Chapter 2 - The Crying Game

CHAPTER 2 - The Crying Game


I am listening to the Prairie Home Companion radio show on National Public Radio. Garrison Keillor is telling the fictional story of a stoic Minnesota woman who buried a son and later a husband without ever crying openly for either one. When the same woman's dog died, she started crying and could not stop. It is great listening, alternately sad and funny. 

The lesson for him is clear, if you can cry a little each day you will be able to stop crying when your dog dies. I just finished kicking my flatulent dog Boomer out of the kitchen. He is glaring at me from the comfort of his dog bed, making it harder to imagine me having a extended crying jag for him.

Cry a little each day? Except for the weeks following my dad’s death, I cannot remember consecutive days where I was fighting back tears. I am like most every other guy out there. I live in the space that is between emotionally distant and emotionally available. Wide swings in my emotional availability can be directly associated with alcohol consumption.

I apply old school man logic to things like this. I have got to think if you are crying daily, you need to be under the care of a qualified health care professional. 

Good sound man logic until two things happened to me.

The first was the channel surfing episode. I was home and enjoying one of those rare free afternoon. Sitting on couch, muddy shoes on the coffee table and a cold can of Pepsi sweating a wet ring on the freshly polished coffee table. I am flipping through the channels and watching everything I would never admit to watching.

The exercise channel lady who is dressed like a stripper carrying around 2 lb dumbbells and not doing anything that resembles exercising. 

The rapper on the music music video channels who wants big butts and is surrounded by some of the biggest butts I have seen.

Daytime talk show hosts who are giving a lot of people (who should never have it) their 15 minutes of fame. People of every description are taking their clothes off, yelling an endless stream of profanities at the hosts, the audience and each other. 

Most shocking police car chases, fights, robberies, and shoot outs. There is an amazing, unending source of video clips that pander to the lowest common denominator in people.
The TV is treating me like the pig I am.

I end up on the Hallmark channel and catch 2 minutes of Little House on the Prairie. Little Laura Engels is sobbing and Michael Landon puts his hand on her shoulder and she looks up at him and his eyes water. For some inexplicable reason my eyes are also tearing up.

I take my feet off the table, wipe the end table with my sleeve and put my can on a coaster. I am embarrassed; I am not sure how I can be embarrassed when no one is around to see me, but I am. I did not do that. I have an allergy, something in my eye, or I am getting sick.

The second thing happened a couple of days later while I was working as an EMT at a karate tournament at the local high school. I spent the morning watching very small kids kick the living hell out of each other.

I cringe when two young kids are kicking each other for any reason. It does not help that they are wearing the standard white uniforms. When it comes to kids, the Dad voice will always be the loudest in my head. Yelling, kicking kids make that voice louder and overrides any appreciation I may have had for the discipline of the sport.

Just before the lunch, the final results are announced for the 7-8 year old girls. A tiny girl with a long brown braid is announced as the 3rd place finisher. Up in the bleachers you can see two middle aged women punching each other in the shoulder, yelling, whistling, and woo hooing for all they are worth. That makes everyone smile. The little girl is called up to the podium and bows deeply as the judge puts the medal around her neck. When she looks up her brown eyes are wide and red rimmed and a single tear rolls down her check. My eyes also begin tearing up. Now there are people to be embarrassed in front of and I feel embarrassed. I am looking around to make sure no one picked up on me doing that.

Now I am worried, I have a vision of my dog dying and me slipping into a depression, a year long crying jag that I cannot stop. Poetic justice, because I will become the person I was making fun of just a short time ago. It seems like I have to keep relearning the Karma lesson.

As a firefighter, I have seen people enduring catastrophic and life changing events, a lot of things that were worth crying for but never the less things I did not cry for.

I have seen how lives change in an instant with a speed and finality that is stunning. I have a deeper appreciation of how a moment in time can have a life of its own. Those single moments can be short lived or they can last an indeterminate amount of time. I only know that I do not get to determine length of time that these intimate moments of strangers will stay with me. 

 
Many of those moments stay with me with a clarity that keeps them at the forefront of my thoughts. They are not haunting or painful memories. They remind me everyday things are not always everyday things.

The 85 year old man who is bent awkwardly over the body of his wife, holding her in an embrace that looks tender and desperate at the same time.

The trophies, ribbons, and smiling pictures in the room of a teenager who has taken her own life.

The anguish of a mother who has come from identifying her oldest son to find us working to save the life of her younger son along the same road. Two separate accidents on the same stretch of road 4 hours apart.

The badly wrapped gift next to the rolled over SUV on Father's day morning.

The fishing poles and carefully packed lunch the 14 year old is trying to pick up. His father was covered by a blanket on the ground next to the demolished truck that was hit by a drunk driver at 08:00 in the morning.

Everyday things that stop being everyday things. Moments for me, entire lifetimes for the people who live them. There are a lot of things that a firefighter does not cry for.

Firefighters are the strangers who start to pick up the pieces and put order back into those unimaginable situations that are difficult for people to process. It is work that belongs with a stranger. The professional men and women who help you manage those first crucial steps should be people you only have a vague memory of.

The people who come after firefighters are the people who will hold their hands as the first wave of realization or grief washes over people who are angry or need to grieve. Grief is one of the most intimate expressions a person can have. Intimate details are gifts that belong to a person who is willing to cry all of the tears needed to start the healing process. This is not what firefighters do.
Being a regular witness gives you a deep appreciation for the people who endure the process. Some of those moments and people will remain fresh in my memory for periods of time I simply have no control over. Most fade with time and new ones always seem to take the place of old ones. A few are still with me today. 

As firefighters, we only read the last page of the book. Not the beginning, middle or end, the last page. It is easier not to cry that one would imagine, never really knowing the entire story.

Every time I think I am not empathetic, I think about what they tell you when you fly. Put your mask (oxygen) on before attempting to help anyone else. Two passed out people holding masks may seem more heartfelt but it lacks the practicality that is needed to be a good firefighter.

Well, I have answered the question then. When my dog dies, I will cry, but will be able to stop.
I am certainly a kinder, gentler, person than when I started. By my calculations this puts me somewhere between introspective and “not quite the asshole I was”. Being kinder and gentler is a function of time distance, and acquired wisdom. Firefighting has accelerated all three for me.
I still cry at weddings and funerals in that dorky way that men cry. It is like turning on a garden hose that is half frozen, never really flowing well and hard to watch. I will wipe my eyes on my sleeves in the most casual way possible when I think no one is looking.

If you ever catch me doing this (at a karate match for example), pretending you did not see me do it is a kindness I appreciate.