Tears, by Gillian

I saw my father cry three times.

When I was four or five we had a tiny 6-weeks-old kitten. He was all black, and sadly found a shaggy black rug a cozy place to sleep. My mother, no idea he was there, stepped right on him. We heard the terrible sound of crunching tiny bones. Tears were running down my dad's face as he scooped up the screaming little body to take it outside and put an end to its suffering.

Neither my mother nor I cried.

When our old dog, for years Dad's constant companion, died, my dad cried.

Neither my mother nor I cried.

For very different reasons neither of us cried. I, even as a child, somehow was playing a part; not being the real me. So, until the time I came out to myself in my early forties, when I did finally become the real me and no longer was simply an actor on life's stage, I felt very little real emotion. I do not remember ever crying as a child.

My mother never got over losing two children, ages two and four, before I was born. She shut down. She refused to let herself feel any more personal sorrow. She did cry, quite frequently, but never over anything personal; anything really in her life. The first time I remember her doing this was when horrific newspaper photographs accompanied the stories of Allied troops liberating Hitler's death camps; and why not, that was plenty to cry about. But she also cried at sad plays on the radio, or newspaper tales of abused animals or injured children - anything not actually personal to her. The few times I hurt myself pretty badly, as children do, neither of us cried.

But my dad had tears in his eyes when he carried a toddler me home from a pretty bad fall.

The third time I saw my dad actually cry was after I had come out. I was the authentic me. I had been back to England for a visit and when the day to leave arrived, Dad drove me to the train. As it pulled out of the station and I leaned out of the window to wave, I saw that he was crying. One of several things over my lifetime that I would rather not have seen, but you cannot unsee things.

I sobbed all the way to London. How much easier my former life spent playing a part had been, feeling emotions at best superficially.

Now, I cry at so many things, tears of sorrow or tears of joy; though tears do not necessarily flow. I find the feelings to be much the same whether in fact I literally cry, or cry just on the inside. I cried at the sight of The White House lit up in rainbow colors after The Supreme Court ruled on behalf of Marriage Equality.

I cried for the loss of Stephen and Randy, of this group, as I cry for every loss of yet another friend. I even cry when friends' pets die.

I cry for our country which currently feels like one more loss, as I cry for the planet as we know it, which is another.

But I have no regrets for my tears. Having lived for so long without them, I welcome them. I almost revel in them; celebrate them. They serve to remind me, I am really me!

© October 2017

About the Author

I was born and raised in England. After graduation from college there, I moved to the U.S. and, having discovered Colorado, never left. I have lived in the Denver-Boulder area since 1965, working for 30 years at IBM. I married, raised four stepchildren, then got divorced after finally, in my forties, accepting myself as a lesbian. I have been with my wonderful partner Betsy for thirty years. We have been married since 2013.