I Won’t Fix Your Grammar. I’m your Husband.
Watching someone you love learn hard lessons
My wife, Sasmita is a polyglot who speaks seven languages. For most of her life, English was an afterthought.
She immigrated to the United States in 2012. Her written English was poor because English isn’t her first, second, or even third language.
Sasmita earned 150 plus college credits in India. Unfortunately, only three credits transferred to the U.S. Education system. When she arrived in 2012, she began college again.
Since I’m a writer and her spouse, she asked for help editing and proofreading her work. I learned two things fast:
She comes from a wild background.
Sasmita has endured events most of us can’t imagine. She’s spent nights in jail for protesting police brutality. She watched someone burn alive. In her teens, she lived through a violent religious pogrom.
I would help her writing become clearer, format structure, and organize her thoughts.
I offered constant encouragement. ‘You will learn and improve.’ But I told her candidly, ‘I will not fix your grammar. You have an important story to tell and your voice in that story is paramount.’
