Cry Rivers

DO CRY ‘RIVERS’ OR EVEN ‘NIAGARA FALLS’ IF YOU MUST TO FEEL BETTER
(I dedicate this to all our nucleus families which we all know… is the most powerful composite unit designed to weather any storm)
“Those things that hurt, instruct.”
-Benjamin Franklin
PROLOGUE
Laughter is hailed as the best medicine; crying the other uniquely human attribute has been given a short shrift by all (except the first cry of the new born of course). Is this fair?
A Yiddish proverb says, "What soap is for the baby, tears are for the soul." Many religious traditions consider the act of crying a gift from God. There is strength in tears. We weep with gratitude over all the amazing gifts from God that come our way. We cry when we share moments of great elation with others. Tears enable us to get in touch with our deepest feelings. They help us express our grief at endings and the loss of those who are precious to us. Weeping arises from the heart and signifies an open and softened heart. Perhaps that is why people are embarrassed to cry; they do not want to reveal their vulnerability. But even if crying is relegated to privacy, behind closed doors, it is undoubtedly a safety valve which must function in times of extreme distress or else……. Remember? Your good old poem in school of --Alfred Lord Tennyson.? A dead soldier’s grief- stricken- wife was so shocked that she couldn’t even cry? It goes like this:
Home they brought her warrior dead:
She nor swooned, nor uttered cry:
All her maidens, watching, said,
‘She must weep or she will die.’

Then they praised him, soft and low,
Call'd him worthy to be loved,
Truest friend and noblest foe;
Yet she neither spoke nor moved.

Stole a maiden from her place,
Lightly to the warrior stepped,
Took the face-cloth from the face;
Yet she neither moved nor wept.

Rose a nurse of ninety years,
Set his child upon her knee--
Like summer tempest came her tears—
"Sweet my child, I live for thee."

So the damn bursts, when an old experienced lady pushes her small child in front of the woman. She cries and the healing begins for after all she had to live for her kid if nothing else!!! How poignant!!
One reader in his letter to the editor (ToI dated 8th Oct) had quoted an interesting observation by Sri Ramakrishna about tears. “Tears of repentance or sorrow flow from the corners of the eyes nearest the nose and those of joy from the outer corners of the eyes”.
So cry one must. If it is of any consolation, studies have proved that men weep an average of 1.4 times a month while women cry about 5.3 times monthly. But no debate please as to whose mind is fragile. Perhaps it is time to reclaim your tears as this incident in my life may indicate.

THE INCIDENT
The shock of events of the past few hours on that day had overwhelmed me all at once. Years since that cold day in January I still remember it like it was yesterday. (I guess to me it always will be ).Rain poured down as if it desperately needed to rid itself of all moisture; as if the clouds felt that they had to wring out all the water that night, that very night or else the world would come to a drastic end. To me that "end" seemed to come anyway. My body felt numb. While the world was moving along, I felt removed from it.
We had just lost our beautiful twenty seven-day-old grand child (girl). Diagnosis: SIDS, (sudden infant death syndrome). It was only a day before that my daughter had spoken with us. It was a routine cheerful call, like the one she often made- all was well…...and the very next call said, little Roochi could not be awakened from her nap. My daughter herself a doctor had tried in vain all attempts at revival. It was too late. Little Roochi was gone.
Hundreds of miles away I was fatigued as I settled into the chair. I had had no sleep. I began to reflect on the past hours, trying desperately to make some sense of it all. Why had Roochi, the child we all had waited so long for, been taken away so soon...she had barely begun her life... "God, she was just a child. How could a life so young be stolen so quickly?” No reply.
I got infuriated with Him. The question kept coming, and the pain in my heart just enveloped me. That was when my father spoke, "We don't fully understand what part we have in God's plan, my son. Perhaps Roochi had already completed her mission on earth. Right now your daughter needs you both more than any one else. Holding the family together can be summed up in one word: LOVE. Go son. Be with her" Those words didn't ease the bitterness that was creeping in. The next few hours were a blur. Ten hours later, we were with our daughter. I resigned my lucrative job.
The next morning dawned. More decisions, arrangements, telephone calls and funeral plans. When you've just lost a child, how can healing begin?
I remember long time back my dad asking my then 18-year-old daughter, L…, what her life’s big questions were. She had said that she didn't think much about spiritual things, and instead stewed about colleges, career, clothes and friends. But a short time later, over lunch she had come up with a big one: "Why is everything always being taken away, grandpa?" But that was long time back still in her teens when she lost some thing very insignificant in college and not quite as precious as her kid. She was at an awkward age too- too young to experience life on her own, yet too old to have it spoon-fed to her. She had always wanted to be independent; almost a rebel, who never took life too seriously and never conformed to rules unless she was entirely sure what purpose they were meant to serve.
And to go along with this conundrum comes the question "How does one stay positive in the midst of constant loss and suffering?"
My old man had responded to her something like this.
“Change is the law. The more we resist that universal fact, that reality, the more we suffer. The harder we try to grip and hold onto that which is passing through our fingers, the more we get rope burn. That is simply the truth. It is in our higher self-interest to learn to loosen our grip, unwind, and learn to forget”.
"You mean ‘Kiss the joy as it flies, and live in eternity’s sunrise’ as William Blake sang?” I had said in jest at that time.
“Things come and go, my child. All that are born die. The seasons pass, arriving and disappearing. The good and the bad news at once is that the old gives out and gives way to the new. We too follow the same course. Let’s think about what we do while here, and what we make of whatever hand we happen to have been dealt. ‘Whenever a door closes, a window opens elsewhere’. So keep going, remain optimistic, as well as realistic”, he had said-so relevant all the time.
But Roochi had left her mother in a devastating state due to the trauma and the shock she was put through.
“I saw her lying . . . still. No movement. Although I could have sworn that at any moment she was just going to smile up out of the baby blue bed that she rested in and bring peace to a room full of grief” my daughter had poured out to me drifting further into despair, insomnia and severe anxiety leading to stress induced IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome). She had gone a week with only about six hours of sleep. It didn't even look like her. It wasn't her. Too long I glared at her. Questions running through my mind like a fast train at a speed so high to comprehend that I felt like I was losing my mind too.
I went online with my sister (an eminent doc at M…..). I told her what I was going through. She called me immediately. “Anna, to treat any Doc. is tough. And L…. is no exception. She is intelligent too. Right now she needs us all the time. She is going through a trauma, - ‘a silent grief’. Keep her engaged, give reassurance that we all are with her and soon she would come out a winner.” My sister became an angel to me as she lent me her strength and courage. She encouraged me to seek medical help and get the medication that my daughter so badly needed - and to not be afraid to do so. She was on call for me at all hours of the day and night and insisted that I call her whenever I felt the need. She talked to my daughter at 1am, 2am, 3am, 10pm, midnight, etc. for days, exchanging notes on seemingly unimportant irrelevant things until her medication began to work. We had a standing appointment for a phone call each night after my sister got home from work. My sister went without sleep herself many nights to be there for us when I needed to talk. She was calm, reassuring, and compassionate. She helped me to believe in myself, to value myself as a human being. I believe through her my daughter came out of the desperate situation.
There are times on our Journey through the huge-ness of life that we feel lost, unloved, helpless and defeated. What do we do when we find ourselves in such an unhappy state? Some of us escape into the land of danger and defeat. We "get out of ourselves" by drinking too much, or taking drugs, or feeling sorry for ourselves, or complaining, or whatever else that stops us from doing what is truly necessary...and that is taking responsibility for our own experience of life. And we look out at the world with envy imagining that everyone else out there has been given a more fulfilling and enjoyable life than we have. Not good!
“There are many healthier and happier alternatives. One of these alternatives, which is simple but HUGE in its force, is to "get out of ourselves" by getting involved in the lives of others who are less fortunate.” I had gently suggested to my daughter.
“Any time you feel yourself in a depressed and unhappy state, immediately get up and get out to help the world in any way you can. And as you make helping others a part of your everyday life, any feelings of depression and unhappiness will appear less and less and less...and feelings of joy, gratitude and all good things will appear more and more and more. It works every time, my child” I had said weighing my words carefully and haltingly. That seemed to ring a bell setting her thinking differently. Then she hugged her mother with tears pouring down her cheeks like rain out of heaven and continued till there was no more tears to cry, “oh mummy, What has come over me?” was all she could say. My wife started to pat her back and stroke her hair until her sobbing seemed to calm and finally stop. Eventually her rhythmic breathing suggested that she had fallen asleep. I, still wide awake, suddenly realized how comforting it was to have these women in my life.
So finally, I talked out and succeeded giving her a tear to shed. That became hers exclusively to use whenever it was needed. My wife gave her wisdom to know that God never hurts, but sometimes tests our strengths and our resolve to stand beside each other unfalteringly as one well-knit family. I was again reminded of William Blake,Think not, thou canst sigh a sigh,And thy maker is not by.Think not, thou canst weep a tear,And thy maker is not near. O! He gives to us his joy,That our grief he may destroyTill our grief is fled & goneHe doth sit by us and moan

My daughter L……….'s healing began that day after several days of ‘silent grief’.

EPILOGUE

"Row, Row, Row Your Boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily merrily merrily merrily
Life is like a dream.”
Life is tenuous, impermanent, and fleeting—not unlike a dream. I think we all must look into this reality at some point, and make some kind of peace with it. Everything is always slipping through our fingers; yet the answer is not to hold on tight or to push away.
Months later my son would ask his mother "Why are you crying?"
"Because I'm a mother," she would tell him.
"I don't understand," he would say
"And you never will." She would tell him
Later my son would ask his grandpa, "Why does mother seem to cry for no reason?"
"All women cry for no reason," was all he could say.
My boy has grown up into a man, still wondering why women cry. Some where en route he dropped this question. As for us nothing ever fazed us because we truly believed that we were invincible when we were around each other - we were each other's lucky charm. Although we both had our share of disasters and difficulties over the years, just a visit from any of our lucky charms was usually sufficient to change any situation for the better.
I am easily moved to tears...I always have been. Between the tsunami, the Katrina, Rita, the earthquake, and my own personal problems lately, I've been a regular, "Niagara Falls"! But, my mother always used to say, "Better out, than in"! And she meant it's better to let your emotions out, than to keep them inside.
“That, has never been a problem for you! You are not in that ‘1.4 times a month category’ in any case” says my Pa…… oops sorry my Pathni. Look who is talking?

V V R
14th Oct 2005











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