The young lady was crying when she walked in the front doors of the office. She was crying moments later when she walked out. A pretty face flawed by red, swollen eyes. Hands balled into fists at her side.

I normally steer clear of bawling strangers. Generally, they don’t want help or sympathy. It becomes an intrusion and an aggravation.

But this girl was looking around as if to ask the world: Why won’t someone help me?

I pegged her at 19 or 20, and she was looking for somebody – anybody – to listen to her.

I approached reluctantly, bracing myself for a hailstorm of screams. Instead, she rubbed fresh tears from her face and told me her story. It involved her child and a fierce battle over custody.

I don’t remember the entire drama in all its ugly detail. But the flow of tears never stopped in the time she took to tell it. Tears and sniffles and hitched breath. She thanked me for listening and walked away, still crying.

It was one of the few times I discovered the cause of tears in a sobbing stranger.

Hard times

There was a weeping woman a few years ago sitting on a bench in front of the newspaper office. Her age was hard to guess because it looked like each of her years might have been a hard one. A woman who might have been pretty once but who had battered her beauty into submission.

Her tears had to be hot because it was 10 degrees outside and just about everything else was turning to ice. I thought she might freeze to death before she could effectively sob away her woes so I moved closer to ask how I might help.

An intrusion. An aggravation. With a spring of aggression, she jumped to her feet and shoved me away. She stumbled into the road, shot back a seething look and rushed off crying into the night.

I once found a sobbing lady sitting in the hallway of my apartment building and didn’t know what to do about her. She was crouched on the gritty hardwood floor under a dim bulb. No rubbing of the eyes, no pounding of the fists. Just crying and looking at a wall.

A large, dark woman of about 50, she was no acquaintance of mine and none of the neighbors knew her. She appeared to be in good health beyond the consuming anguish and she asked for nothing. I stepped around her and went on my way, leaving the riddle of her torment there in the dusty hallway.

The sight of a stranger weeping is an odd thing. Most people do it privately unless circumstances bear down so suddenly there is no choice but to unburden and to do so immediately.

Calamity? Large or small?

My problem is that I can’t help but wonder at the cause of the emotional tumult. It tempts my mind the way bubble wrap tempts my fingers. The death of a loved one? The death of a marriage? News of disease or financial ruin?

Let’s face it, there are hundreds of reasons to cry. Babies do it when they need something. Some people do it at weddings and sappy movies.

Experts will tell you that tears begin after the emotional source of them is already under way.

Inside a hospital or in front of a grave? Sure. Someone is dead or dying and the survivor is ravaged by grief.

But, you have to wonder when a stranger stands weeping alone near the street. Or sits on a bench, or crouches in a hallway. You just have to wonder. Something simple like a fight with the boyfriend? Or some grand calamity that would make us shudder and run away?

Mark LaFlamme is the Sun Journal crime reporter.


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