‘Tears of rage... tears of grief’
WHY is it we cry more in old age? I’ve noticed this phenomenon now I’m halfway through my 80s.
It’s not that tears come all the time. I’m not depressed, nor am I naturally unhappy. But crying happens unexpectedly, often caused by the most trivial of things.
Unbearable news footage of disasters and war are painful to watch. A crying child searching helplessly for family members through the wreckage of some warring madness brings burning rage, but no tears. And yet the the snatch of song jerking the notion that ‘only love can break your heart,’ and that’s when tears begin to roll.
In my early years I’d sit engrossed but unmoved by a televised natural science documentary. Nowadays I only have to hear David Attenborough’s cautionary intonations and the dam of tears is breached, especially when the camera dwells on the forlorn face of a lonely Barbary macaque expelled from its tribe. It’s not a problem, as most of the time I’m on my own when this happens. It seems that crying in old age is the upshot of some inexplicable emotional reaction that simultaneously joins both the brain and the heart.
Emotional pain is, of course, an experience we all feel at some point in our lives. Sometimes it reaches the stage where clinical intervention is needed, and for many, it becomes a dominant force that overwhelms the quality of life. In old age, however, it arrives packaged with sentimentality.
It was 9pm in January two years ago when I got sight of the blaze that destroyed the Leopard pub in Burslem. It fizzed furiously out of social media posts from where I could almost feel the intensity of the blaze as I watched firefighters pumping shiploads of water into the flaming structure. How much of the historic building could be rescued wasn’t realised until daylight exposed the shell of rubble left by the colossal conflagration.
It was only then that its destruction brought tears to my eyes. But it wasn’t for the building that I wept. It was for the memories that went down with it, all those half-forgotten pleasures and sorrows that the hostelry had handedout and witnessed over generations.
Memories of fathers and sons, family and friends, marriages, and bereavements haunting the shadows of some hazy times. I cried only for the memories of its home-from-home hospitality, the corny conversations and catchups with old friends finding companionship in their regular places bonded by the mahogany and stainedglass vaults.
And my tears were for the realisation that the past can’t ever be physically recaptured – it is what it is.
A younger me would not have exhibited such an emotional reaction. Anger? Oh yes! Rage at the destruction of the city’s history and heritage. And there’s no doubt in my earlier years I would have responded with real-world retaliation. But now I seek and find refuge in reflection, in unfathomable imaginings and illusions that occupy the dormant space of winter daydreaming. In my daily life I am agreeably happy and I have close relationships with many people. My brain functions pretty well. So, what’s going on?
Science puts it down to hormonal changes that make ageing men in particular care less about maintaining a stoic posture. But in truth there is no coherent explanation of why we cry more in old age. My view is that it has much to do with distance, the moving away from events that pinpoint the cornerstones of life’s puzzle. Illogically, it is as though the present becomes less relevant, and the past becomes more important.
Of course, nostalgia is something that comes to us at any age. But old age brings logic to the feelings of regret, and the capacity to accept it. At this, I turn to the person who freely shares my tears. “Tell you what”, I say to my old lady, “let’s stop in tonight and play some records.”