A Word That Stuck

“No, that’s not the right way to spell it, try again.”

Those were the words my mom said to me one night when I was seven, sitting at our kitchen table with a crumpled spelling list and a dull pencil. The spelling bee was the next day, and I hadn’t practiced all week. I remember the dim light above the table casting a warm glow while the rest of the house was quiet. It was eight o’clock at night—well past my bedtime—and my mom’s patience was wearing thin. Every time I misspelled a word, I could almost feel her annoyance. It wasn’t anger, exactly, but the kind of tension that builds when you’re trying to help someone who just isn’t getting it. The clock ticked in the background, each second louder than the last.

We went through the list one word at a time until we got to the word “special.” For some reason, that word just wouldn’t stick in my head. I kept switching the letters around—spical, speical, sepcial. My mom sighed and tapped her nails on the table, then suddenly started to sing the letters in a little rhythm: “S-P-E-C-I-A-L, you’re so special!” She made it sound like a song, and I repeated it after her. We laughed, and I finally spelled it right. That small moment—just a few minutes long—has stayed with me for years. It wasn’t just about getting the word correct; it was about the way she made learning feel different, even fun, when it had started to feel impossible.

My mom was always passionate about reading and writing. She filled our shelves with colorful books and read to me almost every night when I was younger. Her voice would rise and fall like a storyteller’s, making every page feel alive. I didn’t realize it then, but she was teaching me more than just how to read. She was showing me how words could create emotion, suspense, and whole worlds beyond my imagination. That’s probably where my love for storytelling began—those quiet nights listening to her voice bring the pages to life.

My dad, on the other hand, took a more practical approach. On weekends, when school was out, he’d pull out extra reading and writing assignments. I used to dread those mornings. While my friends were outside playing, I was sitting at the kitchen table again, this time with my dad reviewing my writing line by line. He always pushed me to think deeper—“Why did you write that?” “Can you make that sentence stronger?” It was annoying at the time, but I see now that he was building my discipline. He even taught me to take notes when I read, to underline words I didn’t know, and to write my own short stories. Between my mom’s creativity and my dad’s structure, I had a kind of balance that shaped how I approached language.