I had a moment earlier this month.
I’m one of those “need a good cry every once in a while” people… and my in-a-while happened a couple of weeks ago. I curled myself up in a ball on the couch and let it loose after I got triggered by something random. Mid tissue grab… I heard my four year old’s feet skipping up the basement stairs and I prepared myself for the questions about why I had “real tears” on my face.
I fully planned to tell her why, too. Mommy felt tired. And Mommy hadn’t rested enough… so it made Mommy feel a little overwhelmed, but she was going to be ok. My hope was that if she felt the same way sometime one day… that she knew it was alright to cry too.
But the “why” question never came.
Instead… I felt her little four-foot stature near me by the couch. And without saying a word… in the most adorable act of compassion… I felt her little hand rub my cheek the way that I do hers when she’s upset. And then she climbed up on the couch and kept her arms tight around my neck. And she just closed her eyes and hugged me. For a good five minutes. Every once in a while we each opened our eyes to look at each other… and we both smiled.
Not once did she ask me why I was crying. She didn’t try to talk me out of crying. She didn’t try to tell me how to make it better. She just compassionately gave me company in that moment – almost giving me permission to give my emotions a breath of fresh air after being bottled up inside.