I clean a lot of little violins. Our rental program goes down as small as 1/32, and there are six more sizes between that and a full. Every time one comes back to me, either as a return or an exchange for the next size up, I go over the whole thing and touch up any dings and fix anything that needs fixing and give the whole instrument a good cleaning so it's ready for the next person.
Now, on the smaller instruments in particular I've had this recurring problem with stains on the front of the violins. They are always on the treble (right) side on the lower bout, and they run diagonally across the instrument. It looks like someone spilled pop or water on the varnish, and it's hard to remove. It has puzzled me for the longest time because I don't know how or why anyone would be drinking anything while holding their violin, and it happens more often than made sense.
But I finally figured it out.
I was helping Mona practice today. She's working on the Itsy Bitsy Spider, and the bowings in it are a bit complicated. Mona wants my help but doesn't listen. It can get very frustrating for both of us sometimes when the music is hard and she's struggling. On her third time through when I corrected her again about the same spot where she kept getting it wrong, a large tear rolled down her cheek and plopped onto her violin. Onto the front, treble side, lower bout, and it slid diagonally off the edge of the violin.
Those stains are tears. And they don't polish out easily.
My own space apart from the babble of the internet
Showing posts with label tears. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tears. Show all posts
Sunday, July 15, 2012
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Crying (Babble)
With the recent death of my grandmother I have a good excuse to be
crying lately. Although, honestly, things are already feeling a little
better. The strange thing about her passing, for me, is that since
there is no living person in the present to think of as my grandma, I am
free to remember her as the person she was before the dementia set in
and the woman I knew began to fade. I’ve been released from thinking of
that frail figure as my grandma, and back to thinking of her as the
independent, intelligent, and generous person she was for most of her
life. She exists purely in memory now, so I can choose any memories of
her I want, and I choose the ones that represent her best. Oddly, for
the first time in a long time, I feel like I have my old grandma back.
But experiencing strong grief has got me thinking about crying in general. It’s one of those topics that doesn’t seem as if there would be much to it, until you give it a moment, and realize there are more types and situations involving crying than I’d ever have room for on one blog post. From the parenting perspective alone, consider babies with colic where crying is like torture, babies who learn to fake cry just to get attention, kids who cry only when someone is watching, kids who only cry in private, arguments about letting a baby ‘cry it out’ at night, being able to recognize your own child’s crying in a crowd, if your kid cries in her sleep, crying about shots, crying about nothing, crying about everything….
I was fortunate that as babies my kids almost never cried. I don’t really remember Mona crying about anything until she was around eight months old. (She was the happiest little thing, and I had to check her crib often if I put her down in the day because if she woke up she’d just entertain herself with her hands or her toes and not make a peep.) If they started to fuss I’d scoop them up, and I didn’t see any reason to ever let them cry. (So for anybody out there whose instincts are telling them to not let their babies cry but are doubting themselves because of some outside influence, I say go with your gut. I can’t name you one ill effect of having done that myself.)
From the time Aden was a few months old to the present day, if I cry in front of her, she cries. If I cry in front of Quinn or Mona they can’t deal with it, and they act as if they are ignoring it, but I can tell it’s unsettling to them. When something effects Aden emotionally tears come quickly and she accepts them. Her tears flow and she wants a hug. She even got emotional while we were doing violin practice the other day and got tears all over her instrument (ironically while working on “The Happy Farmer.”) We got through it and then cuddled for awhile and all was well. If I start to say something that Mona expects will be upsetting she tries to make me stop. Mona wants to avoid public tears at all cost, and chooses often to be angry rather than sad to protect herself. Quinn only cries out of pain or exhaustion, or if I act upset with him. (If I raise my voice at Quinn it seems to destroy his world so I do my best to not let that happen.)
Sometimes I feel like I cry at everything. There are songs on the kids’ CDs that will make me weep, and if I sing along with pop tunes I’ve noticed that usually a modulation in the chorus will induce tears for some reason. I enjoy a good cry sometimes, and certain movie or TV moments can send me instantly over the edge. (The final moments of Six Feet Under, the end of Harold and Maude, Spock dying in The Wrath of Kahn, emotional scenes in the new Dr Who, that episode of Star Trek the Next Generation where Picard lives out a whole lifetime in his mind and then snaps back to reality….. Yes I know my Sci-Fi nerdiness is showing–what of it? Huh?)
Anyway, when I think about crying I think about how unfortunate it is that women, in general, are wired to cry more easily than men. I hate that. There was a time in martial arts class many years ago when I got thrown particularly hard, and I had to clamp my mouth shut for a few moments or I knew I would burst into tears and not be able to stop. I did not want to cry in the dojo, so I couldn’t even say, “Hai Sensei” in response to the teacher’s questions because I knew once the dam broke it was over. I got away with a serious nod instead. It’s not that I think crying itself is bad or weak, but the sense of not being in control of yourself is horrible and embarrassing.
And I do believe it’s biological. I once heard a fascinating radio interview with a person who had transitioned from male to female, and she described what happened after the hormone shift began. She was on the phone arguing with someone at an airline, and she knew in the past the way she’d gotten results as a man was to speak forcefully, but when she opened her mouth to do just that, all that came out were sobs. She said she felt as if she were suddenly insane because it wouldn’t stop and the experience was bewildering and awful.
I used to wonder how this could have evolved because incessant weeping doesn’t seem like a useful or desirable trait, but I developed a theory after an incident in college. I was running a music cognition study that required subjects listen to recordings, and the equipment for doing that was only available in a certain room shared by other psychologists and musicians. I had clearly signed out the room for use in the afternoon, and a graduate student (who, frankly, no one liked) barged in during the middle of my hour and disrupted everything. I had to throw out all those data and find new subjects which was very frustrating. I had a right to be mad.
But what happened was after my subjects left the graduate student turned on me and told me I couldn’t use the room without my adviser present (not true) and he made me write down the rules (as he saw them) for the use of the room. He stood over me as I scribbled in my notebook and yelled at me while I kept my mouth shut. I knew the second I opened it I would cry and I was not going to cry in front of that irritating man. I walked the entire half a mile home without opening my mouth. I maintained my composure until I stepped inside our apartment and saw Ian. Then I lost it.
Ian jumped instantly to my side and tried to figure out what was wrong. By the time I was able to choke out why I was crying I remember very clearly the sense of Ian bristling as he held me. He was furious. He was ready to march out and kill the guy and I had to assure him it was okay and I would deal with it myself later. That’s when I started to realize the utility of tears. In the modern world with odd disputes about procedures and protocol I should be able to fight my own battles, but what if the threat had been physical? It is probably a bad idea for the average woman to seek a physically aggressive confrontation with the average man.
If I learned anything in martial arts it was just how intimidating a man’s upper body strength can be, and that was just with calm, careful grappling. So physical fighting is not a good option. But crying? That would cause other men who care about me–boyfriend, brothers, father–to leap to my defense with their muscles. That’s sort of interesting. So I don’t like that I can’t completely control some crying fits, but I think I know why they exist. Lord help the boy that makes one of our girls cry someday if Ian’s anywhere around to see it.
Another thing I think about is how crying can help tell us if something matters. I remember trying very hard to cry when I was four and my grandfather on my dad’s side passed away. I barely knew him, but it seemed wrong not to acknowledge his death with tears if I was a good granddaughter. But I couldn’t make them come because from my end that relationship was technical but not emotional. There are other people since then who have died where I was surprised at my lack of reaction, and when I was honest about how little I was connected to their lives it made sense that I had no tears for them. It’s a bad sign when a relative does so little to touch your life that you can only hope to muster tears in his or her honor. (Which is saying something for someone who cries during Star Trek.)
My mom once asked me if I ever cry when I perform music. I thought that was a great question because I can be moved to tears by certain pieces, but at the time I couldn’t think of an example of crying while playing something. I’d been moved, or had shivers run up my spine if something was particularly amazing to be in the middle of, but never experienced crying. I told her the concentration level for getting through a typical quartet or orchestra performance probably blocked that possibility out. But I had to perform a children’s concert the day after the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and now I know it’s possible. It was a whole program of patriotic music, and as I played our national anthem while blissfully innocent toddlers smiled and clapped, I found out what it was like to perform with tears streaming down my face.
At the moment I’m not shedding as many tears for my grandma as I would have expected. I’m sure I will at the memorial service in a few weeks as the loss is more palpable, but I’ve cried for her so much in the past few years that now I find myself preferring to focus on thoughts of her that make me smile. She was losing her life while she was still alive and I’ve been grieving for her for since the first difficult decisions about moving her to the nursing home. There was so much about her end that was painful to witness (and I’m sure to live), that relief has swallowed my tears for the time being. My gram wouldn’t want me to cry anyway. She’d want me to bake her famous spritz cookies with my kids. So I will.
--photos missing
(Okay, and just because Sad Mona in particular breaks my heart, this is her about two minutes after that other photo was taken. Because eventually all crying stops.)
But experiencing strong grief has got me thinking about crying in general. It’s one of those topics that doesn’t seem as if there would be much to it, until you give it a moment, and realize there are more types and situations involving crying than I’d ever have room for on one blog post. From the parenting perspective alone, consider babies with colic where crying is like torture, babies who learn to fake cry just to get attention, kids who cry only when someone is watching, kids who only cry in private, arguments about letting a baby ‘cry it out’ at night, being able to recognize your own child’s crying in a crowd, if your kid cries in her sleep, crying about shots, crying about nothing, crying about everything….
I was fortunate that as babies my kids almost never cried. I don’t really remember Mona crying about anything until she was around eight months old. (She was the happiest little thing, and I had to check her crib often if I put her down in the day because if she woke up she’d just entertain herself with her hands or her toes and not make a peep.) If they started to fuss I’d scoop them up, and I didn’t see any reason to ever let them cry. (So for anybody out there whose instincts are telling them to not let their babies cry but are doubting themselves because of some outside influence, I say go with your gut. I can’t name you one ill effect of having done that myself.)
From the time Aden was a few months old to the present day, if I cry in front of her, she cries. If I cry in front of Quinn or Mona they can’t deal with it, and they act as if they are ignoring it, but I can tell it’s unsettling to them. When something effects Aden emotionally tears come quickly and she accepts them. Her tears flow and she wants a hug. She even got emotional while we were doing violin practice the other day and got tears all over her instrument (ironically while working on “The Happy Farmer.”) We got through it and then cuddled for awhile and all was well. If I start to say something that Mona expects will be upsetting she tries to make me stop. Mona wants to avoid public tears at all cost, and chooses often to be angry rather than sad to protect herself. Quinn only cries out of pain or exhaustion, or if I act upset with him. (If I raise my voice at Quinn it seems to destroy his world so I do my best to not let that happen.)
Sometimes I feel like I cry at everything. There are songs on the kids’ CDs that will make me weep, and if I sing along with pop tunes I’ve noticed that usually a modulation in the chorus will induce tears for some reason. I enjoy a good cry sometimes, and certain movie or TV moments can send me instantly over the edge. (The final moments of Six Feet Under, the end of Harold and Maude, Spock dying in The Wrath of Kahn, emotional scenes in the new Dr Who, that episode of Star Trek the Next Generation where Picard lives out a whole lifetime in his mind and then snaps back to reality….. Yes I know my Sci-Fi nerdiness is showing–what of it? Huh?)
Anyway, when I think about crying I think about how unfortunate it is that women, in general, are wired to cry more easily than men. I hate that. There was a time in martial arts class many years ago when I got thrown particularly hard, and I had to clamp my mouth shut for a few moments or I knew I would burst into tears and not be able to stop. I did not want to cry in the dojo, so I couldn’t even say, “Hai Sensei” in response to the teacher’s questions because I knew once the dam broke it was over. I got away with a serious nod instead. It’s not that I think crying itself is bad or weak, but the sense of not being in control of yourself is horrible and embarrassing.
And I do believe it’s biological. I once heard a fascinating radio interview with a person who had transitioned from male to female, and she described what happened after the hormone shift began. She was on the phone arguing with someone at an airline, and she knew in the past the way she’d gotten results as a man was to speak forcefully, but when she opened her mouth to do just that, all that came out were sobs. She said she felt as if she were suddenly insane because it wouldn’t stop and the experience was bewildering and awful.
I used to wonder how this could have evolved because incessant weeping doesn’t seem like a useful or desirable trait, but I developed a theory after an incident in college. I was running a music cognition study that required subjects listen to recordings, and the equipment for doing that was only available in a certain room shared by other psychologists and musicians. I had clearly signed out the room for use in the afternoon, and a graduate student (who, frankly, no one liked) barged in during the middle of my hour and disrupted everything. I had to throw out all those data and find new subjects which was very frustrating. I had a right to be mad.
But what happened was after my subjects left the graduate student turned on me and told me I couldn’t use the room without my adviser present (not true) and he made me write down the rules (as he saw them) for the use of the room. He stood over me as I scribbled in my notebook and yelled at me while I kept my mouth shut. I knew the second I opened it I would cry and I was not going to cry in front of that irritating man. I walked the entire half a mile home without opening my mouth. I maintained my composure until I stepped inside our apartment and saw Ian. Then I lost it.
Ian jumped instantly to my side and tried to figure out what was wrong. By the time I was able to choke out why I was crying I remember very clearly the sense of Ian bristling as he held me. He was furious. He was ready to march out and kill the guy and I had to assure him it was okay and I would deal with it myself later. That’s when I started to realize the utility of tears. In the modern world with odd disputes about procedures and protocol I should be able to fight my own battles, but what if the threat had been physical? It is probably a bad idea for the average woman to seek a physically aggressive confrontation with the average man.
If I learned anything in martial arts it was just how intimidating a man’s upper body strength can be, and that was just with calm, careful grappling. So physical fighting is not a good option. But crying? That would cause other men who care about me–boyfriend, brothers, father–to leap to my defense with their muscles. That’s sort of interesting. So I don’t like that I can’t completely control some crying fits, but I think I know why they exist. Lord help the boy that makes one of our girls cry someday if Ian’s anywhere around to see it.
Another thing I think about is how crying can help tell us if something matters. I remember trying very hard to cry when I was four and my grandfather on my dad’s side passed away. I barely knew him, but it seemed wrong not to acknowledge his death with tears if I was a good granddaughter. But I couldn’t make them come because from my end that relationship was technical but not emotional. There are other people since then who have died where I was surprised at my lack of reaction, and when I was honest about how little I was connected to their lives it made sense that I had no tears for them. It’s a bad sign when a relative does so little to touch your life that you can only hope to muster tears in his or her honor. (Which is saying something for someone who cries during Star Trek.)
My mom once asked me if I ever cry when I perform music. I thought that was a great question because I can be moved to tears by certain pieces, but at the time I couldn’t think of an example of crying while playing something. I’d been moved, or had shivers run up my spine if something was particularly amazing to be in the middle of, but never experienced crying. I told her the concentration level for getting through a typical quartet or orchestra performance probably blocked that possibility out. But I had to perform a children’s concert the day after the terrorist attacks on 9/11 and now I know it’s possible. It was a whole program of patriotic music, and as I played our national anthem while blissfully innocent toddlers smiled and clapped, I found out what it was like to perform with tears streaming down my face.
At the moment I’m not shedding as many tears for my grandma as I would have expected. I’m sure I will at the memorial service in a few weeks as the loss is more palpable, but I’ve cried for her so much in the past few years that now I find myself preferring to focus on thoughts of her that make me smile. She was losing her life while she was still alive and I’ve been grieving for her for since the first difficult decisions about moving her to the nursing home. There was so much about her end that was painful to witness (and I’m sure to live), that relief has swallowed my tears for the time being. My gram wouldn’t want me to cry anyway. She’d want me to bake her famous spritz cookies with my kids. So I will.
--photos missing
(Okay, and just because Sad Mona in particular breaks my heart, this is her about two minutes after that other photo was taken. Because eventually all crying stops.)
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Home of the Sensitive (Babble)
I’m the first to admit my kids have it pretty easy. I expect them to
help keep their toys and clothes picked up a bit, and to be responsible
for their schoolwork, but I don’t make them do scheduled chores. I
remember how hard it was sometimes just to be a kid, and when I see them
playing in the yard or creating a pretend restaurant for their stuffed
animals or spinning in circles and just being kids, it makes me
incredibly happy. They are still so innocent and sweet and I want them
to enjoy that. It doesn’t last long, and they will have the rest of
their lives to work hard and know unpleasant truths about the world.
They are good and kind little people, and I want them to look back on childhood as a loving, creative time with a lot of freedom. I was lucky enough to have had that kind of childhood. I want that kind of foundation for my kids, too. They take a lot of things for granted, but only because they don’t know anything different. And every now and then my kids stumble against some other reality that they find jarring, and I am amazed at how sensitive they are.
Aden has always been incredibly empathetic. From the time she was a baby she hated to see me upset, and she is deeply affected by the suffering of others, especially children or animals. When she’s moved by the plights of others she often comes up with creative ways of trying to help, usually by drawing people pictures or creating little plates of food for them. I found out the other day that she gave away all of her birthday money to the charity drive happening in her class. I asked her why she didn’t have money to buy the Yu-Gi-Oh cards she wanted, and she said when the funds came up short for the kid her class sponsored to buy him warm clothes for winter, she emptied her piggy bank and donated every last dime. It made me proud. I don’t know how much credit I can take, but I’d like to see this as evidence that I’m raising her right.
But it’s hard to know. With Aden it may just be innate. We read a book in the Magic Tree House series for a new parent/child book club we’re a part of, and there was a description of New York during the Great Depression. The Magic Tree House books are pretty tame. There is some suspense but no one really gets hurt and problems are solved quickly, yet they still make my kids nervous. The moment things aren’t going well, one or both of my girls will insist I tell them it comes out okay so they can relax and listen to the story. The descriptions of the Great Depression were mostly soup lines and people without adequate clothes for a blizzard–nothing too graphic–but Aden couldn’t take it. “This book is too sad, mom,” she kept saying, tears streaming down her face. “What’s going to happen to all of those people?”
I tried to tell her about how her grandparents on my mom’s side of the family lived through the Great Depression right here in Milwaukee. How her great-grandma’s family had to sell their piano, and great-grandpa had to drop out of school to make money on a farm to support his parents and siblings, but it all worked out eventually. Aden just kept wiping at the tears on her face and saying, “I don’t want to hear this book anymore.” We did finish the story (I told her we had to if we wanted to go to the book club), but I had to keep pointing out the positive elements to string her along.
The stories out of Haiti since the earthquake have been particularly hard for her. I often watch the news while preparing dinner, and Aden was transfixed by a story about an orphanage in Port-au-Prince. I think it cuts too close to home for her. She doesn’t have to imagine what it’s like to have one parent gone, and she’s fearful of the idea that something could happen to me. I tried to point out that in the news story there were kind and generous people from all over the world who had come to help those orphans, and we should be happy there are such people in the world, but Aden put her arms around me and sobbed, “But I wouldn’t want another mother. I want you.” I told her I was very careful crossing the street and would do my best to be around a long time. When she was satisfied that we were going to be okay, she asked what we could do to help the orphans in Haiti.
Mona wasn’t born with the same level of empathy her sister was. For the first couple of years of her life I was a little worried about how oblivious she was to the feelings of others, mostly because I was used to Aden. Mona continues to dance along through life keeping herself amused, but in recent years she has developed an incredibly sensitive streak. Most often it’s about herself, but it was surprising when it first surfaced. You used to be able to say anything to or about Mona and she would smile and move on, but now if she thinks anyone is being critical she bursts into tears and runs to her room. She cares about the opinions of others in a way she never used to. Her reaction to accidentally hurting other people is to get angry and sullen. It’s hard for her to deal with the guilt of making her sister sad or disappointing her mother. If I express frustration with her about anything she gets very huffy and can’t look at me.
When sad things happen to other people unconnected to Mona, that doesn’t usually affect her much, so I was shocked the other day when she cried during a movie. I was in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner and I’d told the kids they could go upstairs and watch a Pokemon DVD we’d just rented. After a little while there were wailing sobs from Mona and I thought she was injured. I raced upstairs expecting to see broken bones or blood, but Mona was under a blanket, crying uncontrollably, with Aden and Quinn patting her lightly and saying it was going to be okay. Apparently one character had sacrificed its life for another and it was too traumatic for her. Aden kept saying the character wasn’t really dead because part of his essence had been passed on to the other character (I have no idea about the details because I just can’t bring myself to sit through a Pokemon movie), but Mona kept weeping. She curled up in my lap (as much as her six-year-old self will fit there anymore) and I stroked her hair until she calmed down.
Mona had a scary accident back when she was two that caused part of her face to get badly scratched up. Due to the miraculous healing powers of toddlers you can’t tell, except when she cries. When Mona is really upset I can see the ghostly image of those scratches appear across her forehead and cheek. I held her until those little pink marks faded again, and then offered to read her some Amelia Bedelia books to make her laugh. She liked that, and cheered up considerably, but looked sad again when I tucked her in to go to sleep. Mona has declared she won’t watch that movie again. Aden’s emotions may be close to the surface, but I think Mona’s run deep because they are so strong and she needs to be insulated from them a bit in order to function.
Quinn is only three, and most of his tears are related to being tired. He’s very cooperative and self-sufficient so he doesn’t get told ‘no’ very often. The minute he does, though, and if he is overdue for a nap, his face dissolves into sadness and the tears flow freely. On the sensitivity scale he is definitely closer to the Aden end of the continuum. He hates to see me sad. He hates to see his sisters sad. I love my sensitive little guy.
The tricky thing from my perspective right now is trying to figure out how much Ian’s deployment may or may not be influencing any of their tears. Back in 2006 we had to have both our pet bunnies put to sleep around the same time their dad left for Iraq. Often that year Aden would start off being sad about the bunnies, and it would turn into a crying fit about her dad. There was too much loss in her life at one time, and there were days it overwhelmed her.
This time I think I’m doing a better job of keeping them occupied. I know it’s hard for them to see other kids with their dads, but they aren’t as quick to tell random people this time that they have a dad too. I used to think families living on a base were at an advantage in terms of support during a deployment, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t think being surrounded by reminders of what you don’t have is very useful. We are always looking ahead toward fun things coming up, like the book club or movie night or events at the school. We talk about all the fun things we’ll do when their dad gets back, and I only bring up their dad in a positive light. There haven’t been any crying fits about their dad this deployment, but it’s possible they were disguised as tears over Pokemon characters. It’s hard to know.
I like that my children are sensitive. I know it makes them more vulnerable in the world at large, but they are so willing to help others that I believe the connections they form because of that will provide them with great strength in the long run. I love them. I know that’s the most unoriginal thing ever posted to a mommy blog, but it’s true. I love my kids more than I know how to say it, tears and all.
They are good and kind little people, and I want them to look back on childhood as a loving, creative time with a lot of freedom. I was lucky enough to have had that kind of childhood. I want that kind of foundation for my kids, too. They take a lot of things for granted, but only because they don’t know anything different. And every now and then my kids stumble against some other reality that they find jarring, and I am amazed at how sensitive they are.
Aden has always been incredibly empathetic. From the time she was a baby she hated to see me upset, and she is deeply affected by the suffering of others, especially children or animals. When she’s moved by the plights of others she often comes up with creative ways of trying to help, usually by drawing people pictures or creating little plates of food for them. I found out the other day that she gave away all of her birthday money to the charity drive happening in her class. I asked her why she didn’t have money to buy the Yu-Gi-Oh cards she wanted, and she said when the funds came up short for the kid her class sponsored to buy him warm clothes for winter, she emptied her piggy bank and donated every last dime. It made me proud. I don’t know how much credit I can take, but I’d like to see this as evidence that I’m raising her right.
But it’s hard to know. With Aden it may just be innate. We read a book in the Magic Tree House series for a new parent/child book club we’re a part of, and there was a description of New York during the Great Depression. The Magic Tree House books are pretty tame. There is some suspense but no one really gets hurt and problems are solved quickly, yet they still make my kids nervous. The moment things aren’t going well, one or both of my girls will insist I tell them it comes out okay so they can relax and listen to the story. The descriptions of the Great Depression were mostly soup lines and people without adequate clothes for a blizzard–nothing too graphic–but Aden couldn’t take it. “This book is too sad, mom,” she kept saying, tears streaming down her face. “What’s going to happen to all of those people?”
I tried to tell her about how her grandparents on my mom’s side of the family lived through the Great Depression right here in Milwaukee. How her great-grandma’s family had to sell their piano, and great-grandpa had to drop out of school to make money on a farm to support his parents and siblings, but it all worked out eventually. Aden just kept wiping at the tears on her face and saying, “I don’t want to hear this book anymore.” We did finish the story (I told her we had to if we wanted to go to the book club), but I had to keep pointing out the positive elements to string her along.
The stories out of Haiti since the earthquake have been particularly hard for her. I often watch the news while preparing dinner, and Aden was transfixed by a story about an orphanage in Port-au-Prince. I think it cuts too close to home for her. She doesn’t have to imagine what it’s like to have one parent gone, and she’s fearful of the idea that something could happen to me. I tried to point out that in the news story there were kind and generous people from all over the world who had come to help those orphans, and we should be happy there are such people in the world, but Aden put her arms around me and sobbed, “But I wouldn’t want another mother. I want you.” I told her I was very careful crossing the street and would do my best to be around a long time. When she was satisfied that we were going to be okay, she asked what we could do to help the orphans in Haiti.
Mona wasn’t born with the same level of empathy her sister was. For the first couple of years of her life I was a little worried about how oblivious she was to the feelings of others, mostly because I was used to Aden. Mona continues to dance along through life keeping herself amused, but in recent years she has developed an incredibly sensitive streak. Most often it’s about herself, but it was surprising when it first surfaced. You used to be able to say anything to or about Mona and she would smile and move on, but now if she thinks anyone is being critical she bursts into tears and runs to her room. She cares about the opinions of others in a way she never used to. Her reaction to accidentally hurting other people is to get angry and sullen. It’s hard for her to deal with the guilt of making her sister sad or disappointing her mother. If I express frustration with her about anything she gets very huffy and can’t look at me.
When sad things happen to other people unconnected to Mona, that doesn’t usually affect her much, so I was shocked the other day when she cried during a movie. I was in the kitchen cleaning up after dinner and I’d told the kids they could go upstairs and watch a Pokemon DVD we’d just rented. After a little while there were wailing sobs from Mona and I thought she was injured. I raced upstairs expecting to see broken bones or blood, but Mona was under a blanket, crying uncontrollably, with Aden and Quinn patting her lightly and saying it was going to be okay. Apparently one character had sacrificed its life for another and it was too traumatic for her. Aden kept saying the character wasn’t really dead because part of his essence had been passed on to the other character (I have no idea about the details because I just can’t bring myself to sit through a Pokemon movie), but Mona kept weeping. She curled up in my lap (as much as her six-year-old self will fit there anymore) and I stroked her hair until she calmed down.
Mona had a scary accident back when she was two that caused part of her face to get badly scratched up. Due to the miraculous healing powers of toddlers you can’t tell, except when she cries. When Mona is really upset I can see the ghostly image of those scratches appear across her forehead and cheek. I held her until those little pink marks faded again, and then offered to read her some Amelia Bedelia books to make her laugh. She liked that, and cheered up considerably, but looked sad again when I tucked her in to go to sleep. Mona has declared she won’t watch that movie again. Aden’s emotions may be close to the surface, but I think Mona’s run deep because they are so strong and she needs to be insulated from them a bit in order to function.
Quinn is only three, and most of his tears are related to being tired. He’s very cooperative and self-sufficient so he doesn’t get told ‘no’ very often. The minute he does, though, and if he is overdue for a nap, his face dissolves into sadness and the tears flow freely. On the sensitivity scale he is definitely closer to the Aden end of the continuum. He hates to see me sad. He hates to see his sisters sad. I love my sensitive little guy.
The tricky thing from my perspective right now is trying to figure out how much Ian’s deployment may or may not be influencing any of their tears. Back in 2006 we had to have both our pet bunnies put to sleep around the same time their dad left for Iraq. Often that year Aden would start off being sad about the bunnies, and it would turn into a crying fit about her dad. There was too much loss in her life at one time, and there were days it overwhelmed her.
This time I think I’m doing a better job of keeping them occupied. I know it’s hard for them to see other kids with their dads, but they aren’t as quick to tell random people this time that they have a dad too. I used to think families living on a base were at an advantage in terms of support during a deployment, but now I’m not so sure. I don’t think being surrounded by reminders of what you don’t have is very useful. We are always looking ahead toward fun things coming up, like the book club or movie night or events at the school. We talk about all the fun things we’ll do when their dad gets back, and I only bring up their dad in a positive light. There haven’t been any crying fits about their dad this deployment, but it’s possible they were disguised as tears over Pokemon characters. It’s hard to know.
I like that my children are sensitive. I know it makes them more vulnerable in the world at large, but they are so willing to help others that I believe the connections they form because of that will provide them with great strength in the long run. I love them. I know that’s the most unoriginal thing ever posted to a mommy blog, but it’s true. I love my kids more than I know how to say it, tears and all.
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