Who Teaches Us Not to Cry?

When we were at Grandma and Grandpa's house, there was to be no crying.  I was a highly sensitive child (now I am a highly sensitive adult), and cried when I felt insecure or angry, which was much of the time.

When I was four or five, we went on a family vacation together to the beach: my mom, brother, grandparents. We stayed in their camper. For reasons I don't remember, I was crying one night. Grandma towered over me and said in an almost-growl, "Now stop crying!"

You, reader, understand how, as a human, this approach is bound to backfire, and instead of quieting and assuring the child's soul, it will only ruffle it further. My mother was wisely unwilling to get in the way of my grandmother. Later, though, I asked my mother what had happened. Why had my grandmother told me not to cry when I was feeling upset? And why had she, my mom, not rescued me?

My mom's response was a brief history: my grandmother had told her own children all their lives not to cry. This had wounded my mother, who is also quite sensitive, but she had learned to bear the pain more quietly, or at least not in the presence of my grandmother. From my grandmother, I later learned that her mother had always told her own children not to cry. "And she never said, 'I love you,' your Great Grandmother Mae," explained Mom, "You just had to know it." And so my grandmother had also lived her life, not saying, "I love you." You just had to know it somehow.

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I visited my grandmother today. A few minutes into our visit, I said, "I have news to tell you." Her face lightened. I know she was expecting me to tell her that I had found a wonderful boyfriend, that I thought he was the one, and that we'd be getting married in six months, would she be free on October the 10th to play "Here Comes the Bride"?

Instead, I told her the actual news, "I'm going back into teaching this year. I'm moving to Morocco at the end of this July, and I'm staying there for two years."

She stared for just a moment, her face fallen, "I could just cry right now."

But she didn't cry right then.

We talked about Morocco for a little while. Then we spent all afternoon avoiding the subjects of the heart. She is often somewhat belligerent about my opinions and annoyed when I make jokes. And it was all completely worse because I knew she was despondent over my pending departure in July, though she didn't say so. It wears on a person not to speak out their fears and hopes. I felt totally spent when 2 o'clock came.

I began to gather my things, make my way to the door. She hugged me, and with tears in her eyes she held me close to her, "I know you have to go [to Morocco], and I won't stand in your way. But I love you."

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When we're born, our very first thing to do is to cry. It means we're alive.

Thanks, Mom

Prompt: Indulge in nostalgia

I don't normally think about the positive things I associate with being a kid. My childhood is filled with half-gratified desires. I often think about how hard I had it. I always had questions that needed answering, and I longed to grow up so I could be taken seriously.

The library. As a child, my room had lots of picture books, and we were always at the library swapping them out. We rented movies from there, too, especially during the summer. I remember the first time I saw Princess Bride. My brother was skeptical that it was going to be "a girl movie" (ha!!). It should go without saying that we were both entirely satisfied by the viewing experience.

Midnight Snack. How it got started, I don't know. And it was never actually midnight when my mother indulged our young cravings for sweets. She put a few Graham crackers out with cups of milk. I became a pro Graham-dunker. Good job, Mom, on not giving us fruit snacks or candy at that hour. She knew nutrition, even if our babysitters were sometimes less than aware.

Reading to us.Why does no one read to me now? It's so comfortable and cozy to sit and listen to someone else's voice, on and on. As I rested my head on her side, I closed my eyes and heard her voice, swallowing my thoughts and spooning a thin layer of honey all over the world. She read to us before bed almost every night, when she wasn't working, of course, and she'd dismiss us to bed with, "first one to bed gets first hugs'n'kisses!" We scrambled for our rooms, and made such a fuss if she didn't judge correctly the "winner" of the game.

"Go outside and play." In my imperfect memory, Stephen always seemed to be outside with his friends, riding bike, or skateboarding, or playing street hockey, or... many other mysteries. None of my friends lived in town for a long time, so I confined myself to the yard, learned nothing there, and felt lonely. But at least I was outside, and so was Stephen, usually. Once, though, I recall he and Logan and Danny (together, the Three Musketeers, but without the noble intentions or code of honor) were playing in the basement. They were there for a long time, and finally came upstairs giggling. They had spray-painted their initials on a yellow, metal cabinet, long unused, in the tiny work room. The fumes had been getting to them, but they also thought that they were the cleverest little rascals to ever strategically spray paint their initials. The "LSD" cabinet remained in the house for a long time.

"Why don't you stay home tonight?" In high school, my mom would tell me that I couldn't go out, just because "you've already gone out three nights this week. It would be a good night to stay in." I so little understood how much my bitter, "But why?!" could have hurt her. My "why?" to the request to stay home implied so much: that I wanted to get away from her and the family, that I didn't think they were worth my time, that I had better things to do, better places to be, in short, that I didn't value my home community and consider it worth my contribution.

I wish more parents would tell their kids to stay in a few nights a week. When I tell it to dorm students, they are frustrated. They say things like, "It feels like I'm in prison!"; "I hate this place!"; "Why do you want to control me!?" But by the end of the year, they realize that the time they spent here was valuable. They wish they had spent more time getting to know the other students and advisers. They realize that this was their home for a while, and wish they had owned it more, contributed more.