An Explanation of Tears and the Sadness We Experience

We lost two very important people of our culture this past week—rapper DMX and Prince Edward Phillip, Queen Elizabeth's husband. Chances are, one may be a bigger headline than the other, and one can see why. Regardless, the purpose of this article is to be reflective on death, as it is something that warrants our attention. I feel that we have had a lot of sudden deaths in the past two to three years—as a lot of unexpected celebrity deaths that have shocked and rocked us collectively in some way—and I do regard it as a sign that God wants our attention, as the stars, the ones we have idolized and who seem to live well, have suddenly been passing away and in various ways.

Truth be told, not all celebrity deaths hit me the same way, but I have found myself grieving a number of them in recent times, and it has caused me to seek some reflective measures. In my reflective journey, I have come to look at death as the final blooming stage of the people who live life with vitality and verve, and I think that death can sometimes be a good thing for us, even when we are lead to grieve it.

I have been trying to find the collective good of losing ones like Nipsey Hustle, Kobe Bryant, Diego Maradona, Alex Trebek, Sean Connery, Chadwick Bosman, Congressman John Lewis, and others, and I have to say that it is just to make us cry.

I once explained to a girl that crying was the way our soul taps into long-held stores of comfort and that sometimes, it is God's way of basically holding our hands as we traverse through life. I realized that most often, people resist tears—myself included—because they are not a bundle of joy and we often feel softened by them, and sometimes this is not the sensation that we are looking to be conscious of--that feeling of being bare.

However, I have allowed myself to fall into the knowing comfort of tears and felt great afterward, thankful for the release of emotions that spirited me up. We have all collectively shed plenty of tears in these past couple of years, and I have not even quantified the countless number of personal losses that people have been coping with, within said days.

The American Academy of Ophthalmology has a great article with facts on tears and what I find most interesting is that you have more than one type of tear. Scientists have proposed that emotional tears contain proteins and hormones not found in basal (tears that form a protective barrier between the rest of the eye and the outside world) or reflex (tears that occur as a reflex to protect the eye) tears.

This convinces me that my theory is right, that emotional tears are a way for us to get into depths and stores for our soul, and crying can be a good thing, as emotional tears are clearly equipped to free us from the things that bog us down, as there is a depth of cleansing and nourishment that they provide that make crying a healthy and necessary phenomenon for us to live on.

Emotional tears are also a way to gain strength during emotionally trying times. I consider crying as the way our emotions lift weights...as I believe that crying induced by satisfying events shows a person's emotional growth and overall maturity.

Obviously, we cry less as we age, as we see children display this all the time, so crying is something that comes with us and should never leave us—as it is a very important part of our communication. 

I know I've cried when I'm at my last–when I'm able to acknowledge that I don't know any more or I don't have any more strength, and I have been instantly revived by the peace that such level of transparency gives.

There is comfort that gives shores to aching hearts, and I am a declarer of God's charm at the times that we ache, at his ability to knowingly provide the thoughts and the behaviors that allow us the release and the reloading that we need whenever we are emotionally triggered to cry.

It is almost as if we dress ourselves for each other when we cry, as to how we compose ourselves emotionally plays a great deal in our daily interactions; not properly composing one's emotions can have drastic effects on our livelihood as we've seen time and time again, so it is of extreme importance for each one of use to become sentient and experts of our emotions, as looseness can have dire consequences.

Thus, emotional intelligence is an important factor to strengthen for oneself, as it is part of our expected growth as we pass through life. Emotional intelligence is defined as the ability to know what you are feeling and to verbalize it in real-time; it also encompasses knowledge of what to do with these emotions so that our stress is successful decreased; it is about knowing what you're feeling and knowing how to express it in a way that brings you and the others around you, health.

Knowing how to compose oneself emotionally is part of emotional intelligence and a very important part. Emotions are the driving force of everything we do, from birth until death, as loose emotions are responsible for all of the chaos that is destructive to our human race.

The fact that we are losing our stars in their youth is simply an attempt from God to draw us into his arms collectively and to rewrite our vision as one, as we are a people in flux and in pain; loss is the natural next step for people who have become hardened over the years, for we are made of a flowing element and to be alive is to be able to parse in this element (i.e., water).

As the need for vulnerability arises, it takes strong men and women to acknowledge their needs while at the same time modulating them, as indeed God's plan has always been to empower us to surmount whatsoever obstacles we meet. With God, it is symbiosis as we sit and receive when we express our needs to him--and this is how life has progressed and continued on our planet.

The process of mourning definitely brings us closer, as we can consider vigils and more than is done in honor of those that we have labeled as "gone too soon." As I think of Chadwick Bosman, I am still amazed at his quiet calm during his illness, and I am super proud of his ability to live and die the way he wanted, especially since he lived in the limelight. I also consider the value that he has left on earth, as this is another benefit of a surprising passing; it gives us another chance to look at the person or get to know them, and we get to reflect on the very important qualities that make them so important to the ones that love them.

It becomes another marker for us to follow as we continue to tread where they left off, as life has always been described to me as a relay race, and I have always considered the batons that we pass from one to another as the world turns each day.

As an adult, I find it necessary to have a reflective voice at this time, as we face a lot and from both sides. Our collective celebrity losses are an opportunity for us to focus on excellence (e.g., Kobe Bryant), grace under pressure (Chadwick Bosman), longevity (Alex Trebek), heart (DMX), pride (John Lewis), and much, much more. Each of them left us with so many good qualities to reflect on, and I have to say that I am really glad to have known them in the little way that I have.

All of this is to collectively energize the rest of us to keep fighting for our ideals, as we can all say we know someone who has died for them--and abandoning them is not an option. 

I have to say, I am even gladdened by this writing article, as I took this opportunity to parse and express my thoughts, and I hope that I have made you experience some sense of comfort as you try to cope with sadness that suddenly assails.

If you find yourself crying non-stop, then it is time to acknowledge your need for the next steps, as such are the steps of a healthy person. Seek out professional help:

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255

National Emergency Services: 911