Tears

Where do tears come from? The head or the heart? I can’t always tell.

In my staunch religious youth, if a song was sung or a prayer said aloud and Ruth cried, it was deemed a winner. Even today, in my not-so-religious middle years, I cry when reminded that I am loved. I dislike crying; it makes my head ache and waters down my resolve to, well, not cry. Tears of joy, tears of sadness, tears of empathy, tears of frustration, tears of pain, tears of hay fever—I guess they come from everywhere: head, heart and itchy nose.

Seated in a prayer circle during a workshop seminar on addressing the needs of Aboriginal kids in care, I suddenly, unaccountably, welled up and started to weep. Most of the people around me freaked out a little, unnerved by the European show of weakness, but the native facilitator smiled and accepted my apology with words I will always remember:

“Tears are a gift.”

A few years later, when I became a regular at the local tea shop where Joelique worked, he announced one day that he had cried the previous night. “Why?” I asked. “Did someone hurt you?”

“No,” he replied, philosophically, “I’m teaching myself that it’s okay to cry.” Though he was roughly half my age, his parents, like many of their generation, had employed the Stop it now or I’ll give you something to cry about tactic to turn off the tap in a highly emotional child.

I laughed at his thundering impression of his dad, then I shared my experience in the prayer circle and told him what the facilitator had told me.

“Tears are a gift.”

We held each other’s gaze for a heartbeat, and just as tears rose in both pairs of eyes, the timer went off and saved us.

I wrote this tiny poem as a tribute to the moment:

a confession

I’ve had a day

and you told me you’d cried

so we talked about tears

until duty called

which was probably good

else I’d have dissolved

April 28, 2011

With love,