Sometimes I cry...

Sometimes I cry when I'm happy.  I don't know if this is something other people do but I do know that it confuses my 9-year-old daughter, Teagan.   The other day a particularly emotional song came on the radio and tears filled my eyes.  Seeing me well up, she climbed onto my lap, wrapped her arms around my neck and placed her cheek on mine.  “ It's okay mamma”, she purred softly.

Through a smile and tears I looked up at her. “Honey,” I choked, “I'm crying because I'm happy”.   She pulled back thoughtfully then admitted, “I've never done that before.”

“Well”, I said after a few moments, “I think grownups cry when they're happy because they know how sad life can be.”  There was silence while she took in that concept and then the moment passed and we were on to other things.

Life is sad. As adults we know all too well the depth of loss and loneliness that can overwhelm us.   All around us we witness or experience broken marriages, failed relationships, lost pregnancies and passing of loved ones (yes, I have had them all).  There is no escaping it. No magic pill that makes everything okay all the time. And so we go on living and try to forget or deny or justify or rationalize the depressing  times so the unbearable ache that seeps into your soul and stops you from caring doesn’t take over and leave you with nothing to hang on to.  Sometimes we are successful… for the most part.

Hopefully we learn, over time, that good times will come again. That our spirit, which feels irrevocably crushed will rise up and joy will fill our hearts once more. I’ve learned, over the years to try and face the sadness. To go to that deep painful place and stay there for a while. I cry, I get mad, I regret. I do what ever I have to do (wallow if you like) in the moment so I can move on and be rid of it and not have it fester or worse hide away and come back to haunt me later in life.  It’s taken me decades to learn to embrace and not ignore the depressing times in my life. I am no longer a believer in a stiff upper lip when it comes to emotional pain.

My daughter suffers from melancholy. I'm not surprised. It runs in our family. Every now and then she sinks into a very quiet, melancholic mood. I know how she feels. How confusing and frustrating it is to feel so utterly well… sad. I watch her slipping away and I can’t help thinking to myself, she’s too young for this. It’s not fair.

Last night was one of those nights. As she lay in my lap, limp and weepy I stroked her hair and tried to think of what to say or do to help her.  It’s horrible to watch your child try to deal with emotions beyond their years. To know they are struggling to understand why they have suddenly been overwhelmed with sadness – at the age of 9!

Sometimes I can figure out what’s triggering it. But as she gets older and becomes more private it's harder for me to identify the thing that renders her helpless and feeling alone.  I was lucky last night. I think. Her teacher is leaving today. For someone who tends to make strong emotional attachments to people and places, my daughter is hit hard at the end of each school year. She dreads having to say goodbye to her favorite teacher.  This time it is worse, her substitute teacher won’t be walking around the halls after tomorrow. She’ll be gone, forever!

As parents, what do we do during times like this? What do we say? I could have told her it would all be fine. To try and remember when she had to say goodbye to all the other teachers over the years and hey look… she survived, didn’t she?  But instead the next morning I poured her a big cup of hot coco and packed up three Oreos for snack.  Yes, I’m one of those moms who thinks kids should eat sugar. Especially when they’re feeling blue. There will be enough time when they are grown to go on diets and deny themselves the pleasures of chocolate!  And then I sent her off to school telling her to be sad. “It’s okay to be sad. You love your teacher. So hug her and tell her you love her and give her the cookies and card you made and if you want to - cry.  Feeling sad when you loose someone means you made a connection with them. It means you are able to feel and give love. That’s such a special gift to have. So be sad but try, when you’re ready, to see the happy.”  I think she understood the first part of what I said but maybe not the second part. Not yet.  

In the movie Harold and Maude (my all time favorite movie) Maude make it her project to teach Harold how to stop ‘wondering what it’s like to be dead’ and start living. “L… I… V… E.. live…live… live” she chants. "Get out there and play the game.  Otherwise you got nothin’ to talk about in the locker room”.  When Maude dies Harold cries uncontrollably. He has just lost his best friend and his lover. The pain must have been unbearable. But the final scene of the movie says it all.  Banjo in hand (Maude taught him to play) he walks along a mountain top playing his banjo and doing a little dance.  Cat Stevens’ If you want to be free be free   fills the air – we are left with a feeling of immense loss and sadness but also hope and glint of a happiness on the horizon. It makes me cry every time.

My daughter will suffer from melancholy and perhaps depression her whole life. I have no idea how severe it will get and I know I can’t make it go away. But I can teach her not to be afraid of sadness, or reject it. I can teach her to talk about her feelings. I can teach her to embrace those feelings, feel them and then let them go. And then find the good and keep living. 

And someday, if I’m lucky, I’ll have the joy of watching my daughter cry because she’s happy.