Therapy, part 165

My therapist asked me, "Do you cry every day?"

My instinct answered, "No."

I don't even know what that means.

Do I cry every day? 

No ... because I don't count the tears I catch with my eyelashes.

I don't count the one tear that makes it out and meanders down my cheek.

I don't count the wetness on my chin that I try to avoid while furiously blinking.

Crying... when I remember crying, I am falling to the floor, clutching at the ground, clawing my way to safety, somewhere beneath the floorboards.

Why does the ground feel like the right place to cry?

Crying... my head on my dead brother's chest, tears wetting the cloth covering his body; me, begging him to wake up.

Crying... my hand gripping my sister's hand, grasping it so hard it feels like she is squeezing it back.  My head on her arm, the tears coursing down my cheeks, into the thin sheet covering her body.  I begged her to come back.  I told her I wasn't ready to be the oldest.

Why didn't anyone hear our prayers?

No, I don't cry every day.

I breathe in and out.

I put one foot in front of the other.

I live. 

Sometimes my eyes leak, but I go on living.

Alaska, 2007, Whale in the water...