Last month, I attended a memorial for an old family friend, the mother of three children that I grew up with here in Claremont. I had not seen the three in years, decades, probably since high school if not earlier, and I was really interested to see them, what they were like after all this time.
I arrived early, and soon enough, there they were. We said hi to each other, asked each other how we were doing, said, “Fine.” And then – nothing.
It wasn’t that there was nothing to say, nothing to talk about after all the years that had passed. It wasn’t that there was so much to talk about that it was easier not to talk. It wasn’t that it wasn’t an appropriate place for a real conversation.
It was that we were embarrassed. There was embarrassment, mostly on my part. I was embarrassed to speak, embarrassed by my impaired speech, and also embarrassed that I would make them feel embarrassed if or when they couldn’t understand my speech. I’m pretty sure that they were feeling embarrassed, unsure about if they would understand my speech.
So it was easier, a relief, not to say anything.
Now, it’s true that I had a mask on, which didn’t make talking or understanding me any easier. But even if I didn’t have a mask on, the scene would have played out the same. (Also, having my speech device wasn’t feasible that day.)
I was thinking about this later that day. There was nothing new about what happened. This happens constantly, over and over, almost on a daily basis. It happens when I’m out on my own, and someone who knows me or knows who I am (many people in Claremont know who I am) will come up and say hello. It even happens at my Quaker meeting when someone outside the half dozen or so who understand my speech come over to chat after the close of worship.
After a few brief pleasantries, they will look at me, often with a sad, guilty smile, sometimes making an effort to carry on an all-but-one-way conversation and then walk off, sometimes with an excuse (needing to use the restroom, catch someone else to talk to, etc), sometimes not.
Something like this even more poignantly happened when groups of college students worked with me to put on one of my plays – a play that, in a cruel irony, deals with and shows, in part, the experience and results of having impaired speech. Other than rehearsing and performing the play, the students and I didn’t really converse and make connections.
Like I said, this happens over and over. As I thought about it that day, I thought about how, yes, it’s sad and frustrating, and I thought about how there are certain things I can do to mitigate or ease the situation, like having my speech device or having an attendant or friend who understands my speech with me.
But I also thought about others with impaired speech, in particular a friend whose speech is just a bit easier to understand than mine but isn’t shy at all about talking to anyone – and almost with an attitude of “I dare you not to understand me!”
In thinking about all this, I realized that, in addition to feeling sad and frustrated, I was angry. This was something new.
I realized that I’m angry that I wasn’t encouraged as a child to speak, that I wasn’t encouraged to not be shy or embarrassed about my speech. I’m also angry that the children I grew up with weren’t encouraged to try to understand or to be open to trying to understand my speech.
It was almost like I was a deaf child and only my immediate family and my teachers and a few others (baby-sitters, friends) could communicate with me.
I am not sure if there’s anyone I can be angry at or fairly be angry at. I am pretty certain that my parents thought they were doing the right thing. After all, it was the 1960’s, and there wasn’t much help, besides medically, for the disabled or for the parents of disabled children. It was years before the disabled being integrated and mainstreamed into society and schools with non-disabled students. There was little if any advocacy and no talk of disability rights.
By the time I started attending school with non-disabled students in my teens – at a junior high, not exactly a friendly setting – I had bought into the notion that it was better, safer, more comfortable not to speak outside of a small group of people (attendants, friends). I have, of course, learned more to communicate with others, but the emphasis has been on doing so with the assistance of others or a variety of devices (from the lowest to very high tech). My non-attendant friends who understand my speech have taken time and effort to do so.
I don’t know if I can blame anyone, but I am, yes, angry that I ended up being embarrassed about my speech. It sure would have been nice if I had been more comfortable talking and perhaps with helping others be comfortable with my talking. It would have been nice if I had been able to more easily connect and perhaps bond with more of the interesting, cool people that I have encountered in my life. That includes those I grew up with who I’m now seeing again, more often under sad circumstances.
Hey John, it's Philip Clayton from Claremont Quaker Meeting. I enjoyed your Mount Baldy village story a lot, and today's post as well. It's because of what you shared last Sunday. (for non-Quakers, we call messages that we share during a Meeting for Worship a "ministry." ) You talked about how strange it was to have an Easter day when the temperature was in the '80s. And then you pointed out that warmth and light are beautiful realities that help us understand the symbolism of Easter. That message still sticks with me.
ReplyDeleteBut even more what sticks with me is the difficulty that the Meeting had in understanding your message on that particular day. I don't know why it was harder for the Meeting, since normally people quickly understand your sentences and restate them for those who didn't. But on this particular day, your having a clear, powerful, compelling message, and then having a difficult time getting people to understand it, symbolized the entire hour of silence that I sat through. My thoughts came to me as jumbled and hard to understand, and I struggled to sort them out during the entire hour. In the end the message was clear and compelling: I was to write a letter to my mother, who had died exactly 30 years ago on April 9th. But it was only when you spoke, and I watched that clear and compelling message arise out of struggle and misunderstanding, that I understood my own process of meditation on that day. My inner message had as much trouble getting through to me as your ministry had getting through to the Quaker Meeting. And that insight was the most important realization I took away from our Easter service.
With thanks and appreciation, Philip