Please, oh please, read the blog before this one and come to the ComedySportz Eugene Reunion / Fundraiser "Family Friendly" comedy show this weekend!
It's after midnight. Starting to feel a little less insane now that I've finally refilled my Marinol prescription. But still not ready for sleep. Lot's of things on my mind: the show this Saturday, the $500 we suddenly owe the IRS from our 2008 tax return, the new car God may deliver next week, the tears that ran down Kristin's cheeks tonight when I brought up my forthcoming memorial service...
It's always hard to see someone love cry. For some of us, or maybe it's just me, it's hard to watch anyone cry. From the teen girl alone in the mall, to the baby held gently in his mother's arms, to the inmate who's just been turned down for parole another time... It's hard to watch someone cry. I, personally, hate crying. But I would gladly cry myself rather than watch another person cry.
Continuously I am amazed by God. (For those of you who are distressed by those of us who believe in intelligent or intentional design, you'll have to indulge me for just a moment. If it's easier just pretend whenever I say "God did (insert item)" just pretend I said "evolved". Tonight I'd just prefer to be focused on my intended focus, rather than go waist deep into the mire of what is usually argument for the sake of argument.) I am amazed His attention to detail. When I was younger, high school, one of my favorite teachers, whom I now call friend (and would probably love to smack me for my horrid writing skills) Jonathan Siegle spoke of the knee being badly designed by God and I remember thinking, "Not really. It's just more proof that humans weren't meant to run." You know what? This has become convoluted. You go and look at the ComedySportz Eugene Reunion show info at the last blog post again and I'll be back here re-starting this paragraph and staying more on point. (Did I mention that I'm back on my Marinol prescription?)
(Welcome back!)
Crying sucks doesn't it? Tonight I watched tears run down my wife's cheeks. There have been a lot of tears for us. Depending on when I finally go home to meet my maker we may end up with some kind of 50/50 spread on our marriage for tears vs. no tears. Each time my wife cries it burns an image in my mind. She's beautiful when she cries. (That's why I occasionally poke her with a pin when she sits on the couch.) She's just as beautiful when she doesn't. Only a man who loves his wife and has seen her cry can truly understand what I'm talking about. Crying is, usually, something we can't control. It takes over our body, psyche, sometimes our souls. At least that's how it feels.
But it's really just great design. (That's right. I said design. You're "designer" is a theory by Darwin and my "designer" is a God who created and loves me.) Our minds/bodies/souls get packed with horrible pain. Some of it is unexpected, deeply wounding, pain. Some is just the run of the mill, "I wonder why no one ever calls me," pain. But it builds. It packs up in "there", whatever "there" might be. Crying is a flush system. When we cry and lose control of the tears, so much so that we soak our shirt in salt-water, and heave our chests to near hyper-ventilation in flushes of the pain. It pushes through like the Nile river. It clears and carries our pains away. Sometimes we also get tears of joy where the tears clear the sadness out of the way so joy can fill it's place.
Also like the Nile the banks, the lines that carry our burdens away, shifts its banks. As we're hurt in one way or another the banks change and, for a time, that hurt doesn't, well, hurt so much.
It's all a wonderful and unscientific miracle.
Tonight, and with much frequency this week, Kristin and I have had many a burden carried away. Tonight, as I prepare to go to sleep... OK. ONE MORE TIME. GO LOOK AT THE PREVIOUS BLOG AND GET THE INFO ON THIS SATURDAY'S SHOW SO YOU CAN BUY TICKETS AND SEE MY VERY LAST IMPROV SHOW! ................... Back? Thanks. Tonight, as I prepare to go to sleep, to lay down beside my Princess, kiss her shoulder, pat the puppy at our feet on the butt, I have to thank my God. This guy or girl who created the universe and has called me to carry this cross for the time being had the foresight to put together a system so that we can get up tomorrow and face all this again. Because part of what we're, Kristin and I, called to do is... get up the next day and face it all again. For tonight, for tomorrow, for whatever I have left that's my purpose. I expect I'll need to cry one or two more times.
I call my wife, "Monkey."
2 comments:
You made me cry.
But it was a good cry.
Don't be sad.
God will always surprise you.
I love crying (wish i could control it more,) but after a good cry, it's like as sunny day after the rain (wow, that was super corny and cliche' without meaning to be.) I had not really cried for you (okay, it was really for me not having you around) until i saw you interviewed on the new about your urns. That, for some reason, was the last drop that broke the dam. the concept was also so silly that i laughed, too.
i hate to quote dolly parton or steel magnolias, but "laughter through tears is my favorite emotion." And yes, kristin is very cute when she tears up, which is not fair to those of us who look like we were struck by a soggy ugly stick when we cry! I'm adding a 4th word to my favorite saying: Live, Love, Laugh, and Cry!
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