Empathy
A few nights ago, I heard a couple rough-housing on the lawn outside my open window. The young man, eager to show off his power and to put his hands where they are not usually allowed, was tossing and flipping his girlfriend to her giggling delight. I tuned it out and continued replying to the urgent emails congregating in my inbox.
In a single instant, tension replaced the light mood outside; the reverberation snapped me out of my reverie. Something had happened, and the young woman was hurt.
"Ow!" she exclaimed; then, slightly petulant, she added, "That hurt!"
Her boyfriend had two options: he could have offered a short, humble apology, something like, "I'm sorry I hurt you.", given her a hug, sat beside her on the grass, and the whole situation, and probably the hurt as well, would have been over in an instant. This particular young man chose to take offense at the implication that he, with all his strength and skill, could have made a mistake. "Oh, come on," he snapped, trying to dodge the conflict he saw speeding towards him like a wayward bus, "you weren't holding yourself right. Again!" At which point, he must have picked her up, because she shrieked.
"I don't want to do it again," she insisted, "I'm hurt."
"No, you're not," as if his will made it so. The young man then spent the next ten minutes calling his girlfriend a wimp, baby, liar, wuss, chicken, and every other insult commonly exchanged between 13-year-old boys in swim trunks faced with a rope, a river, and a dangerously high rock outcropping until I, whose latent nausea had already been excited that day by particularly graphic footage of a suicide bombing, clapped my hands over my ears so that I might not vomit on my laptop. Not only did the boyfriend refuse to acknowledge his mistake, he refused to acknowledge his girlfriend's pain.
After I experienced a mild sample this week, I am resolved to never discount another's pain. I cannot see the red eyelids through the painted face, or the chewed-up inner lip behind the smile, or the throat swelling as it draws tears away from the surface, yet pain may be there.
Silent pain runs far deeper than vocalized pain. Each complaint compounds its antecedent until the pain is unbearable; sufferers of the very deepest pain cannot finish the first two words of the sentence "I am in pain" without dissolving into a sobbing, writhing wretch on the floor.
I am not the only person who ever hurt, nor will I ever be. I only wish I knew an infinite well of love, or charity, or kindness, or whatever spirit-balm soothes a soul when its body is pained. I see so many who require it, and my reserves are dry.
In a single instant, tension replaced the light mood outside; the reverberation snapped me out of my reverie. Something had happened, and the young woman was hurt.
"Ow!" she exclaimed; then, slightly petulant, she added, "That hurt!"
Her boyfriend had two options: he could have offered a short, humble apology, something like, "I'm sorry I hurt you.", given her a hug, sat beside her on the grass, and the whole situation, and probably the hurt as well, would have been over in an instant. This particular young man chose to take offense at the implication that he, with all his strength and skill, could have made a mistake. "Oh, come on," he snapped, trying to dodge the conflict he saw speeding towards him like a wayward bus, "you weren't holding yourself right. Again!" At which point, he must have picked her up, because she shrieked.
"I don't want to do it again," she insisted, "I'm hurt."
"No, you're not," as if his will made it so. The young man then spent the next ten minutes calling his girlfriend a wimp, baby, liar, wuss, chicken, and every other insult commonly exchanged between 13-year-old boys in swim trunks faced with a rope, a river, and a dangerously high rock outcropping until I, whose latent nausea had already been excited that day by particularly graphic footage of a suicide bombing, clapped my hands over my ears so that I might not vomit on my laptop. Not only did the boyfriend refuse to acknowledge his mistake, he refused to acknowledge his girlfriend's pain.
After I experienced a mild sample this week, I am resolved to never discount another's pain. I cannot see the red eyelids through the painted face, or the chewed-up inner lip behind the smile, or the throat swelling as it draws tears away from the surface, yet pain may be there.
Silent pain runs far deeper than vocalized pain. Each complaint compounds its antecedent until the pain is unbearable; sufferers of the very deepest pain cannot finish the first two words of the sentence "I am in pain" without dissolving into a sobbing, writhing wretch on the floor.
I am not the only person who ever hurt, nor will I ever be. I only wish I knew an infinite well of love, or charity, or kindness, or whatever spirit-balm soothes a soul when its body is pained. I see so many who require it, and my reserves are dry.
posted by Bethylene at 01:55
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