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The 2010 film “The King’s Speech” struck a chord with me.
The story depicts the steps King George VI, thrust onto the throne by the sudden abdication of his brother, had to take to overcome a debilitating stutter.
What mostly unraveled me was the first scene where he is trying to deliver an earlier address but cannot get the words out. The rage, shame, and frustration written on his face are palpable.
My condition was psychological, not physical. For most of my early life, I was withdrawn and inward, which made social situations awkward. I felt that I was required to interact verbally with others but never could find my way in. Like “Bertie” in the movie, the same shame and frustration followed me around like shadows. By contrast, my father and sister were quite vocal and tended to dominate conversations whenever the family was together.
Such a dynamic was present when I was in my middle 20s. My family threw a party with several invited guests along with my sister and I. As we all sat around the dinner table, the gathering became more animated with lots of laughter, robust conversations, and general jollity. Again, I fell into that awful mute state which I, as always, used as a weapon to beat myself up with. “What’s the matter with you? Why can’t you be normal like them?” asked the helpful saboteur in my mind. After about an hour of self-recrimination, I left the table and went to sit in the living room.
There was only one person there and she was sitting on the sofa across from me. She looked to be in her middle 40s and her face was visibly sad. I began to talk to her in a soft voice, curious who she was and how she knew my family. We chatted back and forth until I asked why she was sitting by herself away from the general tumult in the next room. She responded that she had recently been diagnosed with Stage Four cancer and that it was a terminal condition. In short, she was dying but didn’t want to spoil the party with such terrible news. Instead, she chose to be alone with her inner agony. We sat together for the next hour. I merely listened and offered whatever comfort I could. As the event concluded, she left and I never found out what happened to her.
It took me some years to realize that far from being a shameful burden, my quiet bearing allowed her to share something that otherwise would have gone unnoticed, leaving her to suffer alone in silence.
I’m a lot noisier now, as if making up for lost time, but I never forgot that incident. I especially ponder it during the holiday season when gatherings of family and friends are in effect. There will be the quiet ones among us, but don’t think for a minute that they aren’t observing, feeling, and processing. They might hold the secrets, wisdom, and compassion all of us need.
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