I Made Her Cry

I Made Her Cry

Behold the ultimate bait-and-switch title!

The title really should be I “let” her cry. Or I “encouraged” her to cry but that doesn’t make for an eye-catching title and as a writer I must hook you with my titles.

Cause I’m a jerk.

You’re avoiding the subject Wallace.

Yes, I am. Because it hurts. Because it’s about hurt.

I have oft talked about being there for others, if you re able, how doing so may make all the differenced in the world and how I try to live up to that principle though I fail far too often.

Some of my friends share their deepest honesty with me and I view such faith as sacred.

Today a friend reached out to me, she was hurting but trying very hard not to lay her burdens on me. She felt selfish for doing so, as though she were taking from me valuable time, energy, valuable self.

But she was hurt, deeply wounded. Hurt but too afraid to say so.

So I gave her permission to say so. To open up and be honest around me. And she cried, hard, deep, shuddering. And, I suspect, freeing.

It was touching, not the pain, but the trust. The faith in me that she would allow herself to be so vulnerable. Because she knows I will support her, not unconditionally. Not no mater what, I have standards and think you do a disservice when you support someone who is destroying themselves.

But when they hurt, when they need to feel their pain, and they trust you to not hurt them, to help them pull themselves together. How can I not?

Sometimes grappling with your emotions, growing, and learning from your past means viewing it through tears. Opening up like that, being so vulnerable took such bravery and I am amazed, proud and humbled by her display.

In that moment she was stronger than I have ever been.

So yes. I “made” her cry, and I’m happy I did. And if she or any of my friends need to in the future I will happily wrap my arms about them and be that person they allow themselves to be honest with.

I pray, my dear readers, that each of you has at least one person you can be so vulnerable with, and that each of you may be the person at least one person may be vulnerable to.

We all suffer, but maybe we can help each other through it and suffer just a little less.

Thank you my dear readers and God bless;

~ S. Wallace