The first dead body I
ever saw was of my grandfather. He
looked so peaceful after his painful battle with cancer. He was in a casket that was centered in an
enclosed glass room. He looked like he was sleeping.
Tears rolled down my
grandmother’s face in fat translucent drops.
All her children hovered around her protectively, trying to comfort
her. Not one of their children were crying,
except for one of my uncle’s who had tears in his eyes.
I had been told
before the devout Buddhist funeral services, “Do not cry in front of
grandma. You are just going to upset
her. We do not want to upset her.”
When I saw my
grandmother’s tear-stained face, I did not understand why it would hurt or
upset her to show my tears when SHE was crying.
Would she maybe feel some comfort that we were all crying and that she
was not alone in her flood of tears, anguish, and despair? Maybe it would give her a kind of permission
to grieve openly? Did crying necessarily
mean grieving? Don’t we all grieve in
different ways based on our culture, upbringing, and, most complicated of all,
ourselves?
As I have gotten
older, I have attended more funerals and fewer birthdays. It seems to me that people celebrate their
birthdays less and less as they age because it depresses them to get
older. This saddens me because I had
always seen birthdays as a celebration of life and a privilege to getting older
and even old. Not all of us are
fortunate enough to get older or old.
After all, child-sized caskets are made as well…and, who wants to even
think about that?
The two latest
funerals I went to were open caskets and so up close and personal that I could
reach out and touch their cold skin. The
first funeral I went to that was open casket, I started to tear up and
literally feel sick to my stomach like I was going to puke. My friend had to put her arm around me to
comfort me. As for the most recent
funeral, my friend had tears flowing down her face freely that smeared her
mascara making her have black inked tears.
She kept saying, “I told myself I was not going to cry. Now, I am crying. Now, I am a mess. I hate crying in front of other people. I hate crying.”
I enveloped her in my
arms and said, “It’s okay to cry. Just
cry.”
I continue hearing
around me that people have to control or hide their emotions, do not cry, and
even sneak off to a secluded area just to cry alone out of shame and solace or
privacy and to “collect themselves.” Suffice
to say, I have been in one too many situations where I have just ended up
crying by myself. Sometimes I have cried
so much that I am just left completely numb and exhausted with a headache and a
river of tears and snot blotted out with a blanket of Kleenex all around me.
The first time I
cried in front of someone outside of my family and my closest childhood friends
was with a friend that I was growing closer to.
It was after my hip replacement surgery and I was fighting to learn to
walk all over again and trying to undo over 30 years of walking wrong. The physical pain and mental frustration was nearly
unbearable in the beginning, and I consider myself to have a fairly high
tolerance for pain. After all, I was
steering clear of pain killers and narcotics that made me feel worse that I
rather just take on the pain. She walked
in with a bouquet of flowers when I was trying to get up from the wheelchair
and the physical and mental pain was finally too much for me to tolerate that I
just cried and kept crying. I had never
cried that hard in front of someone outside of my family and childhood friends. She rushed over to me and wrapped me in her
arms and comforted me saying: “Just cry.”
There is something so
scary about showing and sharing our absolute worst, our vulnerabilities, our
fears, and just us being flawed and imperfect beings. There is something so honorable being on the
receiving end of someone’s tears. When
someone cries in front of me, I consider it the ultimate strength on that
person to exposing me to their vulnerabilities and, most of all, that person,
trusting me with their worst and their truth.
I consider it my honor and place of privilege to comfort that person and
let the person just be and feel all they are feeling to try to heal.
I admit it: I am a
big crier. I cry with Disney
movies. I cry with ANY and all animal
movies. I cry from books. I cry out of frustration. I also cry from laughing so hard. Funny how our laughter and tears are so
connected to each other to feel and process such joy and sorrow. I’ve become even more of a crier as I have
gotten older. I thought it would get
easier with getting older in that I wouldn’t give a *hit, but I have become
increasingly nostalgic and sentimental. Things,
people, experiences, and just about everything and anything can and has touched,
affected, and impacted me even more now than when I was younger because of how
aware I am of the meaning deep in them. Has
this also happened to you?
If crying is NOT your
default like me, then it’s all good.
Everyone grieves and reacts to challenges, pain, anguish, frustration,
etc. in all different ways. I am just
saying that I hope for you to have a place of safety and sanctuary to just be
and feel whatever you feel and always remember that you are human. Do you
cry easily? Do you need to be alone when
you cry? Have you become more emotional
as you have grown older? Were you told
growing up not to cry and to control your emotions? Or, even worse, that ‘boys do not cry’
because it is not ‘manly’? When was the
last time you cried?
Keep smilin’ until we
meet again,
Mary ;)
