While I was growing up, each chair at our family's kitchen table was spoken for. We kids had made our selections in the same sequence as our birth order-first come, first served, you might say-starting with me (the oldest) and followed by my sister and my two brothers.

I had picked the chair directly across from Dad. Everybody knew it as "Marcia's Chair." Sometimes, however, I would give up my chair for guests and it would become known by another name: the Crying Chair. Family, friends, and neighbors would sit in that chair when they needed a good cry, or someone to share their burdens with.

We're a family of natural-born weepers, from my parents right on down the line to all four of their children, now grown with little weepers of our own. Not that our lives have been filled with extraordinary tragedy or that our hearts are filled with sorrow, it's just that crying is comfort for the soul.

Mom said it was only natural for "Marcia's chair" to become the official "Crying Chair," since I was the most tenderhearted crier in the family. I put the Crying Chair to good use throughout my life. It was my crying throne when our dog; when my Dad was injured in a terrible car accident, and when he sang us a song about a little crippled girl; when I watched Superman take a crip¬pled boy on a Super flight on our black-and-white TV; and when my two-year-old brother, Terry, tried to be Superman and jumped from the neighbor's tall slide. I took to the Crying Chair when my boyfriends broke up with me, and when I broke up with my boyfriends.

Yet, I was not an unhappy child. In fact, quite the opposite: I was very happy. The Crying Chair gave me a place to park my emotional baggage so I could get on with my life.

There were also times when I took to the Crying Chair with tears of joy-each time my sister, Gloria, and I were chosen for the cheerleading squads; when I was elected class officer; when I left for college; when I came home from college; when I became engaged, and when I became pregnant with each child.

Of course, I always graciously relinquished "Marcia's Chair" when someone else needed to sit a spell in the Crying Chair. Fran and Bob, for example, who lived across the street from us and shared coffee and stories at our kitchen table, sat there when it was time to share their tears. To this day, folks still come to sit in the Crying Chair, which still resides in my parents' home. Fran and Bob moved away from the neighborhood, but when Bob died, Fran returned to the Crying Chair.

The Crying Chair worked so well throughout the years, that I decided to borrow the idea for my kindergarten classroom at a private school, where I had taught for seven years. The idea came to me when I was trying to find ways to console one of my kindergarten students, who would cry uncontrollably every morning when he arrived at school and several times during the day. His parents were going through a divorce. The little guy was shifted from one parent to the next, and he never knew who would bring him to school or pick him up.

With great pomp and circumstance I announced the arrival of the Crying Chair to my classroom. It was just a regular chair that I had moved to an isolated part of our room and by which I had placed a box of tissues. The students listened with wide eyes as I proclaimed the rules for the Crying Chair. They even added a few of their own.

1.
Teacher: The Crying Chair is not a punishment or time out.
Students: We won't get in trouble.

2.
Teacher: Raise your hand and state your need for the Crying Chair. Permission will be granted.
Students: Ask the teacher first.

3.
Teacher: Students who use the Crying Chair should keep their outbursts to a moderate level of noise, so as not to bother the other students or draw attention to themselves.
Students: No screaming.

4.
Teacher: Length of stay in the Crying Chair is up to the individual; five-minute intervals are suggested but may be extended if necessary.
Students: Get it over with.

5.
Teacher: The Crying Chair is available to both students and teachers.
Students: Teachers cry, too?

6.
Teacher: Other students will not be permitted to harass or make fun of anyone in the Crying Chair.
Students: It's okay to cry. Don't start a fight.

7.
Teacher: Other students are encouraged to pray for and show special kindness to the person in the Crying Chair.
Students: Be nice. Be kind. Pray.

The students had almost a reverence for the Crying Chair. When the little boy who cried uncontrollably sat in the Crying Chair he would bury his little head in his hands and sob. My heart ached for him, but I rejoiced as I watched other students spontaneously bow their heads in prayer for their classmate. Some asked for permission to walk over to the Crying Chair and give the boy a pat on the back or a hug. Other times a classmate would quietly place a piece of candy for him on the table beside the Crying Chair.

After a brief time in the chair, the boy would dry his eyes, ask for permission to get a drink of water, and go to the bathroom before returning to his regular seat in class. Not one student teased him about sitting in the Crying Chair. As time went on and the boy's life began to take on some semblance of order, his trips to the chair became less frequent.

The Crying Chair worked so well the two years it was in my classroom, that I wished I had thought to use it the previous five years of my teaching career. Many students sat in the Crying Chair for many different reasons. Sometimes it provided a safe place to cry out the everyday trials and tribulations of being a child: skinned knees and playground scrapes; embarrassment over a spilled juice container; the panicked frustration of a lost field-trip slip; hurt feelings at being called a name, or shame from being the name-caller. Sometimes the source of their tears was more traumatic, like the loss of a pet or a grand¬parent. For three children who had been abandoned by their mothers and were being raised by other family members, it provided a soft place to fall and to cry. One student who strived so hard for perfection in printing that his whole body shook, found that weeping in the Crying Chair helped relax him enough to try again. After being molested by a neighbor, one child sat and sobbed until I thought all our hearts would break.

One particularly trying day, when I felt over¬whelmed with the duties of teaching and mother¬hood and marriage, I announced to the class that I needed to spend some time in the Crying Chair. I laid my head in my hands and cried. As the tears flowed down my cheeks, I felt the touch of many tiny hands as my students walked by and gently patted me on the back.

The teacher learned compassion from her students. The students learned a teacher hurts just like they hurt, and cries just like they cry.

Both learned to love each other.

END.

Written by Mary Marcia Lee Norwood
Published in “Cup of Comfort”, edited by Colleen Sell.