The Women Who Cry in Aldi
mourn with those who mourn; sweat with those who sweat
Hello from the Back of the Flock, where we are slowed down by teenagers who won’t get out of bed and toddlers who won’t stay in bed. I truly hope you’re doing well as you round the corner into March, ride out the middle of Lent, and either pack all of your family’s suitcases for spring break or field near-constant accusations from your preteens about why we NEVer go ANYwhere fun!!!
This week’s essay is all about the empathy that makes this whole thing work. I wrote most of it on my phone, sitting in the driver’s seat of our beat-up minivan in the Aldi parking lot, just after I stuffed the week’s groceries in the trunk. Because that’s what you do when you encounter Divine love on a Tuesday afternoon.
I had just reached the dairy section when I heard the fiercest, tiniest wailing coming from the front of the store. As I picked up the extra sharp cheddar, I listened to the raw, shuddering urgency of the cries and thought, Now THAT'S a tiny baby. I made my way over to the deli meats and then the yogurt, fully expecting the baby to stop crying, but even as I headed toward the frozen section, the cries continued to fill the entire store.
Go help. The thought pulsed through me. So I moved toward the front of the store and peered around an end cap to find the source of the cries. It was a young mom, one hand on a stroller, the other checking out just a handful of groceries at the self-checkout lane.
No, she's almost done. Don't make a scene. I mean, we're Minnesotan after all, and avoiding embarrassment is one of the chief rules of our people. I didn't want to shine a spotlight on this poor woman struggling with her baby by offering to help. I didn’t want to upset her further.
So I turned around and headed back to the dairy section, only to stop halfway down the aisle. The baby continued to wail, and though I am years past nursing, I felt something like a let-down response in my body. I was starting to sweat and found myself suspended in time, stuck somewhere between the milk section and seven years ago.
……
I am at the far end of the zoo, the point at which I couldn't be any farther from my car, and my four-year-old is having a tantrum over a dropped graham cracker, and then my two-year-old falls, her scraped knee bleeding as I try to console my oldest while digging through an overstuffed diaper bag in a frantic search for a wrinkled band-aid, and then my newborn starts crying, overdue for a nap, and I am sweating even before I am racing back to the car, my newborn strapped tightly against me as my leaking breasts mingle with his sweaty face, and I am pushing the double stroller with everything in me, and we are what feels like miles from the parking lot, and there are so many crowds of roving teenagers who are taking up the entire pathway - WOULD YOU MOVE?! - I want to scream, but then all four of us would be screaming, and that won't do, so my head is down, and I power toward the exit, and I want to just give up, when the door to the main building magically opens in front of me without my having to wrangle the stroller to open it, and a lady my mom's age holds it open for us, as I pass her, she softly squeezes my arm and whispers,
"I know it's hard. But you're doing a great job."
Did I look at her? Mumble thanks? I just remember the tears started streaming at that moment and did not stop until all three kids were safely buckled in the car, fast asleep on the highway home.
…..
Immediately, I turned the cart around. I raced up the aisle, pushing my heavy cart toward the self-checkout lanes. The baby was still wailing, with trembling inhales between each cry. Her mother was pleading with her eyes for an employee to come help her delete an accidental double charge on the grapes that she was clutching with one hand while she gently rocked the stroller back and forth with the other.
"Hi! I'm Elizabeth. I have three kids and know what this feels like. How can I help?"
She took one look at me, and tears started spilling out of her eyes as she just shrugged in defeat. I immediately started bagging her groceries and used my very non-Midwestern teacher voice to flag down an employee to help us. In that moment, what I could only assume was a grandmother left her place in a nearby line. She came over and kept moving that stroller back and forth, shushing the baby with tender words, before turning to the mother and telling her, "It's okay. I had four kids. You're gonna be all right."
Together, this grandmother and I packed the groceries under the stroller. The young mother squeaked out a snuffled thank you through her tears. As she turned to leave, I squeezed her arm and whispered, "I know. It's hard. But you're doing a good job."
She nodded, just slightly, and as she made her way to the exit, the grandmother and I turned to one another. I noticed we both had tears in our own eyes. She wistfully looked toward the exit, softly exhaling, "I remember those days." She squeezed my hand, "Me too, I said."
As I slowly made my way back to the dairy section, I shook my head at the thought of four generations of women - from the gentle grandmother to the exhausted baby - four heads huddled together in the grocery store, all of us crying in our togetherness, embodied panic and empathy, all shushing and patting and swaying.
We are called as Christians, as people on the path of Love, to this kind of embodied empathy that truly sees others. Its foundation is rooted in God incarnate, Jesus, the Great High Priest who can relate with us, who intimately knows both the joy of overflowing wine and fishing nets as well as the pain of scraped knees and friends who died too soon.1
In the same spirit, we are called to laugh with those who laugh, to mourn with those who mourn.
We of course, do this in response to the mountain-top joys when we excessively coo over a friend's new baby and the other-worldly softness of her tiny pink cheeks. We embody this kind of mourning love on living room couches deep within valleys, after the call ends and a diagnosis is whispered in the darkness.
But more often, it is on the scaled-down switch backs of mid-mountain trails that we find the most opportunity to live with embodied empathy. In the day-to-day of human living, we are to let our love to genuine.2
To sigh with those who sigh.
To long with those who long.
To accept with those who accept.
To protest with those who protest.
To seek with those who seek.
To sweat with those who sweat.
And we can do this at picnic tables and playgrounds, on baseball bleachers and city buses, in church pews and checkout lanes. We do this by truly seeing the people around us, by acknowledging the hard with a squeeze of the hand, by whispering, “You’re doing great. It’s gonna be all right.”
Looking for more on embodied empathy and motherhood?
*An essay I wrote last year on the importance of other mothers.
*This reflection on the important work of Hillary McBride who said, “Empathy is…the fascia of human connection.”
*This beautiful poem about what love looks like in real life.
*This post about crying and sweating on stage at church.
*And of course, my favorite quote from Coffee + Crumbs :
Ugh, this made me cry and think of how much less overwhelming those early day outings would be if we knew the village around us would always lend a helpful hand.
Liz, I finally finished reading this and WOW, friend. Your story of three different mothers coming together in the grocery store. That's some sacred ordinary right there. :) Thanks for sharing this.