Just Let Me Cry

I just returned from watching the new movie
“Midway to Heaven” with my son.

It is about a widower, his college-aged daughter, and the task they both have to move on with life after the death of his wife. The widower is struggling – and at one point he sits down to watch a DVD of videos taken of his family before his wife passed away.

As he watched scenes of his wife in the kitchen; them playing in a park; walking together; and of him and his wife dancing in the living room, I was flooded with memories.

My late husband and I did those things. We hiked in the mountains; we took the children to the park and played with them; we walked in the evenings; we danced in the living room.

I thought I’d wept all I could about the loss of all those things – but when I got home tonight and my son left for the evening, I went to the kitchen and put in the music that had played in the background of the opening scene of the movie: the song by Hilary Weeks, “Just Let Me Cry”.

Some of the lyrics are, “…sometimes life sends a storm that’s unexpected, and we’re forced to face our deepest pain…
at times the hurt inside grows stronger
And there’s nothing I can do but let it out…
So Just let me cry
Till every tear has fallen
Don’t ask when, Don’t ask why
Just let me cry.”

And tonight, again, I wept. I held my arms close, rocking back and forth, as if my husband were holding me once again, back when things were good between us, and I wished that somehow there could have been a different ending.

The tears kept coming. Those sobs that come from deep in the soul – the ones I thought I was done with – returned, and I looked heavenward, pleading for comfort, and for courage to go on.

My prayer was answered. The sobs subsided; the tears slowed, and my heart felt better. The miracle had occurred, once again: crying had let out more of the pain, and as it did, peace, and comfort, and love were poured into my heart in its place.

Will this keep happening forever? Will I ever be done with the grieving? I don’t know. But I know that each time it descends and I weep, I find further healing afterward.

And with the healing comes hope,
and happiness,
and the possibility of joy.
So, whenever I need to,

Just let me cry.