FOLIO
I couldn’t stop staring at his hands.
I was in the first pew of a small church buried in the heart of the Appalachians, my mother by my side, as he shuffled to the front and stood before the podium, looking as broken as a man can, a shattered father who has lost a child.
He could have wept and moaned and told well-intentioned lies about his daughter, beatifying her beyond reality. No one would have begrudged him that. Instead, in the depths of grief so terrible it is best left unimagined, he spoke of kindness.
His voice so quiet we had to strain to hear him, he implored the packed house to go forth and be kind, to use their remaining days and minutes to minimize the ugliness and cruelty that threatens to sweep us away.
There were those in the pews who had been everything but kind to his daughter over the years, who had taunted and tormented and ridiculed her — I know, I witnessed it and was often another of their miserable targets — but I felt no joy at the shame that the guilty surely knew when he gently alluded to the pain they had caused his child.
Instead, in the midst of grief so terrible it is best left unimagined, I felt hope that his words would change their lives and mine, that somehow the tragedy would make us all better people, that perhaps his raw suffering and the quiet, sad plea he delivered with his eyes trained on the floor and hands shoved into the pockets of his grey suit would give her life — and death — greater meaning.
It may seem strange, but I’ve rarely felt so alive.
Everyone who has mourned knows grief has a way of putting things into perspective. But you need not lose a loved one to improve your outlook on life.
Week after week, I use this space to implore people to have empathy, understanding and kindness for all who breathe, respond and die on this rock. Perhaps I’m not the best, nor most noble messenger; I know all too well the fleeting, sharp pleasure of forgetting higher aspirations and helping stack the pyre when a business capitalizes on a tragedy, a politician gets caught with their hand in the public coffers, a fame-hungry and racist blogger congratulates a woman who killed her own daughters, or when confronted with any number of reprehensible, appalling acts.
But we should all strive to be kind in these moments, to resist the urge to jump into the hateful fray armed with opinions and judgment. Perhaps those who anger us are in the wrong and we, with our mighty opinions, are in the right. Don’t give in. Don’t lower yourself to bullying the bullies to teach them a lesson.
This will be difficult. That’s how you know it’s the right thing to do.
When faced with cruelty, discrimination or naked opportunism, it is so easy to vilify, to let outrage guide us; we tend to feel better in the heat of battle, when we use our wits and anger to stomp on those who offend our sensibilities, than when we are confronted with horrible words and deeds and do nothing. But we have become so consumed with pointing out bad behavior and proving ourselves right that it feels as if our society is being torn apart by a war in which the weapons are words.
No one wins wars. Everyone loses.
My sister was treated as poorly by our peers as any child who has been a favorite target for bullies. So was I. There were times in her life when she was consumed with the hatred that others had brought down upon her, infected by the ugliness that had been administered to her, day in and day out, like so much bitter poison. So, too, have there been such times in my life. Sometimes that bitter anger still gets the best of me. But I’m trying. And I’m asking you to try, too.
I often think of that day, of sitting ramrod-straight in a high-backed pew surrounded by floor-to-ceiling oiled dark wood, frigid wind rattling 100-year-old stained glass, the chilly pale sun high in a sky so blue and clear it could break a broken heart. I think of my stepfather’s hands shoved deep in his pockets as he used the few moments when he had everyone’s attention, moments in which he could have punished us with his anguish, and instead quietly asked us to go out into the world and be kind. And I feel hope.
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