Tears… one year later
It’s day 365. Tomorrow is the first anniversary of Charlie’s suicide.
I still cry every day, a year after Charlie’s death. I have come to learn that crying is likely to be a part of most of my days going forward. I cry for Charlie, I cry for my family’s pain, and I cry for others’ pain, particularly when I see or hear of other parents who have suffered the loss of children, as I feel their pain so viscerally.
What I would like you to understand about my crying is that it’s not all bad. Some tears are full of pain but others are filled with love. They flow all the time, triggered by countless memories. I cry to release the pain that resides inside. I cry to share the depth of Charlie’s beauty and the tragedy of her loss. And I cry tears for the gratitude I hold for friends and family. So if I tear up when I’m with you, take it as a compliment because it’s almost certainly a reflection of your kindness.
Carl and I recently spent a lovely evening with a very good friend. In the course of our conversation, she mentioned that a wise elder once told her that our bodies are made to shed tears so we shouldn’t hold back from crying. Tears are how we heal and cleanse our spirits and, over time, through our healing, our tears change from salty to sweet. I thought this was a lovely metaphor for those times when we cry but in a way that feels restorative. Most of the tears I cry these days feel like healing to me, even when they are painful to start. Tears truly bring about catharsis.
I have thought a lot about sweet tears since our evening chat. Fascinated by the idea, I wondered whether I would find other references to different types of tears. Sure enough, I found a reference to Kapha tears.* According to the article I read, we cry different types of tears, some salty and some sweet. The latter are otherwise known as Kapha tears, “Kapha tears are of compassion, love, and joy. They …result from witnessing or thinking of that which is beautiful or delightful… Sometimes they are tears of grief, as when we remember those we love who are gone.”
Whether you believe in different types of tears or not, the description of tears of grief being the same as those we cry when we witness beauty, speaks to my experience. When I cry about Charlie, I am feeling both the pain of her absence and the beauty of her spirit - because she really was the best of us - all in one. Not only that, kapha tears are apparently tears that flow from our outer eyes. Whenever I think of Charlie, the tears automatically begin to flow from my outer eyes. After a year of grieving, I can honestly say that my tears are mostly sweet. They are gentle tears, filled with empathy and love (hokey as that would have sounded to my teenaged self).
I am learning to stop apologizing for crying. I realise that it is a learned habit stemming from a culture that’s uncomfortable with tears. We are distressed by sadness and programmed to seek happy endings as being the only satisfactory sorts of outcomes. The idea that grief can be part of one’s life until the end of our days doesn’t sit well with most of us. “You’ve got this”, “time heals all”, and “it will get better” are phrases we hear and repeat often. We all like to assure each other that things will get better, because the alternative seems unimaginable.
The author of my favourite book on grief, Megan Devine, wrote,“…that insistence on returning to normal says far more about the speaker’s discomfort with pain than it does about the reality of grief.” She later sums up this theme with the simple statement, “Grief is not a problem to be solved; it’s an experience to be carried.” Megan speaks from experience when she says this, and her words speak to my experience, too. It was reading her book that helped me to see that I am not broken, even though I have often felt that way in the past year. This grief I carry comes from the hole in my universe that was ripped open on December 1st, 2021, and that will always be there… and that’s okay, or at least, is what it is.
It was immensely healing for me to be given permission to feel sad and to drop any expectation of getting over this in time. Honestly, the thought of getting over the loss of my precious child at any point in my life offends me right now. I never want to stop feeling the pain of Charlie’s absence. It is through that pain that I honour her existence. So please don’t worry about telling me that things will get better, or that time will heal the pain. That’s not what I am working toward.
As I have written before, I am content to continue learning how to carry my grief with grace. I hope to channel my pain and learned empathy into something bigger than me. I hope to continue to grow as a person. But I never want to stop feeling the pain of the loss of my beautiful girl. It’s not that I plan to be miserable till the end of days. I’s only that I have come to understand that grief is not the opposite of happiness. I will find happiness. But I will always carry my grief too. I don’t seek a happy ending. That’s just not in the cards for me. I am, however, going to find balance. That is my goal in life now. I guess I’m seeking a sort of zen, Rachel-style.
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