Tears

You all know that I weep easily. My mom says that I get that trait from my little Polish great-grandmother. That makes sense, since I also inherited her physical characteristics (round, mostly!).

The past couple of days, my mood has reflected the grey, wet spring weather. I don’t know if more water has fallen from the sky or my eyes.

Over the past year, three boys Ryan’s age have had mothers fighting brain tumors. Two of them passed away last summer, and we just found out this morning that another is losing her battle, and is not expected to make it through the week. My heart is breaking again that children so young are losing their mother. Our prayers are with our little swim team friend, Cameron, and his family.

Sunday, my cousin’s 2 ½ year old son was hit by a car near their home in St. George. Interestingly, his name is Cam, too. He was brought up to Primary Children’s Medical Center, where he will undergo extensive surgeries the next few weeks. His first surgery is scheduled for Monday – an 8-9 hour surgery which will remove muscle from his back and skin from his thigh in order to reconstruct his foot. He will be sedated for a week in order to begin the healing process. We were able to visit with his parents for a while, although he was asleep following the exploratory surgery on his ankle. Our prayers are also with Cam and his family.

Recently I was talking with a long-time family friend, with whom I have shared many tears over the years through our life challenges. We have both lost family members in a tragic manner, and we have both conquered life-threatening illnesses. (When I first saw her after I had recovered from bacterial spinal meningitis, she rushed to me and hugged me with so much exuberance! She told me how happy she was to see me. We don’t see each other often, but she still greets me with that same love and exuberance.) During our discussion, I mentioned to her that I was always so embarrassed at how easily I cried when talking with others who were facing challenges (or when I’m listening to some church talks, or expressing my love and appreciation to those who have done so much for us, etc.). She scolded me! She told me that she had been impressed by a talk many years ago where a well known institute teacher talked about the shedding of tears in this manner was a strength, not a weakness. She looked at the sharing of tears as a spiritual gift, and the empathy to truly mourn with those who mourn. She made me look at myself in a whole new light. Although I’m sure I’ll still be embarrassed by my easily flowing tears on occasion, I’m going to remember her perspective.

“A strong person is not one who doesn’t cry. A strong person is one who is quiet and sheds tears for a moment, and then picks up her sword and fights again.”



Updates:

On Monday, April 23, Cam underwent an all-day surgery. The muscle and nerves were successfully removed from his back and his foot was reconstructed. Then the skin graft was taken from his thigh and successfully attached to cover his foot. While it was expected that he would be fully sedated for a week, he made sufficient progress to only be partially sedated, and was awake from Tuesday night on.

On Tuesday, April 24, at about 3:30 am, our friend Heidi passed away.