There’s a thing my family
members said for years – father, mother, sisters, and me – when telling about a
situation that bothered us in some way but in which we kept our mouths shut: “I
could have said something!” A
continuation of the sentence was sometimes spoken, always implied: “But I
didn’t!” I don’t know if both our
parents came into the marriage with this phrase or if one of them got it from
the other, but they both used it all the time, and we, their daughters, learned
to use it, too. It was usually said with a little sniff of superiority and a
lifting of the chin, saying louder than words that, in not saying anything, we had taken the moral and spiritual high ground. I think the real truth is that we were too shy, too afraid to speak out, but we wanted to hide the fear in something that made us look better -- to ourselves, if to no one else.
So now, if some of my adult friends
today think I’m too much of a crank, this is my explanation: I spent too many
years of my life not saying anything,
letting ignorant or insulting or offensive or mistaken or hurtful remarks go unchallenged.
For too long, I unnecessarily gave ground. I
said nothing when I should have said something.
True, there are times when saying
anything is pointless and times when saying something once and then shutting up
is about all that’s worth doing. But there are also times, and there are
issues, when not saying anything
or shutting up too soon is the
worst cop-out possible. Listening is always important, but so, often, is
speaking out. And I do not want the inscription on my metaphorical tombstone
(probably the only kind I’ll ever have) to read: “She could have said something
– but she didn’t.”
