This is Blog 3 in my A-Z Blogseries:
Crying
My great aunt passed away last August and my mother still calls me every Sunday (the day they would always chat for hours on the phone) to tell me how much she misses her. I miss her too.
My dear aunt D was a tough cookie who battled cancer like a champ, until there was no more fight left in her.
Needless to say, I cried like a baby at her funeral. All though this is pretty normal behavior for me in funeral-settings it is something people do not expect of me, as I am usually very reserved with my feelings.
As I was one of the people that had volunteered to speak at my aunt’s funeral, I could feel my mother’s slight panic when she saw me go into a full shoulder shaking sob. I felt her (clumsily) trying to comfort me and I heard her whispering a confused “do something!” at my boyfriend.
In hindsight, it was all actually quite funny.
At the time though, it annoyed the hell out of me. I was feeling deep pain for the loss of a wonderfully loving human being. She is gone from this earth and atheist as I am, I do not believe we will ever see each other again.
That shit’s heart breaking!
She deserves my tears and it was a wonderfully appropriate place to do so. One might argue that is precisely what the whole get together was about. She was worthy of the ache in my (hypothetical) soul and if I could do it again, I would cry more, not less.
Last weekend, when visiting my parents my mom put on some music and told me this was a song she wanted to be played at her funeral. We spoke about this for a bit and enjoyed the music.
She then put on a French chanson that, according to her accounts, used to soothe me as a baby.
She then said: “Oh, you might as well play this one as well, so it stops you from crying too hard”.
We laughed, but I was fascinated once more at how uncomfortable my tears apparently make her. I asked her if she would prefer me not to cry when she dies and she said she would consider it an honor…
Isn’t that odd…?
Epiphany 