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Viv for Today a blog by Viv Singer

A letter to my mom – what I’d like my deceased mother to know

They say you left a gap.

Over the years, therapists tried to get me talking about the massive gap you’d left in my life, but I couldn’t tap into it. For a while, I didn’t believe them. I truly thought they were looking for something that simply wasn’t there. Then I had Anna.

What is the meaning of "for a while" in this passage? Was it brief or does it refer to extended period? The author was three and a half years old when her mom died.

According to the dictionary Vocabulary.com the meaning of "for a while" is:

  1. adverb for a short time
    “the baby was quiet for a while”
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    You're finding out that posting questions on EL&U is not easier. Here, it's really important to explain your confusion, show that you understand the meanings of the words and in this instance edit and argue why this question is not opinion-based. You only need three users to cast their votes to reopen the question. Commented Nov 3, 2024 at 14:55

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For a while covers the interval from the moment she first heard the therapists speak about this gap (which does not coincide with the moment of her mother's passing away, but could be relatively close to it) until she had Anna.

Over the years leaves this interval indeterminate, probably because the speaker did not deem it important to clarify the matter.

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For a while, I didn’t believe them. I truly thought they were looking for something that simply wasn’t there. Then I had Anna.

What is the meaning of "for a while" in this passage? Was it brief or does it refer to extended period?

English is filled with words and phrases that indicate an indefinite measure of something. These words that are only understood in context.

A while can be under a minute: "When I turn the light on, nothing happens for a while, and then it comes on."

Or centuries: "After the Norman invasion of England, it was a while before the Scots felt any real effect."

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  • "indefinite measure of something" - I would just add that this phrase "for a while" is a relative term, meaning different amounts of times to different people and even used by the same person in different ways, depending on the situation. Commented Nov 4, 2024 at 5:18
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a while can be considered to be the time spent during which multiple spans of probable event periodicity occur before the event actually does occur. Therefore the time alluded to is purely contextual and depends upon the event being discussed

e.g. the tea took a while to brew; different tea's take various times to steep between around say 3 to 10 minutes. therefore if it took a while, it would be towards the longer end of the expected timescale such as 8-10 minutes

e.g. the ship took a while to sail between Europe and the US; a journey could be said to average 5-10 days for this journey therefore a while could be comparable to 10-60 days for the journey. i.e. multiple spans of the time where the expected time could have taken place.

e.g. dinosaurs were wiped out in a cataclysm and it was a while before a new species rose to dominance; this example would refer to a span of millions of years where evolution could have given a new dominant species but was much longer than the shortest time possible that it could have occurred in.

For the written example, the stated timeframe is in years so in this case a while would refer to a period of multiple years before the documented event took place.

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