There are no words

When you learn that someone you know is terminally ill, there are no words. When a baby is born, there are no words. When someone watches as a river of lava approaches their home, there are no words. Yet, we try to fill the silence. Even when we know that what comes out of our mouths is inadequate at best and insulting at worst, we say words. Inadequate because grief, joy, disbelief are so difficult to describe in the moment. Insulting, for what we usually do is shift the focus to ourselves. 

Their experience reminds us of our own frailties and fears that we want to keep tapped down. It can be awkward to sit in silence with the hurting for we want to do something to ease the pain. But silence is more helpful than the story of what we did when something similar happened to our Aunt Bessie. What is best is to simply say that there are no words, share a hug, and then go do something practical like cook a meal.

It’s perhaps unusual for a writer to say that there are no words, but I’m talking here about when words are inadequate. We had yet another example this week of a celebrity tweeting something stupid, and, here, too, I recommend silence. Let the current Humpty Dumpty realize that life as they’ve known it is over. Yes, lots of words are written, said, and rehashed, but the silence for them now comes from the voices that are no longer calling. From opportunities missed, doors now closed. Michael Richards, Paula Dean, Mel Gibson, et al, may reinvent themselves, but there will always be a segment of the population that looks at them in righteous silence and thinks, “There are no words,” and walks away.

Marilyn