Am I a crybaby?

Amma, am I a crybaby?

Who told you that, my dear girl?

Who made you question your open, feeling heart?

Nobody, I whisper...

But my mother knows better.

Tears are not weakness, she says.

They are feelings, rising to the surface

when the world gets too loud,

too heavy,

too much.

Wearing your heart on your sleeve

is not a flaw, she says.

You are just honest,

authentic,

courageous.

It's okay to feel, she says.

All of it.

The joy, the sadness, the anger!

What do I do, amma? They make fun of me.

Let's learn together, she says.

To name the feelings,

to sit with them,

to breathe through them,

to let them pass like storms

without letting them destroy what’s tender in us.

It’s okay to cry.

It’s okay if they call you a crybaby.

But we don’t let their words harden us.

We do not turn away in bitterness.

We do not hate.

We stay true to ourselves.

But for now, my child...

Come, she says.

Close your eyes.

Let me tuck you in.

You are loved, my dear girl.

I open my eyes sometime later...

There is only quiet around me.

The soft sounds of my husband's snoring.

There is no Amma here.

It's just me.

My arms wrapped around my own body.

I was my own mother tonight.

A mother who didn't hold me when I cried before.

Instead, I held

the child in me

with all the love

she never got before.