The Waving Weep

As the instigator of the blog I will take the opportunity to open this blog with its first entry. Unfortunately, words cannot accurately express each detail of this endearing quirk of our mother, but I have chosen to coin it "the waving weep." You see my mother is very senstive to the spirit, it has always been astonishing to me how clearly it speaks to her and gives her guidance and strength. Unfortunately, for her, this also makes her rather prone to uncontrollable tears. As children this gave us a wonderful opportunity. Each chance to speak in church, to bear testimony or to share personal feelings was an opportunity to try to get our mother to cry... it might be embarrassing to admit but it kind of became a game, trying to get mom to cry. The reason is the quirk...it just gives us a kick. When our mother starts to cry, especially when it is associated with joy and happiness, with warm fuzzies, with the growth and success of her children she performs the "waving weep." This consists of a cute little face that is trying to laugh and frown at the same time, it causes her mouth in the middle to smile but the corners to bend down in an attempt to frown. You can see joy in her eyes, but it looks like it kind of hurts...in a good way. As the tears begin to peak she tries to hide them. If at the right moment you look over at her and she sees you looking she will pull her hand up to her face and flick her wrist to signify to you to stop looking, this is in fact the "weeping wave." It is cute and most endearing but at the same time absolutely hilarious.
If you might permit me to share a short story that she told us. She was on a plane ride and was watching Marley and Me. To be honest I don't remember much about the movie except that the dog dies eventually (sorry if that is a spoiler for any of you). Once again our mother's tender side began to show. She began to sniffle but at the same time noticed that the lady next to her began to sniffle. As she turned to look their eyes met and both were in fact weeping. In an attempt to turn the other away, both women performed the "weeping wave" and proceeded to burst into laughter which only led to additional weeping.Oh Lena! As the stewardess walked by she noticed, recieved a couple "weeping waves" and returned with a few tissues for the marvelous women!
This is just an example of our mother's ability to connect with other people on an intimate level, even if they are strangers! The joy and love that is spread by a simple "weeping wave."
Thank you Mom for making this world a better place!