"I was sad when I heard about your mom," the student's bad handwriting in red crayon read. "I know how you feel, my dog died a month ago."
That was a card I received not two weeks after the death of my mother. My mother died of breast cancer when I was in the sixth grade, and my advisor thought it would be a good idea for the students to make me cards. For the record, most of the cards were nice, and merely had, "I'm sorry," or, "If you need someone to talk to ..." But, the only cards I can recall word for word are the one above and the one from a girl I had a crush on at the time.
The one above is, as far as I can recall, the meanest thing I had ever heard in my entire life. The card was signed, and I now pity the fool who wrote that to me, because he violated rule one of support: Never claim you know how someone feels.
In talking to other people in situations comparable to my own, I found, sadly, that my experience is not a unique one, but a common thread among nearly all children who have experienced the death of a parent, sibling or close friend. All of them have had total strangers tell them they know how they feel.
We, of course, knew better. I had no idea how those who I talked to felt, and they didn't know how I felt, and we all understood this.
The other day I heard someone say the dreaded phrase to another stranger. I had never seen this person before, but I stopped dead in my tracks and walked up to the man. I asked him why he would say that to someone.
"To comfort them," he said, as if it was something everyone should know.
But who is the comfort for? It is certainly not for the comfortee, who is more likely to feel put off than feel better. I suggest it is only comforting for the comforter.
Take, for example, the days after September 11th. In the days following the attack, I heard a large number of stories of people who knew people in New York worrying, I even heard people, who I assume had nothing to say but badly wanted to talk, talk about people in the New York area (and by that, I mean as far away as Rochester). Why do we do this? Why must we feel like we have some connection to these horrible events? Why do we assume everyone reacts the same?
Are we, as people, drawn to tragedy and suffering? I suggest that is not true, but rather, people want to believe that the others that surround them will be all right. If you know how someone feels, and you're not feeling too bad, then logic says they'll be OK. And then, you have nothing to worry about.
Sometimes, we say things we don't quite understand, and I suppose that the problem is ignorance, not ill-will. And so, perhaps, if people learn that sharing pain doesn't help those suffering, they will stop doing it.
Or, perhaps they will still care for what makes them feel better.
I wonder what that feels like.
Write to Will at
wjohargan@bsu.edu
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