The Power of Words

As a professional writer and communicator, I spend a lot of time thinking about words: their meanings, which ones sound better in a sentence, different interpretations of them, learning new ones. But it was a family tragedy that hammered home to me just how powerful words can be.

It was a cold Saturday morning in April when the phone rudely woke me from a rare deep sleep. I knew it was my parents before I picked up the receiver because I assigned them a ring. I grabbed the phone, wondering who was sick. Having two parents battling disease makes a person assume certain things. However, my assumption was wrong.

“Nick died. He killed himself last night,” my father said quietly, before I even had the chance to say hello. Nick was my cousin, the youngest son of my father’s youngest, troubled brother. I was 12 whenever he was born, and I remember going with my parents to the hospital to see him, disappointed that yet another boy was born into the already large Johnson family. His parents were young, not even in their mid-20s at the time, but they seemed old to my 12-year-old self.

I never really got to know Nick. His family moved away to a small town in central Illinois before he started school. But I didn’t have much hope for him. The son of an alcoholic father and a neglectful mother, he struggled in school and was recommended several times for special education classes. But his father refused, claiming no one would make fun of his son—the way his father had made fun of “those kids.”

Nick stumbled along through life, barely learning to read and getting passed along in school by teachers who didn’t really know what to do with him. His parents divorced when he was 11, and he spent the rest of his school years shuffling back and forth between his parents, who seemed determined to hurt each other instead of putting the needs of their two sons first.

I wasn’t surprised to see Nick smoking outside in his brother’s car at Grandma Betty’s house during one Thanksgiving. He didn’t even try to hide it, even though he wasn’t old enough to drive. It made me wonder what else he was doing.

My assumption that he was drinking turned out to be right. His body was found earlier that April morning, in an old beat up Dodge parked in the garage at his father’s former home, which my uncle had tried for years to sell with no success. The engine was still running. His stepmother found him slumped behind the wheel with beer cans haphazardly strewn all over the front seat. She told my father Nick’s skin was blue with carbon monoxide poisoning and asked him not to tell his brother. Nick was 19 and never graduated high school. He never held a job or seemed to have much of a chance. Now any future for him was gone.

I wondered about the eulogy as I drove along the two lane highways and country roads of central Illinois to the tiny town where Nick’s funeral and burial would take place. The priest was an old family friend. As a child, he worked on my grandparents’ farm. As an adult, he still visited the farm and traded stories. He married Nick’s parents. As a favor to the family he’d known for so long, he was making the long trip out of his parish to give the eulogy for a 19-year-old boy whose life seemed to be a waste. I had no idea what he would say at the funeral, and I did not envy his task.

The parking lot was crowded when I arrived. I was grateful we were at the large church and not the tiny country funeral home where Nick’s wake took place the day before. The church could hold this group with room to spare. I found my parents and brothers and took a seat with them.

The funeral started like most funerals do, with songs and prayer. The air seemed to be sucked out of the room when Father walked up to the pulpit. He was empty handed, which made me think he would be brief.

I don’t remember how long the eulogy was. What I remember is how Father took the life of a child who seemed to have no life and make it sound like he was something. He never mentioned how Nick died—after a night of drinking, he drove to his father’s old house and passed out in the garage with the car running—but instead, he took tiny details about Nick’s life and used them to paint a portrait. He talked about Nick’s love of animals and how he helped his mother bake and decorate cakes. He told us of Nick’s close relationship with his older brother, eventually leaving the audience with a picture of a young, sensitive and caring man who left us too early. That replaced the image I’d had of Nick in my mind before, as an idiot who died with a blue face. That was when I realized just how powerful words truly are.

I will always view Nick’s death as an untimely tragedy and a cautionary tale about drinking and driving. But I no longer view his life as a waste, thanks to Father’s carefully chosen words. That’s better than any lesson I’ve ever been taught.