Borrowed Tears

Dr. Alan Wolfelt, Ph.D. of centerforloss.com wrote a book Grief One Day at a Time. In these posts we will explore meditations that are meaningful to us.

I can borrow tears whenever I need them.

I'll give them back when I'm done with them.

Wolfelt writes "Sometimes we cry when we're thinking about the person who died. Crying is good. Tears help us release our pent up feelings. But there's also another type of crying called "borrowed tears." These are tears that spring up when we are touched by something random we see, hear, touch, taste, or smell, and we react with strong emotion. Borrowed tears often come out of nowhere and are triggered by something we don't associate with the person who died and wouldn't normally have been upset by."

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A few days ago I was driving with my 10-month-old. We were in the middle of a three-hour trip when she woke up from a nap. I turned off my audio book and put on her bedtime playlist, hoping to lull her back to sleep.

The first song from her Lullaby playlist is one I've heard a thousand times. It is one I have sung a thousand times. The song that came on was from an album I recorded in 2020 for my newborn niece of myself singing "Somewhere Over The Rainbow."

My initial thought upon hearing the intro was, "oh good, this will help her fall back to sleep" and I began to sing along with the recording of my voice. And somewhere around "and the dreams that you dare to dream" I started crying.

The tears surprised me. I'm not much of a crier. Why was I crying at a song I've been singing for 20 years? I hear this song at least twice a week while putting my daughter to bed and I never cry. I have been singing this song since I was in the 7th grade and was cast as Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz, and never once has it made me teary.

And then I thought about how I didn't sing at either of the memorials held for my mother. I sang at every family member's funeral before that, but not at hers. I was a professional opera singer when I was a child, so although I am no longer a professional singer, I'm still quite good. My mother loved my singing voice, but I wasn't sure if I could hold my composure at her memorials so I chose to play my flute instead.

For some reason, listening to this song on this particular day, in those particular circumstances, made me sad I'd foregone singing in memory of my mother.

And then I realized, I have an anniversary coming up. Soon it will have been two years since I lost my mother and my brother in a murder-suicide. No wonder my heart is more sensitive than usual. I'm a survivor of murder-suicide loss, and as with all types of grief, I need to be extra gentle and understanding with myself around the anniversary of my losses.

So I sang, and I cried, thankful my daughter faces rearward and couldn't see me, and thankful she is too young to realize and ask questions about why her mommy is sad. And then a new song came on and the tears dried up and I continued our drive.

Since then I've thought of the few other times that I've borrowed tears since the murder-suicide. I admit I've cried during a comedy sitcom's unexpected-parent-death related episode. I got a little teary finding a book to my daughter that my mother used to read to my brother and me as children.

I don't cry often for my brother. Perhaps it's because he was so mentally ill and unhappy that now I think of him as free now. I do miss him, after all, he was my brother. So I wonder if some day soon I will find myself borrowing some tears from some seemingly benign stimuli, like a cooking show or a funny cat video, and cry for him too.

Healing Hearts

"When we press on our leg gently with our hand, it doesn't hurt. But if you break your leg and then press on it, even the slightest touch can hurt. Our hearts are broken now, and anything that touches our hearts even slightly may hurt them. This is normal and will pass as our hearts are healed."

For those who have experienced grief, what has activated your borrowed tears?