Most parents have go to scripts that they repeat like a broken record and that their children could recite in their sleep. These are catchy little sayings like, “try your vegetables,” or “don’t forget to say please and thank you,” or even, “make me a sandwich.”
At Chez Daché, I was raised on a healthy diet of “your words are your seeds.” Over the last year, I’ve seen life breathed into that statement in so many ways.
My grandmother died in November, and so many people came out of the woodwork and offered their sympathies. Most of them didn’t know what to say (and said exactly that), but every word spoken helped breathe life. At the time, I was reading Bittersweet, and Shauna Niequest powerfully said,
There's something worse than the [wrong] things people say. It's much worse, I think, when people say nothing. When I lost my job, embarassed and hurt and tender, I remember exactly who walked the other directionwhen they saw me at church and who walked toward me.
Flash forward to Swaziland, 6 months later, as T squad prepared to say goodbye to our squad leaders Noe and Hollis. It was a dramatic few days leading up to their departure, and at one point I found myself in a room with a teary- eyed Hollis listening as she admitted how much she hated goodbyes. I almost started laughing because I realized how much I hate them, too.
I will do anything to get out of saying goodbye. When I dropped out of JMU, I snuck out in the middle of the night. When I left Hope, I dipped out on a snowy afternoon while everyone was huddled up indoors. I’ve left so many people in the dark, not offering explanations or giving goodbye hugs, allowing closure or inviting questions of why.
One of our Mozambique contacts, Calli, was a fierce woman with a heart of gold who raised the boys on base with a firm hand that could sternly admonish or protect and hug. We absolutely loved her and her no nonsense approach to everything, but on our last day, she barely made an appearance- just long enough to take a picture then she was gruffly back to work.
I realized, driving away in the open back of a pickup, watching the African scenery fly by, that Calli, too, hates goodbyes, and her way of dealing with it was to avoid them altogether. And it hurt. She didn’t mean anything by it anymore than all my hasty departures had meant, but as the wind whipped through my hair the truth sunk into my heart: words are powerful, and unsaid words can do just as much damage as poorly spoken ones.
What am I really saying when I sneak out the back door? It screams the message to the people I leave behind that I don’t care about them, that they aren’t worth the few minutes it would take to say goodbye (or even the hours it may take to explain why I’m leaving). I’ve never once meant to send that message, but as I look back at all the people I’ve unintentionally turned my back on, I see now that that’s exactly the message I was sending.
Some people didn’t know what to say, and they said just that: “I just heard what happened, and I don’t know what to say.” That is, I’m finding, a very good response. Because there was another group of people who said nothing. I love them, and I know they love me, and the point is not what they did or didn't do, exactly. The point is that they taught me something, and it’s this: say something. Always say something. Now when a friend loses a job or when a heart is broken or when the test results are bad, even when I don’t know what to say, I say something.
To all of you who didn’t get goodbyes from me, I apologize. To anyone who faced a hard night alone and didn’t receive words of encouragement- however awkward they may have been- I’m sorry. In this World Race culture of leaving everything you know every few weeks, of being surrounded by hurting people and only being able to offer them words and prayers, I see how powerful my words are.
And I promise never to leave them unsaid again.
after hospital minsitry with Kacie, Charlotte, Kerri and Phil
