Sandy's sayings

Sandy was a woman of words. And now I've begun to worry that I'm going to lose the things she said regularly, because I don't know that I'd ever bothered to write them down. So here are some of the ones I think of most fondly, and I'm hoping others will share the words they remember her saying frequently in the comments.

When she left the house, she'd yell up to my office, "I love you; I'm leaving!" That was my cue that if I wanted a kiss, I should head to the front door pronto. I look at the words I've just typed, and they don't do justice to the way she said it. The words "you" and "I'm" sort of ran together, and she spoke with a lilt, offering a cheery invitation, with a hint of triumph, too, as if to celebrate the accomplishment of finally getting out the door. It often took her a while to get going, usually because she wanted to read things, but more recently because she was fatigued. So it was an achievement to head out the door, especially on time.

Another parting tradition was for her to refer to me as "my love, my dove, mine own." I don't know where she got that, or how many others she addressed that way, but I cherished it.

She also frequently said, "Dunna dawdle," when I or someone else was puttering around, looking for shoes, or otherwise keeping us from leaving. I'm not even sure how to spell the first word; it was an elision of "do not," and again it was said cheerfully, almost optimistically, rather than in a scolding tone.

When she'd fumble in speech or grab the wrong noun out of the air, she'd say, "English is hard."

Ten years ago, three of our nephlings (or niblings) came over
to help us combat the blackberries, bindweed, and other fun
things that grew with abandon at the back of our property.
This picture shows Sandy with Kyle, Collin, and me; Allison
must have been the photographer.

She referred to our nephews and nieces collectively as nephlings. A couple of years ago, she started changing that to refer to them as niblings, similar to siblings and not favoring nephews in the collective noun.

When we first got together, she had a habit of ending phone calls with the words, "I'm hanging up on you now." It took some doing, but I finally got through to her that the idiomatic meaning of "hanging up on" someone was negative and ended a call on a bad note. (Likewise, I used to say, "Shut up" casually, and she found it hurtful, so I stopped.)

When she'd passed gas in a store or some other enclosed space, she'd sidle up to me (or others) and say, "We must leave now. I've polluted our environment." A friend recently wrote me with her memory of Sandy saying that, and I heard it many times. It was refreshingly honest.

Several years ago, she was annoyed at me and said, "My God, woman!" I said, " I'm your God-woman? Wow!" She laughed, and from that point on, she often referred to me as her God-woman.

She also called me her person, as an alternative to partner or spouse. I picked it up and referred to her the same way. Neither of us had any desire to be owned or ruled, but we both wanted to be claimed. Somehow referring to each other as "my person" seemed sweet and appropriate.

When we feared we wouldn't make it across an intersection before the light changed, she'd admonish, "No dying!" I whisper that sometimes now, not as I cross intersections, but as I think of her: "No dying."