Tears Are The Surest Way To Confirm You Care
Not affirmations
You never think you will ever see your elder siblings cry.
The first time I saw my big sister cry was when we had to rush our small brother to the hospital because he was vomiting copious amounts of blood.
As a doctor, I am glad it was not caused by the different diagnoses that come to mind whenever a patient presents with such symptoms.
At the time, I didn’t know how to respond when I saw her crying.
It was silent as it was heavy, a burden you never wished for but which you nevertheless carry regardless of age, preparedness, or emotional fortitude. I must have been a year away from completing my primary school education.
But that did not compare to what I had to witness last year.
I got a text from my sisters asking me to find my brother. This text was a day after my cousin had announced in our WhatsApp group that our grandmother had passed away.
My sisters lamented that they couldn’t locate him. The last time our second-born sister called him, she heard tell-tale signs of a burdened heart.
I was at my place, settled in my mattress, around 7:30 pm. As soon as the notification pinged on my phone, I jumped up, put on a corduroy, and rushed downstairs to ask the closest bodaboda guy to take me to the hospital. I knew where to find him.
As soon as I arrived at the facility, I rushed straight to the department he had worked for over seven years. He wasn’t there. Neither did his colleagues know where he was.
I flushed out my phone and dialed all the numbers he had. One went through, and what I heard almost brought me to my knees.
My brother
My brother has always been someone to look up to.
When my English was terrible, he would correct it.
When my mother bought a BMX, he told me how to learn by myself how to ride it.
He introduced me to hip-hop and planted the seeds of the historic beef between the East Side and the West Side when I was barely old enough to sing along to nursery school rhymes.
In class 1, he bought me the first birthday present I will never forget: a palette of watercolours. He knew I loved to draw.
He encouraged me to learn how to juggle the soccer ball and ignited the spark to have complete mastery of the ball on and off the soccer pitch. He critiqued my style of play on the pitch but at the same time helped me get the soccer boots I loved the most — Adidas F50s.
One evening, from medical school, he came home with a femur, asked me to sit down on top of his study desk, and instructed me to relax my legs and let them swing freely.
He then touched a part of my knee, just below the kneecap, felt for the tendon, and gently struck it with the dry head of the femur. My leg shot up completely outside my control. That was the first time I saw his passion when he joined medical school.
My elder brother is the reason I boarded a plane for the first time.
I lent him my laptop in medical school after getting another one, and he in turn bought me a touch-screen laptop, which someone later stole. If I ever find that guy…
My brother kept our family intact for many years after sacrificing so much. I can wax lyrical about how an amazing person he is, but there is one quote that I can never forget from him. And for as long as I can remember, I have always held it at heart:
We are a burden to our problems; they are not a burden to us.
I have stuck with this maxim and continue to live by it.
It is the same mantra I held when I started what will over time grow to become one of the biggest festivals in the continent, Funkie Fest. The very first was made possible because of my brother’s generous gesture.
On the 13th of December, a day before the very first Funkie Fest, I didn’t know where I would get the pay to host everyone I had invited, but somehow I knew I would hack it. That night, my brother sent me all that he could, which wasn’t much but was enough to offshoot a good amount of my expenses.
I paid him back as soon as I could because he had also emptied his ready-to-use cash for my dream. Honestly, I didn’t know how I managed to invite everyone who showed up that day, but somehow, the Funkie Fest team made it happen. My brother was part of that team. But that’s a story for another day.
Now you have the context of the great man he is, let’s go back to that evening.
Burdened with worry, in crocks that became heavier with every step as dusk settled around the hospital, I found him. He was torn, in pain, and for the first time in my life, I saw my brother cry.
When I lost my grandmother
If my brother kept our family intact, then he must have gotten the traits from our grandmother.
She was a real gangster. She kept her children under a tight leash, even when the fabled sibling rivalries persisted. A top-tier storyteller, she would open her house to anyone who sought rest, refuge, or a place to sleep or rest while they recuperated.
Ever prayerful, she lived by the morals she encouraged her children and grandchildren to live by. For several years, my brother paid for the power connection in my grandmother’s home. He loved her dearly and she in return, like any caring grandmother would.
As a doctor, my brother would be heavily invested in her well-being. I recall him talking about disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs). He would ensure she got them as soon as he started practicing. He wanted nothing but the best for her.
So when he heard that she had passed away, he broke down.
She brought tears to my brother’s eyes.
She made him ask himself questions I never imagined he would. He was a pillar in my life and I watched as this pillar shook at its core. It was time for me to stick around and ensure the pillar held its ground.
After a few minutes of chatter, we laughed at some reminisced stories about her life. Like the paragon of strength he is known for embodying, he picked himself up, dusted his shoulders, and went back to work.
Right there, I concluded thus: the strongest signal that you care was not seen in your actions but in your tears.
Tears are shed when…
Tears are shed when you have the least control over events.
I couldn’t control myself when I heard the news of my grandmother's passing. I typed the words on my laptop and watched as they filled the blank spaces on my Word document frequently blurred by fluid my eyes couldn’t withhold.
I couldn’t control the fact that she was gone. Tears showed that I cared.
After finding my brother, he was bereft with sadness. It welled his eyes and opened his sinuses. He couldn’t keep it inside him. The dam of tears broke.
He couldn’t control the fact that she was gone. Tears showed that he cared.
My sisters, before I had found him, were evidently sobbing over the phone. They couldn’t control the fact that their brother was heartbroken. Tears showed that they cared.
It doesn’t have to be about someone else. It can even be about oneself. The following harsh and sometimes inhumane examples are evidence that tears are perhaps the strongest signals of someone who cares.
A mother who is beaten by her spouse makes her children weep with worry. A mother who protects her children from an abusive father makes her cry with maternal pain. When a mother is urged by the birth assistant to push, she cries from a pain, unlike the kind she has ever experienced.
In these situations, mothers cry because they care.
When a girl is forcefully raped, she cries because she cares for herself and the autonomy she prizes. Rape is an act against female autonomy. Tears show that the victims care about themselves but under the circumstances, have little control.
These are painful examples to consider.
But there are beautiful ones too.
When Lionel Messi led his team to win the World Cup, he couldn’t help himself. He was awash with emotion. He had little control over them and over the fact that he had a team that was ready to see him through this dream. His tears show that he cared.
When a football team fails to proceed to the next level of global competition or misses getting a coveted spot with a whisker, it is enough to have the team members cry. They have no control over the series of events. Plus, it shows that they cared so much about winning the prize.
Tears are shed more from loss than from joy, but we cannot dismiss the joyful ones.
When positively surprised by the actions of your lover, it is not abnormal to see tears streaming. There is little control. The act showed that someone cared, even though the one who acted did not shed tears. They are an overflow of someone who also cares.
Before raising Lazarus, Jesus wept. He cared for the people around him.
When Mary Magdalene poured herself at Jesus’ feet, she wept. She cared for herself and the choices she made.
When Thanos threw her daughter down the cliff to obtain the soul infinity stone, the titan wept. He cared. As a blunt follower of universal principles, he acted in a manner showing he had little control over the events, even though the audience felt otherwise.
Sadly, among us exist those who hijack this highly reliable signal to their selfish advantage. Crocodile tears. The very existence of selfish actors shows the potency of tears.
Eyes have previously been expressed as the highway to the soul, but they can lie. A more reliable signal lies however from the same portal — tears.
What I’m trying to say is…
Crying is not a signal of weakness.
Marcus Aurelius, the last great emperor and one of the epitome of stoicism, cries many times when faced with adversity. The son of God cried. Mothers, who I believe are the strongest among us, cry.
No, crying is not a signal of weakness.
Crying signals someone who cares.
Deeply.
This song inspired some of the lines used in this article. Source — YouTube