Words matter: He thought I was insulting him, and I’m the one who never got over it

During a recent meeting of the editorial board, Mara’ Rose Williams told the rest of us about a moment in her childhood that hurt her confidence for years to come. We were all struck by how powerful even a few stray words from a near stranger can be, either to bolster or to belittle, and how important it is to remember that. Over the next few days, we’re going to be telling several stories about those times when either a little encouragement or discouragement had an impact beyond anything the speaker could have imagined.

In the Polaroid Mrs. Howell took on the first day of fourth grade, I was the tallest kid in the lineup, by almost half a head. My height brought precisely zero athletic ability with it — and I was more interested in social studies and music classes than sports anyway. That meant I was excluded from the cool kids clique. Instead, I spent recess talking about Star Wars with the other misfits, and that suited me just fine.

One afternoon — the weather was cold and rainy outside the classroom window — our math lesson was about geometry and spatial relationships. Each student had two lidded plastic tubs about the size of a shoebox, filled with blocks of various shapes. When the hour was over, our teacher asked everyone to fit everything back into their tubs and place them on the little wheeled cart by her desk.

She looked to me and the two students close to me: “Heather, Derek and Matt, would you please take these back to the supply closet and put them back on the third shelf?” Heather grabbed the cart as Matt and I eyed the space to fill.

I didn’t talk to Matt very often, but he was one of the playground chit-chatters, too. While most of the other boys had hit a growth spurt or two by age 9, he still looked like a second-grader. If I could find that Polaroid today, I bet it would show he was the smallest kid in the class, even with the thick shock of black hair that added an inch and a half or so.

We had 48 tubs to pack into the empty shelf, which was just under shoulder height for Heather and me, but a reach for Matt. We used our geometry to determine that two rows of eight tubs stacked three high would fit into the space perfectly. And so we formed a fireman’s brigade: Heather from the cart to Matt, Matt to me, me to the shelf.

“OK, last box,” said Matt as he handed it off and headed back to his desk. I looked at the hole in the shelf where the 48th tub should be and replied, “Wait, Matt, you’re short.”

Silence. I turned around to see him staring at me with disbelief on his face. “Why are you making fun of me?” he asked, tears pooling in his eyes.

In college, my friend Brian told me that he’d been the smallest not only in school, but also of the four boys in his family. “When you feel like you’re too short growing up, it’s the only thing you ever think about,” he said.

Standing at the supply closet, I realized what I’d done to Matt. It didn’t matter one whit that I wasn’t mocking him. He took it that way, and that’s the only thing that mattered to him. I apologized as best I could, lamely trying to make light of it — but Matt didn’t really reply. He didn’t let those tears fall as his eyes narrowed at me. He sulked back to his seat while I grabbed the missing tub from the bottom shelf of the cart and closed the closet door.

Matt seemed to avoid me for the rest of the school year, never sitting at the same lunchroom table or picking a team with me in group assignments. Or at least that’s how my guilty conscience interpreted it.

My family moved away the next year so I didn’t see Matt grow up. But he has an unusual last name. So in the early days of MySpace, I found him easily — that same hair, those same eyes. He was working at an investment bank in Chicago. Like my college friend Brian, Matt had gotten the mother of all growth spurts some time after fourth grade. In one photo on his page, a group of friends beamed, shoulder to shoulder on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. Matt was the tallest among them, by more than half a head.

Even today, I feel that moment of panic that I’d said something so thoughtless to a classmate I barely knew. It pangs unexpectedly when my mind wanders — mowing the lawn, in bed trying to fall asleep.

I’ll never know if my poor choice of words had any lasting impact on Matt. I can only hope he hasn’t carried my gaffe with him through life.

And is it strange that I find a certain sense of comfort in the fact that I’m still punishing myself? I know I would never bring it up if our paths crossed. Matt, if you’re reading this, all I really meant is that we were short one tub.

This story was originally published January 14, 2022 at 5:00 AM.