Prompt: Think about the memorable messages—either positive or negative—you received during your formative years about sharing your intimate feelings and grief with others. Where did the messages come from, and what made them memorable? Do you still carry them with you today? If not, what precipitated the shift? In the cacophony of raw emotions emerging in this current climate, what are you learning about yourself, your intimate circle, and the people beyond it?
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I was 6 or 7 when my great-grandfather died. It was right after Christmas and I remember the morning we found out, I saw my grandmother walking down the upstairs hall, rounding the banister to descend the stairs with a look of stoic determination on her face. I remember thinking, "But her dad just died, why doesn't she look sad? Why isn't she crying?"
I had been bracing myself for the discomfort of seeing a grownup cry, but this lack of emotion was more confusing than it was a relief. Years later, I would come to understand that she was probably just tired. Weary. And maybe a little relieved herself.
The man was a tyrant all his life, and stubbornly lived alone into his 90s. Beyond that, my grandmother had, in her adult life, already endured the death of two siblings, her mother, and more recently and in rapid succession, her husband, her horse, and her dog. Not to be callous, but it's easy to imagine being all grieved out by that point. What's one more?
It was an accidental lesson, but it stuck. To this day, I feel really uncomfortable displaying my emotions publicly. When an adult does cry though, hoo boy. It sends me over the edge. I cannot keep it together. Which is probably the healthier, more human response, but it feels at once cathartic and wrong, like farting in a pair of control top pantyhose.
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