If you're too afraid of the tears, then just run and hide.

Tonight I saw my father cry. There are no words but to say that it scared the shit out of me, to see the man who is king of my world, the man who carried me outside to see the moon when I was too tiny to know that there was a sky above shed tears of distress. Because suddenly, that man who was giant and untouchable became the old man sitting on the edge of my parents bed with his head on my mother's breast sobbing out of desperation and confusion.
Each tear shed was an anvil tied around the string of my heart. I've only known my father to cry twice in my life. Once when my brother Timmy died... but that was simply a story told to me by our family pastor; simply hearsay, but it haunted my pastor too, to see my stoic father in agony over Timmy's death. The pastor said that was something he would never forget--indeed it is. The second time was when I was about nineteen: I was coming out of a severally rebellious stage, which had driven a wedge between my father and myself. One fateful night, he simply gathered me in his arms and told me he loved me. It was as if a scene from some Hallmark movie had lifted its skit and crossed the TV's threshold into our living room, because he held me a sobbed.
Now I'm not against tears, a few tears now and then is a healthy thing. Tears of pain, tears of joy are one thing-- but tears of desperation, tears of fear are something completely different. I've never known my father not to have things together, not to have an answer.
That is what scares the shit out of me.
In retrospect, I realized that there was only one person I wanted to talk to, one person I wanted to share this with, my fears and anxieties... that person I've placed as far from my life as can be. That person is a non-existent blip on my radar screen. I don't want to be the person without anyone to share a life with.
I was not meant to be alone.