The topic of ‘Crying’

[Warrigal]

It is often waste of life that causes my tears.

Old black and white film of Australian soldiers setting sail for WW I as if they were going on a pleasant cruise. Family onshore holding on to streamers until they broke and with brass bands playing tunes like "Will ye no come back again?" So many of those fine young volunteers did not return, and others came back broken and sick. My grandfather was one of the latter.

I wept at the end of the musical Fiddler on the Roof when the family rejoiced that the newly married daughter would be settling with her husband in Warsaw.

I wept when JFK was shot, and also when Winston Churchill died of old age. It seemed to me at the time that we had lost very special men who had contributed much to history.

I try hard not to let people witness my tears. When Hubby died, I held it together for several days then, in the privacy of my bedroom I just howled like an animal. At his funeral I was quite composed until, at the wake that followed, we watched footage of him singing Edelweiss with my music therapist granddaughter. My eyes filled, but I recovered very quickly.

I was raised in the British tradition of not making a fuss.

 

[911]

I have never given a death notice to a mother that their child was killed in a vehicle accident that they have not cried. Some were stunned at first, but eventually the tears would come. Some women would grab or hold onto me so they wouldn’t fall. It was always a heartbreaking scene. Some fathers would also cry, but I guess they felt they had to be strong to care for their wife.

In one instance, a young man was helping to install big slabs of concrete while building a wall and the cable let loose allowing the giant piece of concrete to fall on top of him and crushing the young man. It was a terrible sight to see and when the mother asked to see her son, I advised against it, but told her she would need to speak with the Coroner. She eventually did view him.

 

[Ronni]

I cry easily and often. The loss of my son robbed me of whatever stoicism I had, so now I tend to tear up at anything even slightly touching or sad.