DEAR ANN: Mother’s Day is coming Sunday, May 9, and I am looking for something special. My Mom is 92, sharp as a tack, collects and studies rocks, is online researching the effect of oil drilling on the crust of the Earth and Google is her new best friend. Any suggestions?

DEAR READER: Hmmm … how about the gift of prose?

If it were I, I might write my mother a letter telling her how fascinating it has been to be the daughter of a woman whose endless curiosity has inspired all of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren to travel and broaden their horizons, whose sense of fairness and belief in equality was practiced in noticeable ways – such as not joining the local golf club until the local Jewish country doctor was also invited to join, or writing a letter to the editor of her local newspaper about a street-naming controversy, stating that a developer’s proposed name of Wisnewski Avenue was just as fine a name as Wentworth Avenue.

I might also speak to her of how incredible it has been to watch this mother, who so valued education that she and her husband scrimped and saved to be able to send all six of their children to college – and who, to educate herself, stuffed her small frame, heavy with her fifth child, into her 1956 Ford to drive into the city for evening geology classes at Boston University.

Examples speak volumes.

Probably, I might remind Mom of the endless hours she spent reading Bartholomew Cubbins and the poetry of “A Child’s Garden of Verses” to her ever-listening children. I’d say how I admire her tremendous grasp of English grammar. She taught could’ve means could have, not could of, and she said one must say, “She and I are going to the store,” not “me and her.”

She taught, created and inspired.

Definitely, I would tell her that indeed she was the best cook in the world, until she discovered Julia Child and blender-salad, and until she tried to pawn off the lime Jell-O with the suspended carrots as dessert.

Perhaps I would tell Mother that I will always think of her when I hear the expression “Great Scott!” the word splendid and the phrase “buckets of love,” for to me, they are hers and hers alone.

She, who at 91, last year self-published her first book of poetry, titled “Poems 1,” selling on Amazon, created the world of Bettyisms. “Huh” became “Please speak more copiously for my diminutive understanding.” A mere pleasant coincidence became “a fortuitous happenstance.”

Maybe I would mention to Mummy that despite her love for nun-style glasses, saddle shoes and sensible 1955 maternity frocks, she epitomized glamour with her signature scent L’Origan by Coty and her Hedy Lamarr good looks.

Possibly, I may chide her that her kids all wondered if she were color blind when she sat in a burnt-orange chair in a mall furniture store waiting for her younger daughter – and when approached by the salesman, said, “I think I’ll take two of these!” He was rather stunned; no asking to see color choices? No fuss? No looking at other designs?

The orangey chairs arrived to sit atop a blue rug in a rose-wallpapered room. She was eclectic before the style was coined.

Surely, I’d cite Mom’s example of sisterly love, such fun to watch her and her three sisters; they had a sense of humor only they understood, intellectual as they all were. She misses them all, terribly – she is the last.

Those Fitzgerald girls were all gorgeous, bright and sporty gals. Mother was the Boston Globe marble champ from 1926-30, a competitive diver and a skier in the ’20s and ’30s.

How did she ever get to any of her meets? Along with her cousins and daughter, she inherited the family gene for avoiding all left-hand turns no matter how much time it added to the trip.

For sure, I’d reminisce about how with her sisters and brother, Mom taught her children to keep up with each other, even writing, editing and printing a family-and-friend newspaper for years. The News quickly became better known as Betty’s Bugle, thanks to one of her favorite sons-in-law.

Further, I would have to share with her that, sometimes it was challenging to be her kid. No helicopter parent, she! No bailouts. She served up heaping helpings of “Logical Consequences” in her household. Good or bad, whatever her kids did, they reaped the results. No excuses. No rescuing.

Punishment meant extra chores and no dessert (and no supper for “a crime”), and no getting fresh and calling her “Ma.” That was beneath her. The logical consequence was that she would only answer to Mom, Mother or Mummy.

She taught her children how to treat her. Those examples rose to speak again and again.

Maybe I’d ask her for her secret to longevity, but I know it already. It’s gratitude. At 92, having lost her husband of 65 years and having seen her eldest son survive war, she is grateful for her baby daughter and son-in-law with whom she makes her home, and her second son, who makes her laugh like no one else can. She appreciates her third son, an attorney who smooths her way amid the seas of red tape that seniors must surf, and her second daughter, who comes to every family event.

She sagely advises that one must cultivate patience, hook one’s thumbs when wanting to body surf the waves, look to the west to see what kind of weather is coming, always hide purses in the fridge (“safest place in the world”), make no fuss, keep mum on complaints, research queries and enjoy all smiles sent one’s way.

Lastly, I’d thank Mom for mothering, but never smothering my sibs and me, for teaching herself and her children to forsake blind faith and “Question Everything,” for giving more of her time to her family by giving up smoking at age 87.

Then, I’d encourage her to rest on her well-earned and endowed laurels in the green and white lounger next to the buttercup rose that grows nearby and enjoy the view over Cohasset Bay at sunset.

Happy Mother’s Day to my mom, the author, Elizabeth Jane Fitzgerald Connell.

Ann Connell Bergin, of Amherst, is a New Hampshire event planner, etiquette adviser and justice of the peace. She welcomes your questions. E-mail her at Bridalwed@aol.com.