Go Ahead and Cry - by Sharon Flood Kasenberg

Handkerchief

Here's my hanky, dearie -
use it if you will.
I am well accustomed
to tears women spill.
Eyes so very pretty
ought not be so wet;
what's so very awful
that it makes you fret?
Are you not delighted
with your role in life?
Cleaner, cook or consort,
daughter, sister; wife?

Handkerchief I hand back -
tears run down my face.
I don't need to mop up -
tears do not disgrace.
Tears of great frustration,
tears expressing pain;
tears of fear and sorrow.
Tears that fall like rain.
Even if you want to
you can't read my tears.
I was born to sorrow;
I lived there for years.

While you conquered nations,
cleared the land of trees,
and thought you provided
us with lives of ease -
our hands rocked the cradle,
and they planted seeds.
Women offered comfort.
Women met your needs.
See me as your equal -
matched in mind and skill.
Man - here is your hanky.
Use it - if you will.

Sharon Flood Kasenberg, March 8, 2018

This morning my husband and I had a heart to heart talk about a person we both feel concern for. We both shed tears as we discussed what a difficult predicament this person is in - tears of compassion for this person's pain, and frustration because there's not a lot we can do to alleviate it. And as we faced each other with tears leaking out of our eyes I thought about how far we'd each come.

When we married I was the only crier - and my tears made me feel weak and ashamed. I hated feeling that I couldn't neatly contain my emotions. Both he and I had encountered manipulative criers along the way, and I realize that those people influenced the way we both saw tears. So he didn't cry at all, and I felt like a failure every time I dropped a tear.

I never wanted to be seen as someone willing to turn on the waterworks in order to make people do what I wanted, or make them feel sorry for me. I never cried to prove that I was spiritual or sensitive - I just cried because I had to - and I hated every tear I shed.

Today I logged into Facebook to note that it was International Women's Day - and it struck me that this morning's tears symbolize the way my husband and I have each grown - and might be an analogy for the way men and women in general have evolved.

Women can look back on their "journey of tears" with pride and acceptance. In most of the world we're treated as equals. We can choose the lives we want to live - decide whether we marry, and how we want to spend our lives. We can choose to have children or not have children. We can choose where we work, how we dress, and who we vote for.

There are still men who view women with a level of condescension, but thankfully they're fewer. The Me Too movement has made many men rethink the way they look at - and respond to - women. I won't say we've made it free and clear into the realm of true equality - but we're getting there. If we, as women, have passed you the hanky, it isn't because we've stopped crying ourselves. We're just acknowledging that now it's time for men and women to cry together. You've stood by, dry eyed, while encouraging us to mop up our tears with your borrowed handkerchiefs for too long. Use it yourself and we'll both feel better.

When I look back on my own life, I can be grateful that I was free to make my own decisions. Whatever his flaws as a man, my father wanted education for his daughters as well as his sons, and my biggest regret in life is that I didn't believe in myself sufficiently to pursue the educational path that would've suited me best. The reasons behind some of my choices might have been flawed, but I can't deny that I made my own choices.

I've been lucky. I wanted to stay home with my children, unlike many in the religious culture I was raised in, who felt there was no other option available to them. I was fortunate that my husband  always saw me as an equal partner in our relationship. There were no heavy-handed tactics or "listen to me because I'm the man" speeches in our home. He made the money and we decided how it would be spent. I looked after our sons during the day, but once he came through the door his first priority was being a father. We were both parents. We had clear divisions of labour, and while I didn't always relish tending kids and keeping house, it was tolerable because it was the life I chose.

I shed a lot of tears while raising my sons - tears of frustration when I couldn't make their lives easier, and fearful tears that I wasn't always up to the task of constantly nurturing with wisdom and patience. I cried when I felt people looking at me with disdain because I was only a housewife. I cried covert tears of self-doubt because I wasn't living my chosen life effortlessly and flawlessly. It took years for me to accept myself as someone who was allowed to cry, and more years still before my husband stopped passing me the figurative hanky and found the courage to shed a few tears of his own.

Remember this - tears don't make you weak. Women sailed on rivers of tears to find a place where they could make the choices that many of us take for granted. Men will sail on that same river until their own tears strengthen the current enough to move us on to a still better place - a place where casting couches don't exist and women are truly seen as more than a sum of their parts, a place where nobody feels shamed for shedding tears of compassion.

Go ahead and cry.