the currant bush.

if you know me well enough, at all, you know i don't cry. i can't. the eye doc told me once that i don't produce tears as easily as the average person. i could have told him that for free.

i don't cry when i'm hurt. i don't cry when i'm frustrated. i don't cry when boys do me wrong. and i especially don't cry at church. some do. i don't. (i hear this will all change when i have kids. we'll see.)

but... BUT... hugh b. brown's story of the currant bush does it to me, without fail. it's a bit long, so i'll just add the link below:

THE CURRANT BUSH

you see... a long long time ago, my mom was hospitalized, fast and furious like, and before we knew what was wrong with her, the doc told us to prepare for her death (i'm starting to cry, by the way... right now...) a 14 year old girl needs her mom! the diagnosis was mysterious... what happened to her body was mysterious... and none of us knew what to do or how to do it. by the end of the day, she was in the ICU, completely paralyzed. she got better... learned to crawl again. walk again. write again. practiced writing things like "i love my family" on scratch paper. it looked like a 4 year old's writing.

fast forward to 2005. my friend ryan broke his c1 and c2 vertebrae. paralyzed from the neck down, christopher reeve style. although my mom never met ryan, she channeled all those feelings from years past and wrote him a sweet sweet letter. included in the letter was the text from the currant bush story.

every once in a while, this story makes its way back to the forefront of my mind. this being one of those times.

do you know how embarrassing it is to be sitting at your desk, a basket of tears, when everyone/thing around you is swirling about its normal activity? embarrassing, i tell you.

... i guess that's what they call "emotion". something pretty foreign to this heart of stone.