When she was about six or seven years old, my daughter Rachel needed her tonsils removed. Her mother and I took her to Columbus Children’s Hospital (now Nationwide Children’s Hospital) for the surgery and the overnight stay that followed. Not long after Rachel had been taken to her room, I went back to our car to retrieve something. It might have been a special blanket or toy; something that would make it easier for her to fall asleep in a strange bed. On my way to the parking lot, I passed a waiting room in a different part of the hospital. What I saw caused me to pause.
A group of perhaps nine or ten adults had gathered in a circle. With heads bowed and hands joined, they were silent — mostly. Though not especially near any of them, I clearly heard sobs, heavy sighs, and prayers. I moved on not wishing to bother them and not needing to ask why they had gathered. I knew that some innocent child was facing a life-threatening medical crisis.
Most of us, at some point, will face a similar situation, one where our knowledge and past experience coupled with what we see and hear enable us to understand that situation without any written or spoken explanation. To be sure, words might be needed to understand the specific details of what we are seeing, but even without words, we know implicitly or even viscerally, what’s going on.
Some such situations are known to all of us because they made headlines. People who saw the passenger jets crash into the twin towers on 9/11 knew they had witnessed a terrorist act that would cost thousands of lives. People who tuned into the end of the World Series — even with their volume turned off — knew the Dodgers won when they saw players from that team joyfully mobbing each other around the pitcher’s mound at Rogers Centre. TV images, often taken from a drone or helicopter, showing pulverized buildings, smashed cars, and horizontal utility poles make it clear to us that some community has suffered a devastating natural disaster along with loss of life. Words may give us details about the calamity, but the general picture can be understood without them.
Other “no-words-are-needed” situations occur to us because of what we know about human behavior, and where and when that behavior occurs. If you go into an unfamiliar neighborhood and see people rolling trash containers out to the curb, it doesn’t matter that you’ve never been to this neighborhood before. You know that tomorrow will be trash collection day. Similarly, if you hear cheers outside a football stadium on a Friday night in the fall, it’s a safe bet that the home team scored or at least made an outstanding play. And if you see people praying in a hospital waiting room, some of them fighting back tears, you know they have a loved one facing a serious medical crisis or who has already departed this world.
As a writer, what do you do when you encounter a “no-words-are-needed” situation? I believe you should ask yourself two questions: What can I say about the situation? Will my words do good or cause harm? Actually, the second question should be asked first, because if the answer is “cause harm,” the first question need not be considered. * Because sometimes, it’s better to put pens down, take our fingers off the keyboard, and leave people in peace.
* Sometimes, a writer might not have a choice. A news reporter, for example, might be assigned to cover a tragic accident or a murder. He or she would have to write an article notwithstanding the pain it might cause to victims or their families.