Rerouted Tears

My tears are backing up. I want them to be shed. I am trying to cry, really, I am. They are backing up and I feel as though they are rerouting through my entire body, going every which way but OUT. They are being held in for some reason. Oh, indeed there are the morning tears, the mid-day tears, the evening tears, the seasonal tears, the middle of the night tears, all the tears of grief. But these tears, the ones that bind me up, bend me over, ache with pain, the big tsunami if you will, just races and rages and roars through my soul. They are following some sort of course within. They are brought about by the memories, the flashbacks, the changing of the season, this season which became her last, at least here on earth. They are brought about as I remember the excitement of a little girl and her sister who dressed up and waited for Aunt Kathy to come take them trick or treating. They are brought on by a young woman who bravely walked herself to a hospital, in pain, barely able to breathe, shoulder and back pain, coughing that would not stop, soon to learn of lung cancer. They are brought on by an image of a family coming home and hearing her say, as we crossed the Missouri line, home sweet home, where I am going to get well. They are brought on by what has been lost, but what has been gained. They are brought on by a sweet October, more beautiful in Missouri than I believe anywhere else, a near perfect month, ending in an even more surreal way. They are brought on by a celebration today of 33 years of marriage, and all that has taken place in those years. WE are stronger, wiser, and still together, despite the statistics...not just the statistics of divorces, but those of couples who lose a child. The silence, the ache, the pain, the loss can kill a marriage. We celebrate that ours is still alive. The rerouted tears are due, in part, because today is also the day God heard my cry and took my/our mother, grandmother, wife to her heavenly home. Sixteen years ago. A gift in the pain on our 17th wedding anniversary. For such a gift, there are still tears. They come every year and every year I think they won't. But they do.

These rerouted tears that go every which way but OUT stand for so much. They represent strength, dignity, sorrow, pain that cannot be described, joy, happiness, grief, even euphoria at times. They know no consistency. They know no reason. They are just there. They get tangled and caught up, sometimes in my throat, sometimes in my gut, always in my heart. I don't know how to live like this, but I don't know how not to...it is who I am, now. Sometimes they trickle from my eyes, sometimes they pour from every pore in my body, and always, they are screaming in my soul. They are God's way of providing a release. I used to say I am tired of crying. Now I say, I wish I could cry more. I want to let it out. I will. When I can and in due time. It might be when I least expect it, when I linger in the Target aisle looking, and even touching, Halloween costumes. It might be when my fingers trace her name on her beautiful headstone on a visit to lay fall flowers on her grave. It might even be when I look at the pomegranate juice in the grocery store. The tears come. Maybe not OUT, but they are always there. I cry for her, for myself, for my mother, for my father, for my sister, for my brother, I cry for a daughter, a husband, for what was to be, but will never be...I cry. Then I ask for God's grace, His mercy and His love, I pick myself up, I find my way to celebrate the day, honor this anniversary when perhaps I'd rather curl up with a good book, live this day to the fullest, walk my beloved Rex, plan for holidays with family, look forward to spending time with a living daughter, make her a home cooked meal after a hard week of work, spend time with those I care about, or who are important to me, help others when I can. I ask that these rerouted tears cleanse me and energize me to live and make a daughter, who resides in the heavens, proud. I ask that they release me from the bonds of pain and grief and to turn that into good and joy. I ask God to help me smile as I remember, and to focus on the good that came, not the pain, not the suffering. I ask God to show me the way He answers prayers, like the day He took my mother out of her six week coma and freed her from the bonds of living like she was...God is so good, God is so great. He hears me. And I am grateful.