When my older son was around 18 months old (I was pregnant with the younger one), he and I and my husband were playing together. Things got a little rough, but in a fun way, involving some tickling and a lot of laughing. Well, suddenly I was crying. Zeke stopped in his tracks and signed “Mommy sad,” with such a look of confusion on his face. I mean, weren’t we just having fun?! It wasn’t easy explaining to a toddler that sometimes we shed tears of joy, but I tried, and he at least seemed satisfied that I was okay. He understood that, while it might be strange, sometimes mommy laughs so hard it makes her cry.
Well, “laugh until you cry” became somewhat of a catch phrase in our family, and both my boys tried for years do their best to tell jokes, tickle me, make faces, and do whatever else possible to make me laugh until I cried. They had a lot of success!
It was when the tears were tears of pain and sadness that they really didn’t know what to do, and neither did I…it’s painful enough for me to see my children cry, was it okay for them to see me cry like that? I tell the families I work with that it’s important for children to see their parent’s range of emotions – that’s how they learn what the feelings mean, how to label their own feelings, and that it’s okay to feel something other than happiness sometimes. It’s true, in my opinion, so I “practice what I preach.” It’s even important for them to witness conflict (and resolution) so they can then learn some ways it can be resolved. So, yes, my children have seen my tears of pain and sadness…some of those moments have been the most healing for us all.
As a child, I’d seen both of my parents cry and fight often…they were divorced before I turned 8. But the most tragic moment in my life happened in April of 2009. My father committed suicide.
At that point, I couldn’t help but cry in front of my children – it seemed like all I was doing for quite some time was crying, so I couldn’t hide it from them. The question then became: when and how do I tell them what happened to Papa? Zeke wasn’t totally satisfied with “he died in his bed,” but he wasn’t even 10 years old and I was afraid that the complete truth would terrify him. It terrified me. It horrified me. It consumed me.
It took close to 5 years to be able to talk about it with my children. I first had to be able to talk about it with a therapist. I’d written about it a little, in a private journal, just for myself – certainly not to share with anyone, though I would have liked for my dad to read some of it. I’d been holding it in – yes, in part due to some shame or embarrassment, though mainly because I couldn’t really handle this kind of pain. I didn’t want to explore it, didn’t want to feel it anymore, and I didn’t want anyone to pity me or my family. I didn’t want my children to be affected by it. I also didn’t want to accept it – I didn’t want it to be real, to have happened to me, to him, to us.
Finally, I was just tired of falling apart every time there was a suicide in a movie or TV show, or turning away anytime someone pointed a gun-shaped hand to their head as a joke. I’d even avoided sharing good memories of Papa with my boys because it was just painful for me to think about my dad and the serious depression he endured for most of his life.
So a few months ago, after watching a movie that happened to have a suicide in it and responding more emotionally than I had in a while, I decided to talk with my boys. With my husband’s support, I explained what happened. While I had some gory details in my own mind since I was the first family member in my dad’s home after his death, I provided my boys with a straightforward explanation of what I knew Papa had experienced in life, leading up to his apparent need to make it all end. I finally answered their question of how he died. For a split second, I almost expected Zeke to look at me and sign “Mommy sad,” but without the confused expression.
They were so understanding of why I’d had to wait to tell them these details. They asked a few questions but mostly just listened. They let me cry, they hugged me and let me hug them. They demonstrated to me that they could handle some tragic news and still laugh when something funny happened a moment later.
It was another important moment in our healing process, sharing this tragedy and crying with my kids – or at least in front of them, though I’d rather have been crying happy tears. There’s still a lot of healing to do, but I look forward to the next time one of my boys says “Mom, laugh until you cry.”
I am a Messy, Beautiful Warrior
[NOTE: My children communicated through sign language before they could speak and as they were learning new words. It was an incredible window into their thoughts, and provided such clarification to our conversations. You can read about it in my journal here: https://mybabyfingers.com/staging/9114/our-story.]