Crying, I'm Crying

Crying, I’m Crying ©

By Michael Casey

Here in England it’s another day of laughter and tears, Theresa May will be our new P.M. or Prime Minister, as some say she has balls which is what we need to get us through this valley of tears which is called Brexit. On paper it could be a self-inflicted disaster, but the country has to make the most of it, no use crying over spilt milk. If you are a news/politics geek as I am then these days are days of infinite joy.

Tears are being shed and hair is being pulled out all as a result of Politics, but what happens when it’s really personal. Think of the tears that are shed when your mum dies, especially when it’s suddenly and unexpectedly. All of us will have to face that day, as you read this you may shed a tear thinking back to when you mum died, to when your brother died in that car crash, why didn’t you take those car keys away from him. We shed bitter tears of regret, why oh why didn’t we do things, then they’d be alive, then we wouldn’t feel all that guilt that turned us into an alcoholic as it was the only way to stop the guilt, through the bottle.

Whoever it was that died, the tears fall, they cannot but fall. But tears relieve us, they purge our soul. We shouldn’t have slept with that boy, that bastard, you were just another forgotten conquest. You should have slept with the geek, at least he would have really loved you, he would have married you if you got pregnant, but now, but now, tears nothing but tears. The geek was the best boy, but you were so pretty why should you give yourself to him, now tears are all you have, tears but no dignity. If you threw your pride away then maybe you still could get the geek to love you.

There are other examples of tears, tears of relief when you finally got that job, tears of joy when your wife said she was pregnant and you both assumed you’d never have a child. Tears when you wake up after your operation and you are still alive. Tears are such a relief, such a thing of joy.

My own mother died suddenly and unexpectedly, she died in the marriage bed next to her husband of 47 years, my brother tried CPR but she was gone. All the family cried, all except me. Mum had said don’t cry when I die, I know where I’m going so don’t cry. I didn’t shed a single tear for mum. Not even when the church was fit to burst, over 300 people and 5 priests on the altar. My mother had total faith, the faith of a child, when she died she had nothing to leave any of us, apart from faith, so that’s what she left me. So why did I need any tears?

So now 20 years later I just think it would have been nice for her to see and spoil her Birmingham/Shanghai granddaughters, but I’m sure from her vantage point she’s pointing at them and telling the Heavens “they are my granddaughters”. So if you have tears to shed then shed them, don’t feel guilty if you have no tears to shed, tears will come when they are ready to be shed.

In my own case my dad nearly died 2 months after mum had died, it’s all in Padre Pio and Me on the internet, then I cried, but he came back from the dead, dad live 5.5 more years. I met my Shanghai wife and we had 2 daughters, our eldest girl was held in my father’s arms, we celebrated his 80^th Birthday, then in the winter he died. Then I cried, I howled in pain, like a puppy dog in a sack being beaten with an iron bar, I howled for 2 hours. The tears came in torrents, the tears flowed, dad was such a strong man, life would have broken most man, but not dad. So the tears flowed like an ocean, but they were not enough, he deserved many many more. So if I were to become as great a man as he then I’d cry once more, tears of homage to his life, he was a gentle gentle harbour amongst many oceans of tears.