Cry Toy

Years ago, I had an ultra bigoted friend. It didn’t matter what kind of different you were she didn’t like you. In between going to mass and claiming to be a Christian, she was mean, rarely checked her thoughts before she spoke, was the friend who “kept it real” and then whimpered in protest if you called her on her words.

She was also a friend who said she liked me and then proceeded to try to change me with quips and directive nips, one who discovered my quiet obstinacy as I buried her oppression.

The sole good thing she left to me was the idea of the cry toy, and as she was one, it’s no surprise she’d be so skilled at driving the point home.

Based on observations with her baby girl, a cry toy was anything that resulted in an accumulating frustration such that after awhile her kid was–by various noises, tears and drooling–screaming loud enough to arrest birds in flight.

Many people in life are cry toys. They waste lifetimes of nastiness with each other trying to out compete, out do, out posture, all for the evanescent self perception of superiority. Worse of all, they do this in lieu of the joy and fun that could be shared and rationalize their choice as sophisticated.

I’ve spent lots of time at the bedside of dying people. I’m honored to be there for in that moment, most people, even the meanest ones, stop being a cry toy and want real love and crave hearing that they mattered at all.

To me, you are the ultimate wonder whoever you are. If I have a chance to get to know you, I will discover amazing and admirable things about you, of that I am definite. You are vast, can only be ascertained by me with help and even then, I’ll never know you as you know you, as you grow and change, and will always be in discovery mode, that mode of wonder. I don’t predict your behavior. I don’t say who you should be or where you should be going. I try not to hamper your path.

But by the same token, I’m another of God’s marvels, made by his design and forged by my experiences. He and I are simpatico. We laugh at each other’s jokes. He has plans for me. One of the silliest things I have ever heard from one of the many cry toys I’ve known is “You care too much.” Hah! Take that up with God.

My objective in life is to ignore every worldly thing that spreads hate on any justification. The one melody I listen for all the time pursues ebullient love and joy. The rest is insignificant to me.

Keep your hands off my wonder. I won’t budge. There is no denial of feeling here. I see and share all the emotions you do, yet they are quickly subsumed by my governing truth: I am in love with love.