Cliches

Some people call them clichés, I prefer the term platitude. Platitudes are phrases that are meant to sound thoughtful and deep but that are in actuality remarkably flat and shallow. Platitudes are the things that people say to keep from having to really say anything at all. They are phrases that help keep you at a safe distance, protect you from having to feel or empathize.

When my son Max died at nine and a half months old in 2011, I was surrounded by platitudes. Pithy little banal phrases that people said to me so that they would have something to say in their most uncomfortable moment. I knew then that they were said to make the phrase utterer feel more comfortable with my loss…the platitudes, however, did nothing to help me. “God needed another angel”, they’d say, or “Everything happens for a reason”, or “sending you thoughts and prayers”. So much easier to repeat some oft heard platitude than to dig even a tiny bit beneath the surface and ask me about Max, or to express the horrific truth of my child’s death. Much easier to send me “thoughts and prayers” and then quickly look away, scroll past me, or never really talk to me again. I could feel the discomfort with onlookers even having to remember the “appropriate” platitude for my situation. The discomfort of the person trying to say something comforting felt heavy, careless, disinterested, and wrought with fear. Knowing that I was now the “scary person” that was making them so uncomfortable was an additional weight to carry – as though carrying the weight of having lost my baby wasn’t enough.

“Don’t worry”, they’d say, “you can have more children” – discounting the life that was Max’s, as if he could be replaced by the “more children” that I would have (a prospect that scared the shit out of me). Platitudes made me feel lonely and insignificant – as though my son, and the grief my husband and I were drowning in weren’t even worth the few moments of trying to find any real connection to us as fellow human beings. As if the repetition of some phrase used over and over again could be really be any kind of salve for our bleeding souls.

My grief counselor advised me that there are very few people who can actually feel real empathy – very few who would be willing to dive into the deep end with me and hold my hand to keep me from sinking. Treading water takes enormous strength, she said, and most people would rather play in the shallow end. I knew that to be true – I’d spent most of my life playing with the shallow-enders. I probably threw around all sorts of platitudes too, not knowing that the weight of those “well-meaning” words probably caused more damage than had I said nothing at all. 

Come sit with me, I'd think, and hold my hand – tell me you care, that life is unfair, that Max deserved more than he got. Tell me you know that I’ve lost the person that I loved most and tell me how much we’ve all lost that he isn’t here anymore. Or say nothing and just stand on the line where the pool floor begins to sink and watch me to make sure I’m not drowning. When I am ready, I will come up for air and meet you there.

#TerribleWritingClub