words.

In much of my life I depend on language to express myself. I mean, honestly, this really should come as no shock to you seeing as I depend on my words, unaccompanied by my voice, facial expressions and body language to express many of my core beliefs, values, thoughts and emotions right here on your screen. But even in every day life, I depend so much on words. I talk and talk and talk and talk. I stress about what I am going to say to someone and how I am going to say it. I don’t spend such an inordinate amount of time analyzing each and every body movement or the exact muscle movements of my face. So why words?

I noticed this about myself when I spent some time in a home for adults with developmental disabilities. One woman, Christine, could only say about six words—yes, no, doggie, pink, fine, and kitty—if I remember correctly. When we were told about Christine’s disability I was nervous to spend time with her because of the dreaded (and in this case inevitable) “awkward silence.” I mean I am a talker, but no one can fill that much silence. I told my mom about my nervousness and she said that in any human interaction, it is not the details of who said what that matter but the emotional response that one associates with another human being, the feelings one is left with. She told me I should focus on making Christine feel loved and bringing joy to our interactions. Love and joy—hell yeah, I am all about that, so I tried.

The next day, sitting next to Christine at the “arts and crafts” table, I decided to draw her a picture. I finished and handed her my ridiculous drawing of a stick figure with a puppy; she was overjoyed. Christine slapped her hand over her mouth to quiet the gasping noises she was making, smiled so enormously it was uncontrollably contagious, giggled with sheer, unapologetic delight, and, finally, threw her arms out to embrace me. Holy shit. I’ll draw stick figures all day every day if they can elicit a reaction like that one! Now we were friends. I spent the rest of the afternoon drawing Christine’s name in bubble letters in every color I came across and drew bunnies and kitties and doggies, too. I created necklaces out of pink beads and placed them over her head so that we all could admire how beautiful she looked. We shared the most pure love and unadulterated joy I have ever felt. She never told me that she loved me. She never told me that she was happy, that she liked my creations or that she was grateful I was making them, but the expressions of joy present within every hug, every smile and every noise Christine made were too raw for words anyway. They were genuine expressions of human emotion that even babies could recognize. They were Christine and they were beautiful.

Whenever I think about Christine, I rethink my silly daily concerns. Instead of speaking, I hug (tightly). Instead of saying hello, I smile brightly and look someone in the eye. Words are wonderful, brilliant, and necessary, but I think that there lies, within humanity, a different need for the raw expression of love and joy that words can never quite grasp.