In the latest episode of one of my new favorite podcasts, The Curiosity Shop, the hosts – Brené Brown and Adam Grant – share their all-time favorite commencement speeches. Brené quotes from Professor George Saunders’ 2013 convocation speech at Syracuse University. The speech begins with a few humiliating experiences Saunders has survived and could understandably regret but doesn’t. Then he continues:
But here’s something I do regret. In seventh grade, this new kid joined our class. In the interest of confidentiality, her Convocation Speech name will be “Ellen.” Ellen was small, shy. She wore these blue cat’s-eye glasses that, at the time, only old ladies wore. When nervous, which was pretty much always, she had a habit of taking a strand of hair into her mouth and chewing on it.
So, she came to our school and our neighborhood, and was mostly ignored, occasionally teased (“Your hair taste good?” — that sort of thing). I could see this hurt her. I still remember the way she’d look after such an insult: eyes cast down, a little gut-kicked, as if, having just been reminded of her place in things, she was trying, as much as possible, to disappear. After a while she’d drift away, hair strand still in her mouth. At home, I imagined, after school, her mother would say, you know: “How was your day, sweetie?” and she’d say, “Oh, fine.” And her mother would say, “Making any friends?” and she’d go, “Sure, lots.”
Sometimes I’d see her hanging around alone in her front yard, as if afraid to leave it. And then — they moved. That was it. No tragedy, no big final hazing. One day she was there, next day she wasn’t. End of story.
Now, why do I regret that? Why, forty-two years later, am I still thinking about it? Relative to most of the other kids, I was actually pretty nice to her. I never said an unkind word to her. In fact, I sometimes even (mildly) defended her. But still. It bothers me.
So here’s something I know to be true, although it’s a little corny, and I don’t quite know what to do with it: What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded… sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.
As I listened, memories of my own “Ellen” story bubbled up. For this retelling, I’ll call him “Sonny.”
In 4th grade, Sonny moved to my hometown, where my friends and I had lived all our lives. Sonny had messy dark hair and rotated through the same handful of t-shirts and thin drawstring shorts that likely came in a plastic pack from one of the big mart stores off Main Street. His high-tops were marred with gray scuffs, and their laces were dirty and ragged from so often being untied. On occasion, when a passing grown-up would ask Sonny to tie his shoes, he would squat down, and those shorts of his would sag, revealing some of his backside. (“Is your daddy a plumber?” another kid would taunt.)
Mrs. Wooten was our teacher that year and had arranged our desks into tidy, alphabetical rows by last name. Sonny’s desk sat at the end of the row closest to the classroom door. I remember being glad for him to have some privacy back there as the new kid and an easy exit for restroom visits and such. What I didn’t consider was how something so insignificant as the first letter of his last name would amplify Sonny’s outsider status, putting him on the edge of the circle the rest of us had been part of since birth.
Now, Sonny didn’t do himself any favors either. Take his watch, for example. He wore one of those Casio calculator watches that had a grid of rubber buttons on its face. Sonny liked to press those buttons in a sequence known only to him and then make an audible bludadadadaDIP! noise with his mouth. Then, he would place his lips close to the watch face and whisper. The stray words we picked up on here and there, mixed with Sonny’s sound effects, gave the impression he thought he was involved in some type of space mission. This was far from cool-kid behavior.
During lesson time or any other part of the day when we were expected to be quiet and attentive, Mrs. Wooten would shush Sonny and ask him to pay attention. Of course, she was responsible for keeping order, minimizing disruption, and teaching us how to behave. But maybe she was also trying to shield Sonny from his own embarrassment and give him a better shot at success. Sonny would try to follow her instructions to sit quietly, but it never lasted. The rest of us were amazed. While we didn’t have the words for it at the time, we knew that repeatedly choosing willful disobedience meant you were either going to be the bully or the bullied.
During weekend sleepovers, my friends and I often played Truth or Dare, an early way to try on vulnerability in a low-risk environment. Sonny tended to come up a lot. (Truth: If Sonny were the last boy on Earth, would you let him kiss you, like on the actual lips?) At some point, I chose Dare. The other girls huddled up to brainstorm my charge: “We dare you to erase Sonny’s picture from your annual!” one of them said. Someone else held out a pencil. (FYI, we call yearbooks “annuals” in the South.)
What was I supposed to do? I didn’t want to do it, honestly, I didn’t. But the next thing I knew, I had pulled my yearbook off the shelf, sat back down on the floor, flipped to Sonny’s page and row, and put that pencil to work. When my vision cleared, Sonny was no longer there. And I knew there was nothing I could do to bring him back.
I don’t remember much else about that night, but I’m confident the game went on, we eventually fell asleep, and then woke up as the good girls once again. The rest of the school year is a series of flashbulb memories, and I don’t know where that yearbook is today. I also don’t know what happened to Sonny or how his life has turned out since. But I do know the choices I made as his fourth-grade classmate were true failures of kindness, and I regret them deeply: what I could have said to him and didn’t, how I could have treated him but chose not to out of fear that I would catch whatever thing made him so different. The worst part is that he probably thought I was one of the nicer ones.
Now, some thirty years later, I wish I could tell Sonny how sorry I am for choosing to laugh rather than be laughed at, for choosing to be liked over being kind. I would leave out the specifics from the sleepover, since those would only absolve my conscience while causing him unnecessary pain. But I would thank him for helping me learn, at an early age, who I didn’t want to be.
Maybe as an apology gift, I could give him an iWatch to remind him he wasn’t all that weird after all. Just a little ahead of his time.
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Please take a moment to like this post, share your thoughts in the comments, or pass these words along to a friend. Relatability is a powerful antidote. I appreciate you!
swimming toward the shark 