‘Men who don’t cry…’

I found myself fighting back tears during the lead up activities to the governor and lieutenant governor signing a proclamation and proclaiming March as Developmental Disabilities Awareness month at a recent ceremony hosted by the Disability Network Partners in celebration. These weren’t tears of pain or even joy, mind you, but rather a kind of sudden rush of overwhelming love perhaps, like deep chills, that welled up through my spine and sprung a leak over my eyeballs; the common term might be that I was so “moved.” For full disclosure, I have become quite the soft, little crybaby in these waning years of a surprisingly full life, so I cry easily (albeit silently—on the inside, if you will—most of the time). I’ve come to know as well that tears, paradoxically like a hard laugh, can be contagious.

I remember very clearly the day I finally realized and had to admit that the once hardened walls of my heart had thinned, or rather, softened. I also know now that having children was the primary cause. Yes, my kids made me soft and I’ve grown softer each day (in more ways than one I might add) since I held my firstborn for the first time. It was sometime in the year 2000, a little less than a year after my second daughter was born. I was in the movie theater with a few friends watching Castaway, a Tom Hanks movie, when during a now famous scene in which the main character’s best friend, Wilson, drifts away from him in the ocean… “Wilson!” he shouted desperately. “Wiiiilson!?” he cried over and over until he was too exhausted to cry anymore, with Wilson eventually disappearing into a vast open sea. At that point my friend nudged me and said, “I know you’re not f***** crying, Jimbo!?” I guess in the reflective light of the movie he could see the glistening of my eyeballs, the ugly batting of my eyelids at a hundred blinks per second and finally the awkward attempts to wipe my face without looking like I was wiping away tears. It’s true. I was literally crying—full blown tears rolling down my face—over Wilson floating away. And, for those who don’t know the movie, Wilson was a volleyball. Not a lovable cartoon volleyball character, but an actual Wilson brand volleyball on which the Tom Hanks character had painted something that resembled a face, barely. For emphasis, I was full-fledged, ugly crying over a volleyball. I walked out of that movie knowing that something in me had changed and—excuse the misogynistic reference here, it’s what I thought in that moment—I felt like a “chick.” My feminine side had risen to the top and finally boiled over. I still blame my kids. True story.

And so, it was in the moment of the “family advocate testimonials” impaneled by the Nicholas, Aquino, and Hocog-Manglona families at the proclamation ceremony that I was nearly in tears again. I managed on the day to keep it all inside, but was deeply moved nonetheless. There was something particularly touching about the sight of a burly man’s man (a Micronesian man, no less) reduced to tears even for a brief second at the preponderance of love and affection that he holds for his son and which the rest of his family share for each other. It occurred to me, too, that a common theme for the families who were there to share their stories of a life with challenges in raising and growing with a child who has a developmental disability was “love.” The love shown by all the parents on the panel felt tangible and seemed to engulf the room; it certainly put a spell on me. In each of the stories shared, the protagonist was the parents’ love and refusal to accept less for their children because they had been branded with a so-called disability. One father admitted that, “I really don’t like the word disability. My son has challenges, not disabilities. …We all have challenges and we can work through them together.” The mother in this case talked about not even telling their son he had a disability—that he would be held accountable to his growth with the same commitment shown for their children without a diagnosis. In all cases, the parents did whatever they had to in order to give their kids the best possible outcome for him or herself. By all accounts, each of the kids (adults now) has far exceeded the expectations of what others (aside from their parents) ever believed. “If we allow our minds to believe that it’s possible, then we can do it” (Unknown).

“There are more than 6,000,000 individuals with developmental disabilities that reside in the U.S. mainland and its territories. These individuals have the same hopes and dreams as all CNMI residents—to be self-determined, work and earn a living, practice their faith, and be included in their community. People with developmental disabilities have unique abilities and experiences that contribute to our islands’ rich diversity and heritage, just like all residents. Throughout our history, people with developmental disabilities have utilized their unique abilities to make our islands a better place for all.”

It easy for people looking in from the outside to judge or at least presume to know what families with kids who have developmental disabilities must go through. More often than not, the focus is on how hard life must be. No doubt many endure challenges that do not apply to their peers who do not have kids with disabilities; however, in the nearly 25 years I’ve had the pleasure of working with families and the community of people with varying abilities, what has become abundantly clear is that the challenges and frustrations (while very real and often painful) only serve to strengthen their capacity for love. It’s moments like the other day when I get to witness what may have once been tears of pain flow freely as tears of pure love that make the work of supporting people with disabilities worthwhile.

After subduing the tears welling up through his voice, the gentleman “Dad” recalled a story of a five-star general crying in an interview with Barbara Walters and being asked if he felt any kind of way about crying on national television, to which he responded, “Men who don’t cry scare me.”

Me too, general. Men who don’t cry scare me too; in fact, I scare myself when I don’t cry.