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Unexpected Tears
Unexpected Tears
Grace is attending a soccer camp this week. It’s a very nice program, and I can’t get over how organized it is. The camp started Sunday and ends tomorrow, Wednesday. It’s a free camp and offered by a local church. There are 40 minutes of soccer instruction and then the kids participate in songs and watch skits.
Grace did really well Sunday. She was participating and usually smiling or laughing when I caught a glimpse of her in the crowd of approximately 250 kids. I made my way to her, to cut down on the mass confusion of finding her when the mob was dismissed, just as they were gathered into a group to sing songs. And then I saw him: the boy of her dreams. The giver of the three watches out of cereal boxes. The boy she hardly ever stops talking about. Yes, her pre-school boyfriend, J.
Somehow the two of them had found each other despite the crowd. I’ll put it into Grace’s words:
Well, mama, I looked and saw the shoes. I thought “are those J’s shoes or N’s shoes, because they have the same shoes, and I was like, ‘oh, please don’t let them be N’s shoes because I don’t like him and he likes me and wants me to be his girl.’ And then J turned around and saw my hair and then he saw my glasses and we were just like *throwing her hands up in the air, shrugging one shoulder, and then slapping her hands onto her knees*.
Grace was on cloud nine because “her boy” was there. I was glad that he had people in his life who would take him to such events, but I couldn’t muster up the excitement that she had.
Last night was the second night of camp. She was doing really well, despite the fact that she couldn’t find J. I found him about three-quarters of the way through the soccer part, standing on the sidelines, crying. He cries a lot, J. I actually feel quite sorry for the little boy because his mom is--well, I can’t do a description of her justice with words. Let’s just say that she is more than a little off and leave it at that.
I saw J being walked out of the gym, and I, simply being a nibs hit, wanted to see the man with him. And I was kind of hoping that the church had again set up a table with free lemonade and iced tea. As I walked past Grace’s team, I saw her wiping her right eye. I thought to myself, “She’s crying.” But I didn’t see her wipe her eye again so I just kept walking.
Da Man and Mak had taken a walk and I met them in the front lobby. I stood and talked to a few people that I knew and then the three of us headed back into the gym. Just as we had found a place to roost, a man came walking up to us with Grace in hand.
I asked what was wrong and she just started crying. My gut instinct told me that she had seen J crying, but she wouldn’t offer up an explanation other than “a ball hit me in the back of the leg.” But see, I knew it wasn’t that because Grace isn’t one of those wimpy kids; she takes a licking and keeps on ticking. But I couldn’t get her to come off the reason why she was crying.
I walked back onto the floor and tried to get her to participate with me, but she wouldn’t. She did manage a laugh a time or two, but she was determined that she wasn’t going to play. So we left.
I wasn’t very happy about leaving. In fact, I was downright put out by it, but I didn’t see that I had any other choice. When she was ready for bed last night we sat and had a talk about the whole thing. She told me that she couldn’t stop crying because J was crying and he was sad. So we talked a good bit about that, being able to tune into how people feel and feeling the way they feel. And then she told me that she felt sorry for him. I sat on the couch with her and taught her a couple of tricks that I use when things start getting a little too much for me. And she went right to bed and right to sleep last night.
I thought the drama for the night was over. “Weeds” was on and I had assumed my position on the couch, cup of Timmy’s in my hand. Da Man and I watched “Weeds” and then we flipped to “Paranormal State.” Following that was A&E’s “Intervention.” I have watched the show a couple of times in the past, but I find it to be upsetting to me and haven’t watched it since shortly after its debut. One of the beginning clips was the sister saying something to the effect of her brother not caring if he killed people here like he did in Iraq. “Ya wanna watch this,” asked Da Man. “Whatever” was my response.
We sat through the first half hour of the show with little conversation. Da Man questioned a bit of the storyline because of the uniform the guy was wearing when he was in Iraq. And then the story became really dark; the guy began telling of how on their last day in Iraq a Sergeant was killed.
He went on and on about the way it affected him: why did that guy have to die the last day in Iraq? Why did his wife and two kids have to live without him? And then it flipped to a scene of him in his parents’ kitchen drinking shot after shot in honor of the Sgt.
“I can’t watch this anymore,” Da Man said, and quickly hit the channel up button. I decided to take his counselor’s advice and use that as a window of opportunity for conversation, release. “Why not,” I asked. But I knew why not; it was because the guy was putting into words what Da Man can’t. It was because he was talking about how the death of his buddy was going to haunt him every day for the rest of his life. It was the guy’s description of watching his buddy die. It was just enough to throw Da Man back into Iraq, watching his best buddy get blown up as Da Man was driving away and then having to pick his body parts up and put them in a bag so they could be sent home.
And the look in his eyes put shivers down my spine. I can’t describe it any other way than to say it didn’t seem as if he was looking at me. His eyes bore holes in me, and they were ice cold. I spoke to him again, as if I knew I needed to remind him that it was me there. And then his chin began to quiver and those ice cold eyes were melting, the ice running down his cheeks.
I didn’t know what to do. The truth be told, a huge part of me didn’t want to do anything because I’m tired of it, the way his days of war two years ago still tear apart his everyday life. So with a sigh I crawled across the couch and put my head on his belly. “You know, Da Man, one day you’re going to have to let it all go. All the evil you saw, the friends you lost, it’s going to have to come out because it’s killing you; it’s poison and it’s eating you alive.”
I didn’t get a response, but I didn’t expect to get one. I asked a couple of times what he was thinking and still didn’t get a response, so I didn’t look up at him when my head began to bob up and down with the sobs in his chest.
We sat like that for a few minutes and then I went to bed.
I knew that this morning it would be a fierce battle to get him out of bed because of the mental trip back to war last night. And it was. I tried for almost an hour before it got the best of me. I was on the verge of tears and told him that I was going to call his counselor and tell him that he wouldn’t get out of fucking bed, that I had just about reached the end of my rope. That threat seemed to have worked because he was out of bed within the next couple of minutes.
Tonight he has PTSD group, so tomorrow will be another day of battling him to get up and face the world. But I can’t worry about tomorrow because I have to take today as it comes, and I pray that there are no unexpected tears.
posted on June 24, 2008 8:40 AM ()
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That episode of Intervention (and many others). Very disturbing. I just cannot truly imagine.