When I was a boy, I cried a lot. Then came a dry spell of about fifty years, during which I found it hard to cry. And recently, I seem to be going back to my childhood and sobbing like a baby. Maybe it’s me, or maybe it’s reality that kicked things up a notch, but whatever the reason, the encounter between me and my existence has become a lot more damp and salty.
For the past couple of weeks – now that several young Israeli women have returned home after being held hostage in Gaza for more than 15 months, and the IDF has paused its bombing of Gaza and allowed residents to return to the rubble where their homes once stood – I’ve had even more chances than usual to shed a tear and look back nostalgically at the good old days, when my biggest problem was that I didn’t know how to cry.
My son, Lev, complains that he has never seen me cry. He’s seen his mother cry several times, especially when she reads him a story with a sad ending. He once saw his grandmother cry, on his third birthday, when he told her that his wish was that grandfather would get well. He even saw his kindergarten teacher cry when she received a phone call telling her that her grandfather had died. I was the only one he’s never seen cry. And that whole business makes me uncomfortable.
There are many things parents are supposed to know how to do which I’m not very good at. Lev’s kindergarten is full of fathers quick to pull their toolboxes out of their car trunks every time something breaks, and fix swings and water pipes without even working up a sweat. My son’s father is the only one who never pulls a toolbox out of his car trunk, because he doesn’t own a toolbox or a car. And even if he did, he wouldn’t know how to fix anything. You’d expect a father like that—non-technical, an artist—to at least know how to cry.
“I’m not mad at you for not crying,” Lev says, putting his little hand on my arm, as if he feels my discomfort, “I’m just trying to understand why. Why Mom cries and you don’t.”
I tell Lev that when I was his age, everything made me cry: movies, stories, even life. Every street beggar, run-over cat, and worn-out slipper made me burst into tears. The people around me thought that was a problem, and for my birthday they brought me a children’s book meant to teach kids how not to cry. The book’s protagonist cried a lot, till he met an imaginary friend who suggested that every time he felt the tears welling up, he should use them as fuel for something else: singing a song, kicking a ball, doing a little dance. I read that book maybe fifty times, and I practiced doing what it said over and over, till I was finally so good at not crying that it happened by itself. And now I’m so used to it, I don’t know how to stop.
“So, when you were a kid,” Lev asks, “every time you wanted to cry, you sang instead?”
“No,” I admit reluctantly, “I don’t know how to sing. So, most of the time, when I felt the tears coming, I hit someone instead.”
“That’s weird,” Lev says in a contemplative voice, “I usually hit someone when I’m happy.”
This feels like the right moment to go to the fridge and get us both some cheese sticks. We sit in the living room, nibbling quietly. Father and son. Two males. If you were to knock on the door and ask nicely, we’d offer you a cheese stick, but if you did something else instead, something that made us sad or happy, there’s a good chance that you’d get roughed up a little.
