As Tears Go By

I have this problem where I can't ever see somebody I care about cry without myself crying, or at least really wanting to cry and have to try really hard to hold it back. I kind of like to think of myself in some ways as more of mans man, but I am probably far from that, and I am not too afraid to admit that I do cry from time to time, which is good because I am probably going to share that a little too much in this post. I can't go to a funeral without crying or at least getting a huge lump in my throat trying to hold it all back. It doesn't matter if I knew the person or not, but just seeing the other people there and what they are going through makes it happen.

Something like this happened just last week. My good friend Chad came into town to surprise his sister Tori for her birthday. I was lucky enough to be right there for the surprise, and after Tori's immediate jump of excitement and joy for seeing her very loved brother, her face turned quickly to tears. They weren't sad tears though, it was like she was so happy by the surprise that she just couldn't help but cry. They were tears of joy I guess you would call them. When I saw this, like my usual self, my eyes slightly watered up and I had to fight back the few happy tears building up inside of me. Kind of silly I know. Luckily I managed, and I think nobody noticed.

After that, I started to think about the different kinds of crying there is. I have seen a few people cry lately, and it seems most people immediately associate it with deep sadness, but that is not always the case, or at least not directly. There are the tears that sometimes can come while reminiscing of joyous past times. These are probably more common than you'd think, but I guess they are a mixture of happiness and sadness as you are thinking fondly of times past, but with a small longing of those times mixed in. The saddest of the sad tears are the ones associated with the death of loved ones, but lets keep this a happy discussion. Last week I also saw a mother begin to cry a tiny bit as she watched her all grownup child who is about to leave home interact with her friends. It was pretty sweet. I could just imagine all the little thoughts and memories that caused each little happy/sad tear.

Then there are the tears that start out sad but can lead to happiness such as the kind told to me by a story from my friend Kylee. In the last year her phone has broken twice, and when she went in to get a new one, they were gonna charge her $50 for it. That obviously is annoying to anyone, but especially for someone whose phone continually keeps breaking for no good reason, and so, overwhelmed by this annoyance, she began to cry a little. This must have scared the employee a bit because he said hold on a sec and went and got the manager and got the fee waived. They were then happy tears. (In allowing me to use her story she said I had to emphasize that she did not cry just to get a free 50 bucks, but that it was just overwhelming with everything else in her life as she is about to take part in a distant move to Kansas City, which won't be cheap.)

Anyways, back to the happy tears. I haven't experienced too many happy tears of my own, and after seeing a few of them, I think they should maybe happen more often to people. One of my experiences I can think of was caused by a story I once heard from my Dad. It might be more of a mixture of happy and reminiscent tears, but here it is. He said that when my sister was 1 and basically about to die from spinal meningitis (the doctors had pretty much given up as they had done all they could), my Grandpa (who was not much of a religious man by any means at the time) prayed asking God to take him instead as he had already lived a full good life. I don't know why exactly, but when I heard this, it really got to me. It just really amazed me that he would do that, and I guess I was amazed by it to the point of tears. I think I got away with that one without anyone noticing too. Luckily, God didn't fully answer his prayer, and I was lucky enough to still have both an older sister and a grandpa in my life. Many good books have caused me tears too, and whether they are caused by a happy or sad story, I think any tears caused by a good book are in actuality happy tears.

Not really sure what my point is to this whole thing, but mostly just wrote it to share some good stories I guess. Don't cry too much though, at least not in public, it makes people feel uncomfortable. Or maybe that's just me because I might start too, but then again, you might get a free 50 bucks.