CRY, BABY, CRY
unusual people are often on flights, I've noticed...at least, when you're talking with them casually, they seem to have more unusual lives than I do. but, of course, it's all just on-the-plane talk....they might be way ordinary folks telling a few tall tales to strangers...still
sometimes you see these very people, on flights - especially on night flights, I've noticed - who also do something unusual...
and then you are changed by them, although you really didn't feel like changing, not a whit....
The Lady next to me was crying. she was not weeping. not sniffling. not just letting tears run down her cheek...she was just softly, well, crying....
occasionally she would blow her nose. then dab her eyes with the Kleenex pile she was holding...sometimes she was so quiet, I thought she was sleeping...but, she was just simply crying. I guess I was strongly affected, because I felt compelled to tap her one lightly trembling shoulder and ask her if I could be of help...
first, I suppose, I should describe us all around for you. maybe then you can see why we were all so compelled to be with her...so distressed, really...right along with her....
I'm an older guy. white hair. distinguished looking, my wife says. I have a kind face. younger people ask my advice. I guess I'm the patriarchal type. tho, I travel a lot. my own kids do OK without me I think. but, they like me...
She was on the aisle. then there was an unused seat. then another guy in the window seat. around my age. who was trying not to notice that she was crying, I think. anyway, later on he brought her water. so he cared. but he wasn't the patriarchal type like me....
nice, matronly stewardess lady, or what ever they call them now. gray-brown hair. from Seattle. lovely lady. very kind.
sweet Chinese male steward person. also kind. sweet eyes, for a guy.
all around. quiet, nice folks. no one unusual at all...except her...she was unusual...
at this point the steward guy asked what was wrong too...well, now, she was really sobbing. we were all noticing. it got a bit quiet around her. there were four of us all patting her back and offering Kleenex and water, and...I guess...all the comfort we had. because, what we saw was some one who had lost some one very important to her. that was coming through strong. tho she hadn't said a word at all....
real sorrow has such a deep way with it. you feel like you're looking down into a well that will not ever have a bottom.
her eyes, when she raised them up to us, were like that.
maybe some one dear to her had died. she couldn't seem to say.
I told her about my first wife then. I told her about how she had died of cancer, when we were very young. in our twenties.
for some reason, I started to tear up too. it had been years since I cried about Joyce. we were both kind of crying together now, the Lady and I....
the steward brought us both hot tea. he sat down too. asked her if she wanted to talk...then
he told her that bad times really happen. he had bad times leaving China. his family left behind. he thought of them all the time. his sisters were growing up without him. it was hard to never be home. money was tight in the city his family lived in. some factories had closed. so he sent all his money home.
he didn't cry. but he looked very, very sad. we all sat feeling quietly sad together, while she softly kept-up crying....
The woman attendant was very kind. she wrapped a blanket around our Lady of the Tears. and gently tucked it in. she's the one who figured out that the "lost" person was a "him". "You're missing him very much." was what she said...our Lady burst into a fresh round of sorrowing....
By now, others were noticing and gently whispering to each other and to her. looking kindly. patting her hand or her shoulders as. they went by. everywhere near her on the plane became quiet and respectful and very, very kind...
now, the woman attendant told her story a bit...she was just guessing that our Lady's story was similar, but she was getting it right, I think...
she told our Lady about a loved man she had, who went off to Vietnam. he'd have leaves. and then he'd have to go away again. she always hoped he'd come home, but he'd always say, "Go ahead and cry, Baby. you're right. I may not be able to come back. but I'll always be trying to come back."
Now we all had tears in our eyes, I imagined. at least, I did. did he come back? we all wanted to know.
no, she said: he became a POW, we were told. no one ever found him again. he's like a ghost in our lives.
Even our poor Lady sat quietly for a while without tears....
then she finally spoke.
she told us that her story was not as bad as that. that he wasn't dead. they had just reunited after forty-four years, for less than three days. they were now closer than ever. and they had become quite close over the last four months or so. but, long distance... things were not perfect for them. but they were as close as people can be. as a man and a woman can be. that was very clear to us all.
now they would be separated again. she lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. he lives in the Chicago Area. she told us it wouldn't be long, perhaps for others, before they would see each other again. but she was still feeling extremely sad.
I think we all saw the truth of the sorrow. in our own ways, but clearly.
she was mourning not weeks or days...but a whole lifetime...forty-four years...of absence.
her world had been shattered by realizing how much she had cared...all those years....
now they had found each other again. any separation now, to her, was impossible to live with.
she was now joined to this man.
this separation was breaking her into pieces.
the full force of her sorrow went through us all like a deep, full, hard wind.
her very skin. every muscle. every bone. all were being ripped from him into a void that was her life without him.
that is how she was feeling...
all happiness was with him. without him. all was dark. deep. looking into a well so deep, no star could find it's end.....
we all sat quietly with her on and off...
the plane landed.
we helped her off the plane with her luggage.
sent her off to go to a home that we all knew was no home without him.
we imagined she wept her way the whole way to her life on the Bay....
what we didn't know was that:
the Iranian driver wept with her.
he told her of the loss of his brother in Iran...how he could not leave the US to attend the funeral. his family were "security risks...
9/11 had changed the world for him. he was proud to be an American. he didn't want to leave America. but, he did wish he could go to Iran to see his family there. only it was not going to happen. he knew that.
they both shed tears together. very softly. as they were strangers. only a few kind tears....
he offered to carry her luggage up the stairs, but she declined.
he went home to his little apartment near Berkeley.
she thought about how he held his dear Iranian-American wife as he went to sleep...in sorrow...for comfort...
for all the times more than death can take a heart to breaking.
how the heart goes on. alone. still alive. even with the sorrow.
how even strangers can see all the loss. all the sorrow. can be kind.
can say, "Me too. I have known sorrow too. I hold it in my heart too...."
how much are we different? is a question I ask my self now...ever since we sat at the side of
our Lady with her tears....
Inside, I see her much of the time. she made me kinder than I was before.
or maybe I was always this kind. and others were this kind. and I just didn't see it.
now I see it.
So cry, Baby. Cry.
Cry for us all. thinking we're nobody. when we are really
capable of so much of
simply being human.
we all go our own ways into the night air...
our Lady is home.
Dry your tears, our Lady.
Sleep peacefully under these stars
that watch us all in our losses
silently crying
silently crying
silently
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