The Sun Also Cries

The Sun Also Cries

1

Amy settles in the hammock seat of her swing and clutches the chains firmly and eagerly as she slowly kicks her legs out and begins to pump them in and out… in and out. She watches her legs at work and seems fascinated by her own movements. Though in reality she is simply admiring the clean white look of her pretty tights and the yellow floral print spring dress she wears. As she admires her tights, her brilliant hazel eyes wander down to the shine of her polished white dress shoes. She can almost see something of her reflection in them.
Under the shade of nearby maples and oaks, Amy swings on her swing in her backyard playground. She casually exchanges glances up at the bright, cloudless sky, then down at her shoes and pretty tights and dress again. She wears a glowing sunlit face and a simple smile. If you look hard enough though, into those shining hazel eyes, you will see inner frustration, sadness, and a deep feeling of loneliness. You will see a girl who wants to be happy, wants to have friends, wants to be pretty, feel pretty, and feel welcomed. She is a mentally challenged girl trapped in a thirteen-year-olds’ body. She doesn’t know how to best express the sadness and emptiness.
She looks content because the sun is warm, the sky is clear, and she looks pretty in her new Sunday dress her Grammy gave her. She feels the sun warming her, and she hears the birds singing amidst the gentle, late summer breeze. Amy pumps her legs up and down… in and out. She swings up and down, high and low… easy come… easy go. She smiles but deep inside she is really struggling. She wants this day to really be as bright and warm as it feels against her skin and pretty clothes.
For her, it is hard to put to words what her heart has been trying to say since her mother had gone up to heaven. For her it is hard to express on her face what she truly feels. Her smile only represents a dream, a memory, a few fleeting thoughts of not so long ago. The smile cannot sum up the weight across her shoulders or lift the heaviness from her heart. The smile is only a surface thing and not a deep thing or inner thing.
* * *

If you sing a song or play some music, Amy will hum along with you. She may not know all the words, but it doesn’t matter, she will sing along if she can. Amy may tell you a happy story if you let her. Amy will show you how well she can count. She may count only with her fingers and count fairly slowly, but she will count. If you give Amy something to read, she will sit beside you and sound out the words and syllables and try her hardest not to slur, stutter, or mumble or mutter.
If you praise her or offer her a compliment, she will smile and give her most heartfelt thanks. If you tickle her, she will laugh and giggle and squirm against your touch. If you run, she will chase. If you hide, she will seek. If you tag, she will tag back. If you play, she will shine. If you hurt, she will cry… if you are hurt, she will want to heal.
* * *

Amy is the kind of girl who wears her heart upon her sleeve. She wants to be sincere. She wants you to know she has nothing to hide or be ashamed of. She wants you to know she is willing to risk getting hurt and getting taken advantage of. She wants you to know she speaks only the truth and only from the heart. She wants you to know she will not hide from herself.
With her heart on her sleeve, she is a sensitive one. She feels more fully when she is insulted, loved, abused, hurt, teased, welcomed, complimented, and resented. She shows her emotions with her smiles, her sighs, her giggles, and her tearful eyes. Yet today as she sits in her swing and pumps her legs up and down and swings high and low, back and forth… gently as the wind blows, the heart she often wears on her sleeve now appears to have retreated deep into some hidden place all locked up and kept even from her own reach. The heart has left only a simple girl’s frustrated smile upon her face and fleeting memories and thoughts through her mind.
She cannot put to words the pain of real loss. She cannot bring herself to feel the depth of grief. She might be afraid that her heart will be forever broken now that her mother is gone. She is afraid that there will be no more sunny days like these. Amy fears there will be no more bedtime stories with crumbly cookies in bed. Maybe there won’t be anymore songs to sing or stories to share? Maybe there will be no happy birthday parties or special “friendship” days anymore? Is it possible that the bullies at school will now get nastier too now that Mommy is gone? Is it possible that Daddy will hate her even more for being “special”? When he calls her that, it feels shameful, wrong, spiteful, and dark. When he calls her “special”, her father is really calling her “retarded” and saying so in her face where she can see the disgust across his face.
Is it denial or fear that keeps Amy’s smile upon her face? Is it fear of overwhelming pain and sorrow? Is it denial? Is she trying to fool herself into thinking her mother isn’t really in some other place? Or is the smile a sign of courage or bravery on her part? Is the smile a willingness to carry on despite the obstacles and conflicting emotions?
* * *

2

Amy perks up as she hears the back kitchen door open. Her Grammy walks out and smiles from the porch and steps out into the sunshine. From inside the kitchen are the aromas of baked cookies and brownies. Somehow the scents and aromas drift across the backyard to where Amy swings slowly and thoughtfully back and forth… up and down… little high, little low.
Grammy walks across the yard to meet Amy on her swing with knowing glances and nods. She doesn’t need words to know how her granddaughter feels. She only needs the eyes God gave her and the heart to love Amy no matter her appearances or expressions. She knows it’s not always the outside that matters as much as the inside. She also knows that yes, time can heal all wounds- but time is a relative thing. Not everyone sees the passage of time the same way.
This woman also know that it takes more than cookies and brownies baked fresh to lift a girl’s heart from the darkness of a loved one’s death. This woman knows better than to take Amy’s silence and frustrations lightly or condescendingly. Grammy does not patronize or pay Amy lip service.
Grammy knows that although it’s been four months since her daughter’s passing and although that passing was peaceful among those that loved and cared for her, a passing is still a passing and some goodbyes take a much longer time for them to become hellos again. She can respect that. She can respect the patience that is needed. She values time and has grown used to the stream of seasons, days, weeks, months, and seemingly endless years. Long goodbyes and seldom seen hellos are a part of the cycle of life. Death is a part of the cycle of life too, but can she convince or educate Amy of this? Should she even try?
Grammy smiles and sweeps her granddaughter in her arms and cradles her soft face in her hands and strokes her chin thoughtfully. She can read the deep sadness and conflicting thoughts and emotions deep inside Amy’s eyes. The simple smile looks more truthfully labored and a little more forced now- under Grammy’s more experienced eyes.
Amy feels her grandmother’s fingers combing through her long curls of crimped strawberry blonde hair. She sinks her face deep in her Grammy’s hands, maybe now feeling the full brunt of all that has been pent up inside. Maybe all she needed was the feel of a different kind of warmth across her face? Maybe all she needed was to lay her trust in a different pair of eyes than her father’s?
“Amy hurts,” she whimpers to her grandmother. “I hurts so bad.”
“I know Jelly Bean,” Grammy soothes. “I know all about the hurts.”
Amy rubs her cheek within her grandmother’s cupped hands. She bears the appearance of a young girl trapped in a teenager’s body. She is weeping in her grandmother’s hands. She is snuggling within the folds of her grandmother’s arms. She is not the young child we see or think she is. She is not quite the teenager we see or expect either. She is just a girl who knows little of who she is, where she belongs, and how she is labeled. She is just a girl who tries to understand the world she must share with everyone else. She is just a girl trying to cope with the loss of a mother she shared with that world. Amy is wondering if maybe her mother was stolen from her. Does it make sense for her to share someone so precious and then never see her ever again? Was sharing a bad thing?
Arms cradle Amy and set her upon a welcoming lap. Settling there beside the swing, on the lush carpet of grass, under the shade of the maples and oaks, under a cloudless, late summer sky… they settle and sit upon their knees and embrace.
Grammy wishes to soak in all the sadness Amy feels. Grammy wishes to have all the answers and wishes she could accomplish the impossible. There are forces beyond their combined control though. There are limitations. None of these things keep her from trying however. She wouldn’t be a grandmother if she didn’t at least try.
“Amy?” Grammy whispers in her granddaughter’s ear.
Amy looks up with tears streaking down her cheeks.
“Maybe I can tell you a little story… something to make the hurts go away, if for a little while,” Grammy suggested.
“Is it story time? It’s summer and there’s no school Grammy,” Amy softly replied. “Do I still get story time? And it’s not bedtime or Mom-
“‘Mommy time’… I know,” Grammy nodded. “It’s okay… right now it’s Grammy and Amy time. Right now it’s our time and Grammy feels like spending our time telling you a story.”
Amy looked up and eyed her grandmother intently and wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes with the backs of her hands. In her world, stories were reserved for school, bedtime, and “Mommy Time”. “Mommy Time” was any sort of time and could occur whenever Mommy and Amy happened to be together. Sometimes they’d play a game, or sing together, or do special things only a Mommy and her Amy can do. Yes, they would also tell stories as well.
Not too many people read to her these days. Not too many people share their time with Amy now that Mommy is gone. All the fun times she had growing up seem to have grown fewer in number.
Grammy smiles and holds Amy in her arms and lets her sway to and fro, side to side, left to right and back again… like the swing or the pendulum of the grandfather clock in the living room. She waits until Amy finds the comfort of a familiar rhythm and the feel of familiar arms around her.
* * *

3

“Once upon a time, a little girl looked up at the moonlit sky and stared up at all the stars. She was a sad little girl, because she thought she had lost the sun. She didn’t know where it had gone to,” Grammy began.
“Was the little girl sad with hurts like me?” Amy asked, nestling in her Grammy’s arms, resting her head against her chest.
“This girl was so sad- just like you. This girl was so sad that all she could do was cry and look up at all the stars. She looked up at the moon and hated it. She thought the moon had stolen her sun and hid it far away among all the tiny, sparkly stars so far out of reach,” Grammy continued. “For this little girl, the sun was just like your Mommy in heaven, so she was very sad. She loved the sun because it helped make the flowers grow and made everything warm and bright and cheerful.”
“Where did the sun go?” Amy asked.
“Well this little girl asked that very same important question. She asked it over and over and over again. She really wanted to know where the sun went, but no-one knew how to answer the little girl’s question,” Grammy replied. “So the girl cried for a very long time and grew very sleepy and tired.”
“She went to sleep?” Amy gently interrupted.
“Yes she did, because sometimes when you feel very sad inside, you can also feel very sleepy and tired. So this little girl curled up under her favorite tree under the stars and slept for a very long time.”
“Did she wake up?”
“Yes she did; and do you know what helped her wake up?” Grammy asked with a smile.
“Was it the bright shiny sun?”
“Yes it was. And do you know why the sun was there all of a sudden?”
Amy shook her head and eyed her grandmother curiously.
“The sun shared a little secret with the sad little girl. The sun explained that sometimes even the brightest things and happiest, most cheerful things can feel sad and sleepy… sometimes the sun needs to cry too. And when the crying stops, the sun will rise again and make things warm and bright again.”
Grammy finished her story and hugged Amy snuggly. The story wasn’t by any means her best story. It had a beginning, middle, and an ending. Looking down at Amy and peering through her eyes, it was obvious that Amy didn’t judge the story critically. Amy knew her Grammy somehow managed to say all that needed to be said. Just as Amy couldn’t put to words her feelings, Grammy couldn’t force a story to be more or less than what it was. As Grammy said, “the sun needs to cry too and when the crying stops, the sun will rise again,” Amy understood. If the sun can cry, so can she. The sun still always seems to rise in the end… and so will she.

The End

(c) 2005 David Conlin McLeod