I still haven’t cried at a funeral, and it’s starting to concern me. I’ve been to five. My great-grandmother’s, my other great-grandmother’s, my grandma’s, my grandpa’s, and Joey’s. That’s an average of one every five years. And I feel like the odds are in favor of crying at at least one of them. At this point I guess I’m just a statistical anomaly.
I think I’m off the hook for both my great-grandmas’ services because I almost never saw them and didn’t know them very well. It was hard to see my family being sad at those funerals, but I didn’t think too much about my own dry eyes. I’d only met each of them like twenty times tops. Half of those times I was ten or younger. Also for my grandpa’s ’cause I was like three. From the bits that I do remember of it, I didn’t really understand what was going on. I didn’t know that my grandpa had died. I wish I’d had the chance to know him.
But Joey and my grandma died when I was in my twenties. So why couldn’t I get the tears flowing? I mean, I know I was sad. Like I’m sure I was sad enough for tears. But in neither of those sadnesses did I ever reach that breaking point. That point where your sadness boils over, and you feel hot in your face for a second and your composure cracks and the wells of tears overflow and leak out from behind your eyelids. And yet, just a few weeks ago, I cried at random videos and TV shows in my bed. In fairness to myself, I was off my meds.
In most cases, I operate under the rule that hiding your hand is best. That’s not true. In most cases, I have no hand to show. Maybe. I don’t know what rules I operate under. But whatever the case, people tell me I look pissed off or stoic most of the time. Last year someone even told me they thought I was fried. That hurt, but I still felt being a wall was a cool character trait to have. But not at funerals.
To be clear, this is not a central reason for my concern, but it’s kind of embarrassing too. When you’re at the service, surrounded by tear-streaked faces, and those faces belong to your friends and loved ones but your cheeks are bone dry. You have to look those people in the eye. I mean, you want to. You’ll put your arm around them or hold their hand gently in both of yours and give them your best knowing and comforting look. And in that moment, they can see that you are not in the same place that they are. And you hope they don’t get the wrong idea, but you know how it looks. That you are treading water while they are fully submersed.
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Rumpus original art by Ian MacAllen
