Little Cries and Big Cries

So today is my mom’s birthday. It’s a little over 5 months since she passed away and she would have been 85. When she passed away, I never really had that gut wrenching all out moment where I cried uncontrollably.  That moment had come a week earlier when she announced that she was stopping dialysis and I spoke with her on the phone, begging her to reconsider, which she did for a few hours but quickly went back to her original plan. Stubborn to the very end.

During the days between her passing and her funeral in NY, I worked on her eulogy and there was always one passage which made me cry. Actually, I never got through those 2 or 3 sentences without crying until the day of her funeral when I got through the whole eulogy without shedding a tear.

In the 5 months since her passing, I still have never had that one big cry but I now find that I tear-up more often and that things that never made me weepy in the past, brings tears to my eyes now. Obviously, thoughts of my mom do effect me in that way. I’m also much more sensitive in general and I never know why or when those moments will strike. Again, I don’t bawl out loud but I do tear-up.

My mom was a huge fan of NCIS and Linda and I watch it religiously. Probably seen every episode, most more than once. Now when I watch NCIS, even ones I’ve seen before, and that episode tugs at your heart strings, I tear up. Jethro and his dad episodes…don’t get me started. When Vance’s wife and Ziva’s dad were killed celebrating Shabbat dinner together, so sad I just had to shed a tear or two.

With NCIS, maybe it’s my mother tugging at me that brings on these emotions. As for other times, I really can’t say. I just know that I get that feel more often than I did before. As a friend of mine told me, it’s probably just the way death has touched.

So mom, happy birthday. I’d write more but I have to go dry my eyes now.