It’s My Party, I’ll Cry If I Want To!

When I was in junior high school my friends and I often had slumber parties at each other’s houses. I remember being at my friend Judy’s house where we played records on her little RCA 45 rpm record player. Lesley Gore was popular on the radio and we played her #1 hit song, “It’s My Party and I’ll Cry If I Want To,” over and over again. We sang and danced and called the radio station, dedicating the favorite song to secret friends. What girl power that was, singing, “I’ll cry if I want to!”

There are happy tears and sad tears and both are needed to heal our souls. As children we are often taught to hide our emotions. “It’s okay. Don’t cry! Everything will be all right. Be a nice girl (or boy).” We learn to bury our emotions and stuff them inside, to put on a happy face. Then we go to a sad movie and our tears come spilling out, healing our spirits, sometimes leaving us unaware of their original emotional origin.

Recently my cousin, Bonnie, and I were talking about our favorite kinds of movies. We realized we are both forever more Doris Day, “Happily Ever After” kind of girls! Just give me a little “feel good” romantic Hallmark movie with a sappy ending anytime! Don’t misunderstand. I can get into an occasional Hulk or Batman movie, but where are the happy endings people? I need my happy ending fix, where boy gets girl!

Remember the really old movies, where we breathlessly awaited the romantic build up to the big kiss at the end? Then there were the classic tear-jerker, romantic movies that left us crying uncontrollably. I can still hear the heart wrenching sobs coming from deep within my throat at the end of Gone With the Wind and my all time favorite movie, West Side Story. I was a young girl, far from any romantic experience, but I wanted to be Natalie Wood, wearing a pastel purple nightgown, singing love songs on my balcony! While I was watching the movie I was aware of the audience around me, listening to their uncontrolled tears as well. There was not a dry eye in sight. Now that was a joyful day at the movies! It makes me want to cry tears of joy just thinking about it!

There is a memorable speech about emotions and the tears we cry in the classic 1963 movie, “The Courtship of Eddie’s Father.” Following the death of his wife Helen, Tom Corbett (played by Glenn Ford) needs to adjust to a new bachelor life with his young son Eddie. The role of little Eddie is played by Ronny Howard, now famous producer and director. The comedy is absolutely hysterical and little Eddie steals the show! One woman already in the lives of Tom and Eddie is Elizabeth Marten, a volunteer nurse, divorcée and Helen's best friend who lives next door (played by Shirley Jones). Tom and Elizabeth like each other as friends, as do Eddie and Elizabeth, but Tom and Elizabeth are constantly bickering and place walls up between each other in developing anything more serious.

There is a scene in the movie that begins with Eddie screaming at the top of his lungs upon the discovery of a dead fish in his fish tank. His father rushes into his room, with Elizabeth following. Tom quickly disposes of the fish and tries to calm young Eddie. “What did you do with HIM Dad?” Eddie cries. “It wasn’t a HIM, it was an IT and I flushed IT down the drain Eddie,” his father screams.

Attentively, Elizabeth begins taking Eddie’s pulse, trying to comfort him by saying, “You were thinking of your mother weren’t you Eddie. Weren’t you Eddie?” Afterward Tom and Elizabeth argue.

Tom: “A fish is a fish, and his mother’s his mother!”
Elizabeth: “That isn’t the point!”
Tom: “He doesn’t even care about those dam fish! I have to tell him to feed them half the time!”
Elizabeth: “He needed to cry Tom.”
Tom: “Well let him cry according to the size of things!”
Elizabeth: “It doesn’t work that way.”
Tom: “Well I don’t agree. Look, if your sad, you cry. You don’t save up your tears and go to a sad movie do you?”
Elizabeth: “We do! We all do! Where do you think we get the tears we cry in a movie?”

Tom: “Tears for a mother cannot be the same as tears for a fish!”

Tears for a dead fish CAN come to the surface unexpectedly because of the death of a loved one. It’s an emotional healing release we all need, and often we are not even aware of it.

Several years ago my 80-year-old mother went to the movie, “Finding Neverland,” about the life of J. M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan. Mom went with my sister, Vicki and some of her great grandchildren. At that time it had been almost twenty years since my sister, Judy, had died at the age of 40. Suddenly, without warning, the movie brought tender feelings to the surface, as each woman remembered how Judy had played the lead role of Peter Pan in high school. As they left the movie theater my mother turned her face away from the younger children, not wanting to explain. “What’s wrong with Grandma Shirley?” Vicki’s grandchildren asked. “She’s missing her daughter,” Vicki said as her own eyes filled with tears. Sometimes we all need to cry! We save up our tears and then suddenly release them in a sad movie. It’s our party, so lets cry if we want to!