Do commercials ever get to you, tug at your heartstrings? There was a Folger’s ad that ran around the
holidays. A college kid got out of a car, turned, and entered a house. Then he was in the kitchen pouring a mug of
coffee. Mom stands in the doorway (inference being that she was wakened by the
smell of great coffee brewing), and says with surprise and joy, “Peter, you’re
home!” I have no clue why that one always
choked me up, but it did.
Can a happy or sad movie ending make you weepy? Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr at the end of An Affair to Remember (“If it had to happen
to one of us, why did it have to be you?”) is a guarantee Kleenex-worthy moment
for me. Perhaps for you it was a scene
in Titanic, Gone with the Wind, South
Pacific, or Saving Private Ryan.
What about music? Our reaction can be soul deep. I see people dabbing their eyes during How Great Thou Art in church or You’ll Never Walk Alone at a
graduation. I cannot get through the verses
of some hymns. The words get blurry. Our national anthem, even at a baseball game,
can make me teary.
But beyond all that, beyond the weddings and funerals, in
the day to day, what is your crying pattern? Some people cry easily, be they
authentic or crocodile tears. One friend
calls herself a sympathetic crier, that is, if someone else is crying she will also
cry. Another friend spent months dealing
with grief and sobbed uncontrollably every day.
Crying is part of our humanity.
Parents can differentiate between a child’s angry, hurt, or lonely tears. Whether it is conditioning (“don’t be a
crybaby”), what we are told (“real men don’t cry”), something cultural or
deeply personal, it may be a challenge to know our own true crying nature as an
adult. One friend can point to the exact
part in his brain where he knows he is crying for something or someone,
although his eyes are dry.
I do not cry. That
is, I do not cry tears. Not very often. No one told me that there are different ways
to cry. This was something I came to on
my own. It used to bother me, made me
feel different and inadequate because I couldn’t cry actual tears for the realities
of life.
No longer.
A story on the evening news can impact me greatly and I will
sigh. That sigh is me crying. A colleague or friend is suffering and we
hug. That hug includes thoughts that are
tears. I understand the value in a good
cry and occasionally long for that type of release, but rarely in my adult life
have I benefitted from it. I now know
that for pain and sorrow and even for joy – either mine or of someone dear –
when I get very, very still, I am crying.
Whatever your natural release that means tears, I hope that
you can welcome and honor them when they are needed. I have learned to and it makes a difference. It makes them sacred and sacred things are
often best when shared. American poet
Clarissa Pinkola Estes wrote, “I hope you will go out and let stories happen to
you, and that you will work them, water them with your blood, tears, and
laughter until they bloom, til you yourself burst into bloom.”
Marilyn
July 29, 2013
