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DON'T CRY
BY: MARK ANTHONY ROSOLOWSKI


It is hard at times to live up to those words. "Don't cry," I often heard them when I was growing up, usually when I was despondent over a situation. Those words, “Don’t cry,” were usually accompanied with. “Grow up,” “Act your age,” or “Men don’t cry.” My objection to that is that crying is an emotional response to a situation, you do not stop being emotional because of you are grown up, your age or your gender.

I remember sitting in the limousine at my father’s funeral, I was six, my grandfather, was sitting behind me, as I was crying he leaned forward and said, “Stop crying, men don’t cry, grow up and act like a man, you will upset your mother if you cry.” At the time, I needed to vent that emotion but I held it in, I stopped crying, I had to be a six year old man, and I had to be grown up.

Why was it so important to him that I did not cry? What difference did it make that I was crying? My sisters who were eight and nineteen were crying but I was not allowed to, I had to be grown up.

So, I was grown up, I refused to cry, I said I will not cry, I will not show emotion, I will keep it all bottled up inside of me. That lasted for many years, till I met my wife. She taught me it was okay to love, it was okay to care, and it was okay to show emotion. With her I learned to take a chance and let my emotions be seen, I found it does hurt sometimes, but the rewards are far greater then the pain.

I allowed my emotions to play a role in my jobs, I was a Navy Hospital Corpsman, and I took care of sick and injured servicemen and women as well as their dependents. Emotion was good, I did not allow myself to get deeply involved in them, but to be able to have empathy would make them more at ease as I cared for them.

Later as a civilian, a Paramedic, I did the same I did not allow them to get to my heart as I held a dying child in my arms, as I attempted to revive a grandmother who had died during the night, as I pulled the twisted bodies from car wreckage, but I did understand the pain and anguish they were feeling. It made me a better Paramedic to allow my emotion to play a role in my decisions. They always made me work harder to help a person, to save a life, to put my own life on the line to save another.

After an injury took me out of being a Paramedic, I went to work as a Security/Safety officer in a hospital. Many times in the Emergency Department, I would talk to patients who were being disruptive, patients nurses were frustrated with and wanted out of the Emergency Department, I would calm them down, start a rapport with them, they responded usually in a positive manner and would remain there, no longer being a disturbance but the staff unknowing to me, were angry with me for that. My evaluation in every category said I let emotions play a role in my decisions and that was not acceptable. I did eventually take that evaluation all the way to the C.E.O./President of the hospital, he did understand my actions and my evaluation was changed to outstanding, as he saw it my being able to talk to people, to calm them down, to interact was an asset to the hospital. After, seeing my methods work time after time, I was assigned to train new personnel, in methods of dealing with people.

Not to say this always worked, at times we did have to physically remove people from the hospital as well as we had many fights with patients who were determined to attack the nurses or doctors. But, that became less common as the regulars got to know us and knew we would treat them fairly. One of the most effective methods we used was with a regular who we knew came in basically because she was hungry, we would get her a couple of sandwiches, milk and some cookies, she would thank us and then sit there until she was seen, never causing a problem.

I learned about being emotional from my wife. After she died, I did cry, never thinking the words, “Don’t cry.”. It is okay to cry, it is okay to show emotion, it is not being a baby, you are not unmanly, you are being human