“I don’t ask for your pity, but just for your understanding—not even that—no. Just for some recognition of me in you, and the enemy, time, in us all.” —Tennessee Williams, Sweet Bird of Youth
This weekend, my family and I went to the Bridge School Benefit concert. It’s a show put on by Neil and Pegi Young to raise money for the school that Pegi co-founded in 1985 to meet the needs of their developmentally disabled child. During the show, children from the school sit on the stage, and there are videos throughout to show some of their stories, as well as snippets of daily life at this incredible institution. I’ve been to the show at least 5 times, but this year, I watched the videos with a different perspective.
In the past, I have felt sadness and awe as I watched. Some of these children are severely disabled. Their families are clearly doing all that they can to give them the best lives possible, and the kids are shown smiling and learning, working hard. It’s honorable work, from all involved, and not easy, I’m sure. Still, by viewing their stories the way that I was—with pity—I now feel that I’ve been missing the point.
The school fundraises because it needs help to do its important job, to educate these kids who learn differently than others. To that end, it’s critical to tell the story of the school, to acknowledge their successes and their losses (this year’s presentation included a memorial video for two former students who recently passed away.) But they don’t want our pity. They want us to care because of the work they’re doing, because they’re supporting kids and families. Because those kids and families matter just as much as anyone does.
What I saw this year was parents snuggling their kids onstage, singing and having fun as people like Eddie Vedder addressed them directly. Who am I to feel sorry for these families, as they celebrate their school and their children?
Through having ALS, I’ve learned that understanding how fragile life and health are can often lead to greater joy. Ordinary things fill me with happiness, and that was the prevailing feeling I had as I watched this year’s Bridge School videos. In that instant, pity seemed like a pretty condescending and worthless emotion, something we might only employ in order to feel better about our own lives.
A thesaurus will tell you that other words for pity include sympathy, empathy, and compassion. Those are all good words, but they don’t mean exactly the same thing. Synonyms carry nuances, and pity has a negative connotation that differentiates it from those others. Do I want people’s empathy, which means the feeling that they understand the difficulties I face in my life? Do I want their compassion, which means that they care about those difficulties? The answer to both of those questions is yes. Do I want their pity? No. Would you?
I know I’m getting pretty deep in the weeds here. But I warned you I’m a nerd who loves words, and these distinctions are important to me as I consider how to approach people whose circumstances are different than mine. In fact, if you’re going to pity me for anything, let it be that reading the dictionary in my spare time is something I do for fun.
Maybe this is not a news flash for anyone else, or maybe you stopped reading when you realized that I wasn’t going to write about Neil and Pegi Young divorcing after being married for 36 years, longer than I’ve been alive. I could write about that. Did you know he’s dating Daryl Hannah?
I’m just trying to find a better way to live in the world. A way that allows me to feel and express compassion without getting bogged down in the sorrows of life—my own and everyone else’s. And I think the best way I can do that is to acknowledge that things can be hard, but to also recognize that it doesn’t mean that everything is bad.
Pity is an inadequate response to the human condition, because it doesn’t account for the entire story of someone’s life. For the moments of joy, for the deeper understanding of what matters that can sometimes accompany suffering. So, like Tennessee Williams wrote, let’s just try to recognize ourselves in each other, and we’ll probably do fine.
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I wonder if it is possible to get over the feeling of “pity” without being put to the test yourself, without feeling vulnerable and sick yourself. How do you convince to the average healthy person that you were healthy as well? That in one moment you lost your ability to see or walk for no fault of your own?
Sarah, you absolutely amaze me! I love reading your blog and find inspiration in each and every one!
I’ll take your word for pity, compassion, empathy being synonymous, because they just shouldn’t be.
“Pity” is a term I only use towards pompous ignorance. I pity Donald Trump. I pity moronic conspiracy theorists who believe the U.S. never landed on the moon – that it’s an enormous hoax. I pity the person whose indoctrination is so deep, he steers a jet into a building killing himself and thousands of others without having developed the ability to think for himself, to question the strategy and the oxymoron to favor a loving god by torturing fellow humans. I feel sorry for their intellect. It’s pathetic. Pitiful.
Compassion for your challenges with ALS recognizes it’s hard enough to raise a young child without physical limitations. And empathy may mean you have some more personal understanding (like my having been raised by a physically disabled mother) of the challenges faced.
Pity of those less healthy is created from some twisted, grossly mistaken fantasy that we’re safe. In the early 90′s, a beautiful, smart, affluent college girl announced on the cover of People magazine that she’d contracted AIDS from a single act of unprotected, heterosexual sex. The public suggested she was promiscuous, an IV drug user or that she may have received tainted blood products during an abortion she hadn’t disclosed – all wrapped in “pity.” Why? Because if Allison Gertz was who she said she was, if there was really nothing more complex to her infection, then she was exactly like tens of millions of other young women – too terrifying to consider.
Empathy is a bridge. And if you ignorantly think that bridge could magically expose you, too, you haughtily pity instead and create the cavernous expanse between yourself and that which you fear.
When we sincerely accept that ANYTHING could happen to us, as soon as our next breath, then our perspective becomes one of empathy and compassion – because we’re finally acknowledging that we’re all so vulnerably in this together.
Sarah -
Well done as usual, but what I liked most was your use of the Tennessee Williams quote and your evocation. I think the flip side of pity is placing parents of children with severe disabilities or even adults struggling with disability and even mortality on some pedestal. Ultimately pity and “heroism” alone can not be the ultimate reach of our humanity. Disability and disease are challenges and I think what we are all seeking on our journey more than anything is a little understanding and shared compassion. Thanks again for your great messages. Your writings continue to spark my thinking and actions. -Becca
Becca, you’re so right about the flip side. That’s something I’ve thought a lot about, too. Thanks for this. xx
Well said, Jane. Thanks.
Thanks Dan! xoxo
Happy birthday Sweetie! Your blogs and the replies are like taking a “pass/fail” college course and loving it. I hope most of us pass. Love you! N