caught off guard

“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love.” ~Washington Irving

My mother was killed in a car accident 12 years ago. With each passing year, I tend to push the fact farther and farther to the back of my mind.
In earlier years, many things would catch me off guard and send tears streaming down my face.
In more recent times, I have learned to just quietly lower my head and let the tears fall, and when I had regained myself again, I would raise my head back up.

Yesterday, at our staff meeting, my principal was making announcements. She announced that another teacher's mother had been killed in a car wreck over the Thanksgiving holiday.

The news hit me like a ton of bricks! I knew that there was NO way I was going to be able to quietly lower my head and allow tears to drop from my eyes. As I got up to leave the room, the overwhelming feeling of grief swept over me. I was hyperventilating and sobbing before I reached my classroom. The loss of my mother was a turning point in my life and to know that someone else was now experiencing what I had to experience was too much for me.

After I regained myself, I returned to the meeting. Thankfully... crying is NOT an unheard of thing at our staff meetings, so no one questioned my sudden outburst. Sometimes working with a lot of women has its advantages.