What makes me cry
Ms Waterpebble and I back in the day
Honestly, not much makes me cry. I’m a rock. If I were a character in the TV series Chuck I would be Colonel John Casey. When I asked a certain Ms Waterpebble (whom I dated for several days months years) about my ability to cry, her response was “Not Applicable”. But I have cried. On the odd occasion.
I cried when I said goodbye to Karen, the first girl I truly loved. I was at the open door of a train in Florence, Italy, about to leave for Belgium. I gave her a rose, said goodbye, and the train pulled out of the station all-too-slowly. I found my seat and then I cried – with one of those deep lung-wrenching sobs – on and off all the way to Switzerland (or it felt that way, anyway). We were in our late teens; we’d both been exchange students in Belgium. She was Canadian; I was from South Africa. Within a month I was back in Pretoria, serving a two-year stint in the South African Airforce. I cried again for her just before checking in for basic training – distressed that I might never see her again. I never did.
I cried when my grandmother (on my father’s side) died. I cried because our little Schnauzer, which she loved so much, and which used to wait for her at our front gate, would never see her again. I cried because I had gone for a run earlier in the day, right by where she lived, and I hadn’t popped in to say hello.
I cried at the hospital beds of both my mother’s parents just before they died and choked back tears at their funerals.
I cried while watching the movie My Dog Spot. A team of workers was retiling the bathroom in the apartment I was house sitting at the time and the foreman walked in to find me a blubbering mess. I didn’t care; it was cathartic.
I cried while sitting on an Air Singapore flight from Johannesburg, bound for Mongolia. The little Chinese woman next to me took one look at this howling wreck of a man and promptly buried her face in her inflight magazine. I was heading to Ulaanbaatar on the other side of the world, further from my close friends than I had ever been. (This was in the days before ready access to email and cellphones.) I sat there reading deep-felt notes of affection and support, sending me on my way, and the floodgates opened – floodgates which no number of Kleenexes could stem.
I’ve cried when seeing the lost, lonely, poor and hurting in Africa and Madagascar. I’ve cried with joy when seeing people accept Jesus into their hearts … I’ve cried … No, that’s about it. I don’t remember any other occasions… Wow! I guess I’m going to have to work on that.
I would ask “What makes you cry?” but I’m not sure I’d be able to deal with the answers …
Karen asleep on a park bench in Monte Carlo, just days before we saw each other for the last time in Florence, Italy.
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