Go-Karts and Such

May 1995

I was reading a diary entry to a friend. That's all. And I couldn't finish. Suddenly I was crying. I didn't mean to and certainly didn't want to. I was reading it to Vickie just because I thought it was an interesting peek at a day that had been wiped from my memory. I hadn't cried when I read it to myself. What happened?

The diary is one my brother found upstairs in Mom's house, in my old bedroom. My diary. One I wrote when I was 13 years old. The entry says, "June 6, '61. I'm trying to figure out what I want for (8th grade) graduation. I want a soap-box (car) or a Go-Kart, but they cost too much. Wish I had something to run around with like the kids do with their bikes."

I cried when I began to read aloud the words of that last sentence. Words I would not allow myself to say when I wrote them. It would have been "complaining" or "feeling sorry for myself," and I couldn't allow that. I couldn't allow anyone to know that I did feel different. And that it hurt.

It hurt deep, to the bones, to be left out of simple normal pleasures and games that my siblings and peers enjoyed. But I couldn't say it. Much less cry about it. Not then. It might somehow weaken me. Weaken my ability to make people forget that I was different, and to prove that there wasn't anything that I couldn't set my sights on. No, I couldn't risk a crack in the wall. I had to be unyielding to be able to make my way in a "normal" world.

So I couldn't cry. Not then. I am now. Writing about it makes me cry. Is it OK to cry now? Yes. I need to cry those tears I couldn't cry then. And I need to cry the tears of today's losses, tears that are sometimes still trapped by the whispered, "No! Pretend! Be firm!" of that young girl.
I have learned something since I was thirteen.

Denial is weakness.
Confession is strength.
Honesty is power.

Frank tears open the hurt and let the bad pain out. Not all the pain -- just the bad stuff. The sticky stuff that keeps me mired. The resentment, the bitterness, the delusion. The pain that is left, the good pain, is that which empathy is made of.

Empathy is born of the good pain -- those honest tears that grieve my loss, yet look beyond it to another's grief. With our tears we connect: fit each other so we can help each other.

But wait a minute. Two drowning people can't help each other unless one has hold of a life-ring. If you have read my columns before, you know that my life-ring is my relationship with God. He is my source of strength when mine runs out. He is the one with whom I cry the tears many don't understand. He is the one upon whom I unload the bad pain and from who I draw comfort, the comfort that I can then pass on.

That's why I can say that some of the pain is good. Incredibly, the word "praise" is even appropriate:
"Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God." (2 Cor. 1:3,4)

By the way, I didn't get a go-kart and I never was able to ride a bike, but boy, you should see me now, free-wheeling my scooter down hills! You see, sometimes the comfort is a view of the eternal perspective and sometimes it is showing me other ways to have fun. Want to go scooter riding with me?