Ah, the amazing things that our children do for us. Sometimes it’s teaching us something
completely new about ourselves, sometimes it’s allowing us to remember
something about ourselves that we had forgotten, sometimes it’s freeing us to
try something we would never have tried before, and sometimes it’s letting us
embrace an aspect of ourselves that we didn’t realise we hadn’t understood or
appreciated before.
I am a complete and utter blubberer. Always have been, always will be. I cry when I’m happy, cry when I’m sad, cry
when I’m angry, cry when I’m grateful. I
cry at movies, I cry at weddings and funerals, I cry at TV advertisements, I
cry when children completely unrelated to me are upset. I cry at others’ misfortune, and I cry at
others’ good fortune.
My blubbering was not an aspect of myself that was embraced
by my family – I have a very vivid recollection of being told to “stop your
bawling” at quite a young age, which kind of says it all. This being despite, or perhaps because, I
think that both my parents are repressed blubberers.
Thankfully, this blubberiness of mine would not be repressed, and I have continued to blub freely throughout my life – not always happily, not always appropriately, often to the rolling of eyes from my husband of so many years, but more and more with my own acceptance of this aspect of myself.
Quite recently, my 5 year old has revealed herself to be a
bearer of the blubber gene. This is over
and above the normal childhood tears and lack of inhibition about them; this is
a definite fellow of the free- to-blubber society. First revealed while we were reading a story
about the guys in London in the 1970s who bought a lion cub from Harrods,
raised it, released it in Africa, and then went back to experience an amazing
reunion – very cool (true) story if you haven’t come across it before. I suddenly realised that there were a few
sneaky tears sliding down my daughter’s face – oddly enough coinciding with a
lump in my own throat, as it was really very moving. This could have been a one-off event, perhaps
a consequence of tiredness, but a recent school holiday viewing of Puss in
Boots at the Dome also elicited some sneaky tears and a few sobs, so the deal
is clinched – I have a fellow blubberer in the house.
I felt amazingly elated that I now get to share my life with
a kindred spirit, someone else who will smile through tears during cheesy
movies or soppy TV ads, someone with whom I can share a tissue box with at
weddings and funerals, someone with whom I can celebrate the power of a good
blub. I am so proud of my
super-blubberer, and teaching her to enjoy being a blubberer too.
