mine

I just got a call from a friend of mine. His girlfriend has been admitted to hospital for a fairly severe medical problem. While talking to him he said to me 'I just want to break down and cry and I cannot in front of her'.

This is an interesting point of view. When I myself was in hospital as a child I remember being 'brave'. Some of it was the encouragement of the nurses....the old.....'don't cry, be a brave little girl' and some of it frankly was because I thought that if I was brave it would be easier for my visitors. Also, some part of me thought if I was whiny and broke down that they would not want to visit again (ok I would not want to visit a whiny little kid) so I had to try to be an adult as well as entertaining.

Imagine my surprise when recently my mom told me that that was one of the hardest parts of seeing me sick, that I did not cry. Only God knows how much I cried at night and also in my head. Maybe, sometimes, we are sooooooo brave that we 'outbrave' each other.

Hmmmm, does that mean that we are really helping ourselves and each other? Or does it mean that we are damming up our emotions and stopping the free flow of human communication? Would we gain more by allowing our emotions out, at least a little? Would we maybe even heal faster to be able to cry or lament with a loved one?