Why I Cry

Second Place, teens' essays

Casey Casias |

12/18/2008 - 12/19/08

My mother is an avid crier. You name it, she'll cry over it.

Oprah, the Dog Whisperer, a good book, a sunset, a sincere paper written by one of her students. This used to perplex me. I'd see her tearing up and chide her, roll my eyes, and smile indulgently at her emotional vulnerability.

I just didn't understand it; why did she cry when a smile would do or even a casual nod? It was a great enigma to me throughout most of my childhood.

Now, I know a young boy. He's in sixth grade, and he is truly remarkable. He's an incredible flutist, deeply thoughtful, and almost frighteningly smart. As Christmas gifts, he receives strategy games and fine literature, and he masters them both with equal finesse.

When asked, he confesses that his favorite subject is math, and though he doesn't know what he wants to do as an adult, he knows that it must better the world in some way or he will not be satisfied.

I was watching this boy and his two equally unique and brilliant siblings the other day while his parents were at a presentation given by Greg Mortenson (author of Three Cups of Tea), and it occurred to me that neither he nor his younger brother or sister could likely remember a time when their country was not at war, when it was not torn by deep ideological schisms, when the environment was not teetering on the brink of destruction, or when there were not people starving to death while others killed themselves with gluttony.

All three passed their early childhood in a time when hope and idealism were in painfully short supply and single-minded personal gratification was the norm.

This thought stayed with me for quite some time. I considered it as I went to school and while I cleared tables at my job. I turned it over in my mind as I wrote English papers and mulled it over while I whiled away hours with friends.

One evening, I was sitting by the fireplace in my home, thinking it over once again. My parents were in the process of looting around for our Christmas lights and decorations — this is to be my first Christmas here at home in Santa Fe, even though I have lived here for the entirety of my 17 years. We want to make it particularly beautiful for us and my grandmother, who will be coming down from Pueblo, Colorado.

I began to think about the Christmas season we are heading into. We are celebrating a time of goodwill during an era in which Americans were able to put away their differences and elect a mixed-race president. We are celebrating a season in which people are becoming progressively more socially and environmentally aware, and in which great strides are being made toward actually creating a global community. And I thought of that brilliant boy and his siblings entering their youth in this world, thought of them seeing the moon heavy and golden, hanging over aspen and piñon trees, walking past the farolitos glowing on Canyon Road, eating bizcochitos and hot chocolate and falling asleep in front of a painstakingly decorated Christmas tree.

I considered the monumental, devastating beauty of it all, and I saw out my window perfect, whimsical flakes of snow falling and reflected back at me by the glass, my own face, with tears making their slow progression down it. And for the first time in 17 years, I truly understood what it is that makes my mother cry — and I smiled, because I was so glad to be able to cry with her.