I’ve cried so often these past few days. It’s odd how I won’t cry for ever, then suddenly these spurts of tear seem to well up for awhile.
Today I saw my friend Colleen Echohawk-Hayashi for the first time in—what–maybe a year? We immediately teared up upon seeing each other. How often do you have friends like that? Those were good tears.
Early in the week one of my oldest friends, Wendy Chamberlain moved away from me again. This is not uncommon. Wendy and her family live in Nepal and only get to come back to the states every three or four years. We were so lucky to have them with us this Summer – exchanging childcare so our kids could bond, hanging out in each other’s living rooms, talking on the phone for less then $4 a minute. But watching them load up in that truck and drive away again was still heartbreaking.
My grandmother was here this week too. We made such amazing memories with her – four generations doing crafts, and going on outings and making Thanksgiving dinner. But is was hard too, as she told me how lonely she was, leaned her hand on her chin and gazed out the window saying over and over in a sing song whisper, “Everyone is so busy. Just so busy.” Hard to look at the woman, who I treasure so much, and hear her say that her plan is “to go die alone on a mountain”, so she won’t “inconvenience” anyone by moving in with them. Hard to look at her hands which once earned her the nickname ‘the bionic knitter’ and watch them shake, gnarled with arthritis and tremulous from Parkinson’s.
Then there was Eden, pale and wrapped in an afghan, watching us eat Thanksgiving dinner from behind dark eyes, her fever peaking at 103.7. And my health, slowly unwinding as the migraines become more frequent and the medicines more rife with side effects.
And then the realization that it was World’s AIDS Day. 6,500 African dying every day from AIDS. Projections are as large as 10 million African orphans due to AIDS death by 2010. A whole generation parentless. Why wouldn’t I cry?
I sit with Eden and read the Little House on the Prairie books out loud. They had so many tragic things happen in their lives. Lost what little they had to flood and fire. Moved away from family knowing they would never see them again Watched the Native Americans make their slow, permanent march away from their homeland.. But still, they didn’t seem to be flattened by it. They coped, and had hoped, and even found ways to celebrate. These primitive pioneers. These “under developed third world nations.” Where did they, where do they, put all that sorrow? Where can I put mine, small in comparison though it may be? Our technological western world with all its medicines and insurance and savings accounts tries so hard to insulate us from sorrow. Perhaps that is why when it comes we have no skill to manage it, no tricks to train it, no understanding of where to put it. Perhaps this is the gift that can come to us from those who suffer, albeit at a terrible price. Perhaps these sad and lonely and sick – these who we see as the “least of these”—perhaps they can offer us a tremendous gift. Perhaps they can answer our searching questions. What container holds tears?