The Power of Tears

As a little kid I was considered tough and tomboyish.  On my first day of school at Borah Elementary, I recall, even at the tender age of six, that I decided that I wasn’t going to cry.  The reason was that I didn’t want to make my mom feel bad when she had to leave me behind in that classroom.  When I had to go from my mom’s house to my dad’s house for visitation, I refused to cry for fear that it would send the wrong message to my divorced parents, so I learned how to hold those tears inside until I went to bed at night.  When my dad moved to Maui and my sister and I had to travel over the Pacific Ocean for our six weeks visit, I remember holding in my tears until I took a shower that night, where I cried my heart out with homesickness and washed the evidence down the drain. 

I grew up telling myself that being able to hold in my tears was a sign of inner strength, and maybe it was to some degree.  But I’ve decided that letting the tears flow openly and without any shame or embarrassment might actually take more strength than keeping them locked behind stubborn eyelids.

Today my husband and I had to take one of our cats to the veterinarian to be euthanized.  She was around 15 years old and had been losing weight at an alarming rate.  This past winter we took her to the vet for a checkup; the vet was sure that she had a thyroid imbalance, but the blood work came back inconclusive – according to the numbers on her chart, she was just fine.  She had taken to caterwauling throughout the night, and began moving very slowly.  This morning as I walked past the laundry room I found her collapsed on the linoleum floor.  I gathered her up, put her in a soft cat bed, tucked a blanket around her, and waited for Chad to come home.  Once we arrived at the vet’s office, a vet tech came in to evaluate her.  The veterinarian hadn’t arrived at the office yet, and so the kind technician told us our options.  As she did, the tears started to flow down my face.  And I didn’t even try to stop them, even though somewhere deep inside me the old urge to “suck it up” struggled to emerge. 

I think I know what makes crying in front of others (especially strangers) so difficult:  Crying is a very vulnerable and exposed thing to do.  It reveals emotions that are deep and personal, kind of putting those emotions on display for others to see.  It’s also difficult to allow others to enter into our personal lives in such an intimate way.  For me, I also fear that by crying openly, I am somehow burdening those around me with feelings they may not know how (or want) to contend with. 

I’ve decided, though, that allowing myself to cry openly, even in a public place, allows me to be who I am and truthful with myself and others.  They are being allowed into a vulnerable place in my life, and I think I can trust most people to enter into my life with kindness and grace.  In fact, I think that allowing others to see me cry actually deepens my relationships with them.  It’s me saying to them, “I trust you enough to be unguarded with you.”  And ultimately it tells others that they can be unguarded with me as well. 

We made the difficult but merciful choice to allow our vet to put our cat to sleep, and as we sat in that vet office we both shed many tears.  Even my big, tough railroading husband openly cried for the loss of that stubborn, trouble-making, white Persian cat.