Platitudinal
Platitudes as conversation stopper--as a way to make the ambiguity stop, to put an end to discomfort and fears arising from the sufferer. Reading about this recently made me pause and consider my culpability and experience with it. The idea here is that someone listening to your grief seems to think some one liner can help. I know I try to relate by telling my own story, and in some cases this may not be appropriate, in another may be the best thing--to forge solidarity, not try to find a solution, or wrap up the messiness as if you were clearing someone’s floor of your child’s detritus. I think of the ways telling my story has begotten this--first, trying to express my anger and anxiety about Isabella’s feeding and cleft issues, about the insurance debacles, about the stressful scheduling of appointments and negotiating or understanding the feedback we’d receive, the way we personally dealt with it all. How I just wanted someone to listen. To that mess. To the mess of my curre...