Aposiopesis (a-pos-i-o-pee’-sis): Breaking off suddenly in the middle of speaking, usually to portray being overcome with emotion.
I was always about to cry, but I never did, i’’d just let myself be overcome by emotion. Sure, crying can be considered as a sign of being overcome by emotion, but not for me. I have my reaso. . . . my reasons—I’m sorry I get all choked up when I think about my reasons for not crying. Basically, there’s only one reason: I can’t cry. My body’s physiology won’t permit me to cry. It is a dominant gene in my family’s heritage. None of us can cry, not matter what the trauma is. When my grandma jumped off the Goethells Bridge, landed in a garbage scow, and was killed by a shard of glass from a bottle of cheap gin, I almost pulled a sob, but alas my genes wouldn’t let me. And, when my pet kitty became a floormat under a car tie in the street in front of my house, I looked up and asked, “Why God?” But, there’s no catharsis there. One more example: Grandapa choked to death on a turkey bone. It was on Thanksgiving. Only ten minutes before Grandpa choked, we had given thanks for all our blessings. Nobody knew the Heimlich Maneuver and grandpa writhed around on the floor choking. As he turned purple, Aunt Gabby thought to call 911. But it was too late. I could feel my whole being wanting to cry, but again, my genetic makeup wouldn’t let me.
I couldn’t live this way—with no outward expression of grief. I started looking for answers. I ran across Stoicism—the idea that everything is open to interpretation, and you can interpret them in ways that are good for you. I tried really hard to interpret incidences prompting grief in ways that were good for me. But I still WANTED to cry. However, if I told people I was a Stoic, they accepted my failure to cry as a consequence of my philosophic commitments—a criterion immunizing my dry eyes from rebuke.
This was fine for me, but when I was with family, I still felt the need for a shared overt expression. My cousin Carl, who worked at the comedy club “Laugh Track” as an MC, nailed it! We can’t cry together, so, why don’t we laugh together? We would have to find the humor in tragedy, but if we could do it, we could share an experience.
Together as a family. So, we spent a little time developing punch lines and jokes we could deploy. What about Grandpa’s choking death? We came up with some lines that were somewhat funny: “Grandpa got so choked up he died.” “Grandpa had a bone to pick.” “Who said a turkey can’t kill you?” “He should’ve stuck with the mashed potatoes.”
Over the years, we’ve all become stand-up comics. We laugh in the face of death.
Definition courtesy of “Silva Rhetoricae” (rhetoric.byu.edu)
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