Tears and breasts and hearts, oh my

The kindness of strangers often makes me weep.

Today I spent my morning at the Summit Hospital Breast Health Center, called back for an ultrasound on a breast I'm rather fond of. When I was there two weeks ago, I was in and out in 20 minutes and only noticed that the staff was nice. Today during my 45-minute wait, I saw their unwavering kindness to every woman that entered the door.

One hospital worker sat in the waiting room just to greet women with unfailing cheer and warmth, patiently answering stupid questions and considered questions and walking each and every patient to their appointment, the registration desk or anywhere else they might need to go. She told me that my appointment was going to be delayed, and apologized deeply and sincerely. She walked me to the bathroom, found me a not-too-outdated New Yorker, admired my Mexican shirt and made not-annoying small talk to keep me company. The tech also apologized and thanked me for waiting, not in the rushed and peremptory "I say this all day and no longer hear the words" way, but with warmth and eye contact.

Every step of the process was explained to me as if this were the first time they were telling anyone, as opposed to the rote delivery of the gym membership salesman who watches the TV in the gym above your head while reeling off the benefits of membership. At the end of what could have been a traumatic and trying appointment, I wanted to thank each person that had at one moment or another helped me. But as I opened my mouth to say, "thank you, you're really doing a wonderful job here" I found my vocal cords smothered by a cottony lump in my throat, and knew that tears would accompany the words.

This proclivity for tears in exchange for kindness is relatively new to me. It began at about the same time that I began my journey towards motherhood, when perhaps my mom-ducts were turned on and all commercials with babies and even movies with animated beasts crying could reduce me to a puddle of salty tears. This was not long after my brother died, so perhaps it's tied to the both crushing and mind-expanding epiphany that one experiences with the unexpected death of someone you hold in your heart: you are not in charge here, and kindnesses and joy and moments of light should be honored and respected and recognized, never taken for granted or dismissed as just the way things are and should be.

It's either this epiphany or my mom heart that drives the tears when I read obituaries for the young men killed in Iraq, on Bayview streets or through some sleight of fate's hand. I cry when the Beast begins to die in Beauty and the Beast, when athletes deliver gold medal performances, when I see a baggy-pants-wearing, hooded and begrilled boy jump up to assist a woman with a walker as she attempts to navigate the supposedly automatic door. I cry after saying hello to our 90-year old neighbor as he takes his twice-daily walk up our steep hill, and when the special bagger at Safeway turns his round face to me and shouts THANK YOU and hugs me as I leave. With the arrival of my son in my mind's eye and my brother's death, I left behind the woman that was able to move dry-eyed through any given day, pleased but relatively unaffected by a stranger's kindness or general movement at the periphery of my world.

I thank them both — my brother Shawn and my son Shawn Joaquin — for having given me this sometimes painful and awkward gift that keeps on giving.