That time I cried a lot in class

on death and dying

I’ve ugly cried two times in classrooms. The first time was in sixth grade and the second was in college. The first incident was when Mrs. E was shaming me for my shitty handwriting. She had called me up to her desk, which was at the front of the room, to discuss my penmanship. But my lost reaction to her outrage fueled her and she didn’t let me leave until I was a sobbing mess in front of my peers.

It wasn’t until years later that I realized my poor penmanship was probably due to my left-handedness. But by then the damage was done, I hated Mrs. E, had checked out of English, and instead cultivated the habit of using colorful language and fine-tuning my note-passing skills with my best friend, Janet.

The second time I cried in class was during my senior year at Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado in Philosophy of Religion and Spirituality.

It was here that I was introduced to Thích Nhất Hạnh, a Vietnamese Buddhist monk, activist, and prolific writer. We read Being Peace, and I was delighted. In fact, I thought all of the material was the bee’s knees and elbows. There were even times I looked around to see if the other twenty students were as tickled as I was. My friend Kara, on the other hand, hated it.

But we were different people. This wasn’t her jam, but it was obviously my peanut butter jelly time. During my freshman year, I took a World Religion course in an effort to find a religion to follow. But instead of finding THE ONE, I ended up having a chat with the professor about my interest in anthropology, or more specifically, archaeology, which I ended up majoring in.

My interest in religion comes from the death of my father. He died when we were on holiday in Thailand visiting my mother’s family. I was five years old. He was 33. And even though my grandmother tried to convince me he was in Heaven, I wondered what had happened to him, and fretted over his soul.

Yup, that’s my grandma, and that’s my Dad. [late ‘60s? early 70s? Honolulu, Hawaii]

My father’s family is Christian. Occasionally, we went to Sunday school. Grandma gave me a beautiful Bible and cartoon books based on stories from the Good Book. During my junior high school years, my younger brother and I attended Barstow Christian School. I never got baptized, but my mom did in order to appease her mother-in-law.

So, Mom’s covered because she’s a practicing Buddhist, too. Our childhood was filled with countless temple events where we were told to sit down on the floor, listen to the droning chants of monks in orange robes, make merit, and receive blessings. And whenever I’d ask her what this white string tied around my wrist was for, or why this or that, she’d reply, “It’s for good luck”.

My dad’s military dog tags claimed he was Catholic, but I was told he changed religions frequently. He was plagued by nightmares, was very superstitious, and didn’t like sleeping alone. Mom suspected he knew he was going to die young through his dreams, and his actions reflected him trying to avoid death for as long as he could.

In high school, my best friend Maile and I went to see the movie Ghost, you know the one with Patrick Swayze and Demi Moore. On the drive back, it started to rain. Maile noticed how quiet I was, and asked what I was thinking. I confessed that seeing the dark spirits taking away the screaming clawing dead bad guys effected me. I started crying, as I told her, I worried about my dad, what had happened to him, where was he now?

Mom, Mrs. Early, Dad, and me [Wichita, Kansas, 1976]

But on that day in Philosophy of Religion and Spirituality, Dr. Garcia told us we were going to listen to Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a psychiatrist known for her five stages of grief theory and a pioneer in near-death studies. He brought in a large CD radio cassette player and placed it on a chair at the front of the room.

Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’s studies of people who had died and returned to life cut across countries, genders, and ages. But everyone who died, whether it was on the operating table or during a road accident, experienced more or less the same bright light phenomenon. We listened to many people’s stories about what had happened and sometimes they shared their out-of-body experience, too, but the common denominator among them all were their descriptions of light, peace, freedom, and bliss.

I started to weep, and when I couldn’t stop or hide it any longer, I ran out of class.

In the women’s restroom, I blew my nose, dabbed my face, washed it, went to the toilet, and tried to recompose myself because I knew I had to go back to class. All my stuff was in there. And I couldn’t hide here, but I considered it.

When I returned to class, trying to slip through the door unnoticed, I was shocked to see all the students waiting for me. Dr. Garcia had paused the tape, and after I sat down on the far end of the room, he pressed play.

I was self-conscious, naturally, embarrassed, but once I felt there was no ill-will, no judgment in that room, I relaxed and listened again. And I never worried about my father the same way again.

Of course, I still have questions. Whenever I write about my dad, I’m trying to piece together a life that I barely knew, yet, he’s had a profound effect on mine. I’d like to think that I wouldn’t be so sensitive if he was alive, I wouldn't be easily moved or touched. There was a time in my life when I wished I could never cry again. I perceived it as weakness, not in others, but in myself.

Maybe the tears come from the guilt of not having cried at my dad’s funeral. Something my mom pointed out during dark moments between us, and something that would plague me until I grew old enough to understand that grief is processed in many ways, shock being one of them.

My friend Suzanne once told me that “the Earth needs your tears”. I’m not sure what that means, but it made me pause. It still does. Maybe she was giving me a permission slip. Maybe it’s like saying, the world needs your tears. And if the world needs our tears, then I’ve been doing my part.