I’m all for good, old-fashioned remedies when it comes to matters of the heart. A brisk walk, a mug of hot, sweet tea, watching free-range chickens pecking around the garden, an uninterrupted chat with a close friend, counting to ten, deep breaths, things like these.
The pressure has been building of late and I had forgotten how therapeutic tears are. My husband, two children and I were driving to a hardware store, and the violin in the song that was playing must have tweaked at just the right pitch because one giant tear rolled, unexpectedly, down my cheek. Before the song was over, there were involuntary sobs, the make-up was washed away and I was sporting that tiny eyes and swollen, shiny, red nose look.
When we are children we cry all the time. We graze our knees, don’t want to go to bed, our siblings don’t share, we get frights and our friends bite us or say ugly words. We wail freely and decompress on a regular basis without being aware of it. When we grow up, the tears sometimes just aren’t so forthcoming. We learn, along the way, to keep them at bay.
We stopped to put diesel in the car and the fuel attendant (a complete stranger) asked me why I was crying. “She’s fighting with her children,” said their father. It’s true, I’ve spent twenty years mastering this mothering story; protecting, nurturing, loving, keeping them close and thoroughly enjoying them, and now the older ones are all wrestling to get out of this nest in their own, unique ways and I have no idea how to let them go with any sense of style on my part. It’s foreign territory and we keep messing up, them and me. Sometimes I think that there should be a compulsory parenting course for everyone to complete before they leave school. Once the babies come there is very little time for reading about parenting. Let them become teenagers who write exams and get driver’s licences and girlfriends and their very own ideas and ambitions, and the books probably won’t help much anyway. That’s when a mother finds herself on her knees before God’s throne; desperate for wisdom as she gives of her best to her particular gang.
Turns out that once I started I wasn’t crying just because of the big children who know everything! I was crying over sorrows like the careless words I spoke, the baby that didn’t make it, friends who have fallen out of love, the people I love who are sick and the sweet child we want to adopt and can’t. The tears fell for serious matters and also, simply, because I was tired and hungry, I can’t seem to check emails on time and none of my clothes looked nice when I tried on several things in the morning.
“Don’t cry Ma’am,” said the fuel attendant as we paid. “Okay. Thank you,” I whispered back, although I fully intended on letting the river run it’s course. A good cry really does wonders. The sighing after the sobbing is evidence that a weight has been lifted and the pressure has been released. I don’t know why we want to comfort people and get them to stop. We should be encouraging each ugly snort, sob and wail with a, “That’s it, cry harder, you’ll feel better soon.”
Psalm 56 v 8 “You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.”
Psalm 126 v 6 “Those who go out weeping carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them.”
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