I was very young, perhaps 4, when I first learned what it meant to cry for someone else.

Oh,  I was an expert when it came to crying. Even up to the age of about 7, I considered it a day of victory if I got through the day without the inevitable tear. But I remember distinctly the day I learned what it meant to feel someone else’s pain.

It was also on that day that I came to the realization that people don’t just hurt on the outside. They can also hurt on the inside.

The knowledge I gained that day shaped my life forever.

 

Young Grief

Cool and gray, clouds overhead;

Slip my young hand into my mother’s;

We walk to the big house

Sit in the rows and rows of people

Who are here because of the little girl

Littler than me

In the white dress

*****************

In the breathless room

I try to draw a deep breath

But there are too many people

********************************

I don’t understand.

The little girl has gone somewhere-

But I’m not sure why or how.

But I do know no one wanted her to go

So it’s sad and then people cry.

********************************

But my mother isn’t crying

And I ask her why

From deep inside the answer comes

“I’m crying on the inside.”

****************************

So I sit

And think about the little girl

Littler than me

In the white dress

Who has gone somewhere

And no one wanted her to go

And soon I too begin crying on the inside.

 

         Originally published in Echoes of Eternity