both were severely conflicted - not surprising when the nuclear family falls apart. For the longest time, relations stayed constricted, with Lara and also with me. They couldn't forget their father had walked away from a marriage; they saw Lara as the marriage breaker (which she was not, by the way); and they were staunchly loyal and protective vis-a-vis their mom (as I would expect them to be).

It took long years of perseverance and patience from the two of us to clear up the air. We were cold-shouldered many times. Lara never claimed (or aspired) to take the place of their mother or to play the role of a surrogate mom. She was 'Lara' to the children. Nor did she ever give cause for the kids to think she was keeping their father away from them. On the contrary: Lara was coaxing me in their direction as a matter of course. "Call your kids!"

As they grew into adults, however, my children began to realize that Lara was actually making their father a happier man, and a more balanced person. They began to understand that she therefore couldn't be all bad, despite the unsettling start of our marriage. Also, both of my children chose partners who themselves happened to come from broken up families, changing their perspectives of separation. I believe these two considerations together made room for acceptance (one step up from condoning), growing with time and leading to appreciation, and ultimately affection. On the rebound, Lara began to speak of 'our children' instead of  'Toine's children' or simply 'the children'. And certainly she called herself 'oma' (for grandmother) to 'our' two granddaughters, Yasmin and Madelief.

What clinched the paradigm shift was that Lara went through hell over the past year and a half, coupled with the prospect that their father some day might find himself left behind. It brought home to them that health is precious and that fortune is fickle. I couldn't have wished for warmer and more supportive kids. Nor could Lara have. 

I guess that losing a spouse of long standing (twenty years as a couple, 17 years of wedded life) comes with a range of paradigms that shift. One of them is grammar. It occurred to me over the weekend that I still tend to speak of Lara in the present tense. Clearly, when you talk about her mortal remains, that is a plausible thing to do. She still exists as such. But when you speak of her as about a living person, then that would be less plausible as from last Wednesday. I have decided to apply the past tense to Lara as from tomorrow Tuesday, the moment of her cremation.

Similarly, what do you do with possessive nouns? Does 'our car' suddenly become 'my car'? And 'our apartment' 'my apartment'? What about the 'bedroom', or more to the point: 'the bed'? In other words, does your grammar stay inclusive, without moving from the plural to the singular? Or does it become exclusive, where even the children and grandchildren become 'mine' again instead of 'ours'? This is not purely a grammatical matter, of course,  where only rational answers fit; it is also a matter of syntax and context. The choice of terms is intertwined with loyalty, respect and love for a dead spouse. And perhaps with insecurity over where all this has left you.