ON TEARS

Thursday of this week was my grandma's wake. We were at a funeral home for six hours, and I didn't shed a tear. My grieving comes in other ways, in less public ways. It's also quite possible that the process of writing about it is cathartic in a way that replaces tears for me.

When my first grandfather died, I remember being strangely proud of the fact that I cried less than my older brother. As I was an "overcrier" for various other things (losing in sports and spelling bees), this was a major achievement for me. When grandfather #2 passed on six months later, I was a wreck. I cried that last time I saw him (less than 24 hours before he died), I cried that morning at church. I remember running out of the sanctuary and hiding in the fellowship hall for the entire service (Jimmy Clark, who was older and much cooler than I will ever be, came down and talked with me for a large portion of that time.) I maintain that it the tremble in my dad's voice that set me off.

When a friend passed away unexpectedly in 2000, I held it together when I heard the news. I was able to have the following conversation without getting emotional:

ME: How are you?
DISTRICT MANAGER FOR WALGREENS: Not good.
ME: Why is that?
DMFW: Sales are down.
ME: Yeah. My friend died tonight, so I don't really care about sales. (walks away)

I was fine later that night, talking with friends about the whole situation, about how guilty we felt that we weren't better to our deceased friend. But the funeral - that destroyed me. I wept copiously and felt terrible for doing so, like I was less of a man for it.

I may have cried with my first grandmother died a few years ago. I wasn't that close with her, and her passing was expected. I remember being relieved that I was on vacation from work and so could attend services in Marion, IN, guilt-free. I don't know that I cried during that visitation or funeral - mostly I remember the cars on both sides of the road pulling over for the funeral procession. It's an odd detail, but one that has stuck with me.

Thursday's visitation was fine. I was close to crying after dropping my mom off earlier in the day (when I turned on the radio to hear the closing refrain to "Jesus, Take the Wheel," a song with a title that sums up my grandma's philosophy). I was close again at the end of the night, when I said a few final words. But no tears. Came home, read my autographed copy of "Zanna's Gift" by Orson Scott Card and almost cried again. Close, but nope.

It's not that I'm not sad - I am. I'm going to miss my grandma, and I feel bad for my mom, as it was her mom who passed away. I feel for my niece, who is going to grow up not really knowing her great-grandma. But I just don't have it in me to go through the process of actually shedding tears right now. Maybe next week I'll see something that reminds me of her and it will set me off, but for now...foolish though it may be, I'm going to try and fake it through the services today and see how that works out.