“Small stroke.” I guess the size does matter in this instance. Mother has had a “small stroke” and is now in a “home.” Quotation marks, or as my Commonwealth Country friends would say, inverted commas, are remarkably handy. Denoting the slightest bit of prevarication they hint at, give a clue that, subtly indicate that, what is being said is not what is being meant, that there’s more, and sometimes less, to the words than their dictionary definition.

Kind of like “alternative” facts. The alternative to a fact is a lie, a misrepresentation, a “not-fact.”

Some other day I’ll explore the difference between truth and fact, and lie and myth. Not today however.

Fact:  I have to clean Mother’s house to get it ready to sell.

Fact:  cleaning a mother’s house to sell used to take place only after a mother’s death.

Fact:  Mother is not dead.

Fact: Something is “amiss.”

“Amiss:” difficult, sad, sometimes gut-wrenching, somehow wrong.

I do like quotation marks.