Real Tears

Real Tears


By Keith Kareem Williams



Yesterday, on my way to one of my favorite spots to move these books, I passed by three women who seemed to be engaged in what appeared to be a heavy conversation. One of the women was very young and in tears. Her eyes and nose were red, a tell-tale sign that she had been bawling for some time. The other two older women were shoving religious pamphlets at her in their best efforts to console her. I didn’t hear what words were exchanged between them but the entire scene is still very vivid in my mind’s eye. (I’m a writer so I’m observant. That’s just how I was designed.) I passed by and continued on my way.

The distraught young woman ended up walking on the same block I was on, still crying her eyes out ten minutes later. I almost didn’t say anything but I felt compelled to ask her what was wrong. I begged her to stop crying. (Even when I’m the cause, I really don’t like to see women cry.) She was reluctant to answer me at first but the second time I asked if she was alright, she told me everything.

In between sobs, she explained that she’d just had a huge, ugly fight with her father. She told me that he’d yelled at her, put his hand in her face and accused her of “acting too grown.” The argument started when she told her dad that she had decided to start college in the winter instead of the fall. I tried to calm her down and explained that it sounded like her father only wanted the best for her, even though his delivery may not have been on point. She explained that she really didn’t understand why he was so upset because, although she lived with him, she felt as if she was on her own. She told me that he was hardly ever home and when he was, they really didn’t speak. She raised her voice in anger and told me that he probably wasn’t going to contribute financially to her higher education either so she wondered what right he had to be so concerned. Then she broke down and had to cover her face. When she composed herself enough to speak again, she told me that she was her father’s first child but, out of all the children he’d made since, he’d done the least for her. I did the best I could to make her feel better about that but how do you tell a person not to be hurt by how someone else has treated them?

I told her to try not to feel bad about her father being a better parent to her younger siblings. I tried to show her that it was a good thing if he’d learned from his mistakes and evolved into a better man. I let her know that it was natural and human to feel resentment in her situation. (I didn’t need a psychology degree to recognize the real root of her pain.) I told her a little about my life and told a few jokes before I asked her not to let her past dictate her future. With a smile on my face I said that at the end of the day, our parents have lived their lives and it made no sense for us to be destroyed by the wrongs they inflicted on us. We talked for another ten minutes before she thanked me and walked away with a smile on her face instead of tears streaming down her cheeks.

I didn’t go into the vivid details of our conversation because I just feel that it was intimate and personal. Out of respect for the young lady, I’ve kept this as vague as possible while trying to give you a feel for what was going on with her life. I wrote this to give parents an idea of the damage they do sometimes, without even trying. Our children are not robots or pets that can be trained. They are human beings with real emotions, thoughts and feelings. Discipline and guidance is important but so is the way we treat them. You can’t neglect them and then turn the “parenting switch” on and off like a light switch. It just doesn’t work like that. You damage them when you move on to a new relationship but abandon them as if they never existed. I will leave ANY woman if I have to but I’ll NEVER leave my children to be forgotten victims of the aftermath. My kids are pieces of me. I’m a single father with a son and a daughter. Eventually, if I’m in the right “situation” I intend to have more. I wouldn’t treat any of them differently.

In order to raise children properly, a lot of parents need to grow up first. We spend so much or our time trying to figure out how to love a mate or a spouse in order to keep THEM but neglect the same process with our children. How many parents even know who their children really are? If we don’t understand them, how can we guide them or let them know that we love them dearly in terms that they’ll understand?