Helping Me Cry

     A year or so ago, probably on Facebook, I read a sweet vignette about a little boy who'd gone next door to visit an elderly man who had recently lost his wife.  The little guy was gone quite a while and when he came home, his mother asked what he'd been doing all that time.  He told his mother he had just sat with the man and "helped him cry." 

     Today I thought of that story again when I tried out the other grief support group in town.  I had almost talked myself out of going.  Then, when I walked in, I wished I hadn't come.  There were only two women in the room--the obvious leader and another, older woman.  In such a small group, I felt I'd have to talk whether I wanted to or not.  Both women were very welcoming, and I learned the older woman is about to celebrate her 85th birthday and has been a widow for a little over a year, having lost her husband suddenly.

     These two women, strangers originally, invited me to talk.  As I told--in brief--the story of Bob and the Alzheimer's disease we struggled with, and of his death, I cried and cried and cried.  And, like the little boy on the porch swing with his neighbor, these two women "helped me cry."  They just sat and listened, and smiled gently, allowing me to feel my sorrow.  I remarked to them that I had begun to wonder if I was "stuffing" my feelings since I haven't cried at all in a few days.  But because they gave me a space to speak the story again, the tears flowed freely, as I know they need to do.  It occurred to me as I left the session that that is exactly what I needed from a support group--to help me cry.