Not Sure How They Met Up...

I have often observed that Meriel thinks the word "cry" is a transitive verb, the significance of which varies the traditional definition in the following way:


Merriam Webster: to cry... shed tears
Meriel Ryan: to cry... make someone suffer


She told me yesterday that a playmate had made her angry. Assuring me she had exacted revenge, she simply said, "I cried at her."


If you've been cried at by Meriel, you know exactly where she's going with this.

Though approximately a decade old and a continent away, and never having actually met Meriel face-to-face, Taylor Bastian
must accept responsibility for teaching her cousin this emotional leverage. I can't explain how she did it. But she is the only person I know who could have done it. She set the standard for assault-crying long ago.



Romans had battering rams. Driven at the right speed, they could tear down castle walls. Sometimes legionnaires would cover them with tar and set them on fire during an assault, doing untold damage.


Meriel and Taylor, of course, need only cry.




Taylor, as I mentioned, set the standard for assault-crying. By age 3 1/2 she could melt down a
mountain. I've seen her do it.


I will limit myself to one example.


I had the privilege of accompanying Taylor and her ever-perfect brother, Carter, to church one Sunday by myself. A boy and girl their respective ages took the liberty of joining us on the pew. I agreed to this arrangement conditionally: If they were the slightest bit disruptive, I would separate guilty parties.

The boys hunkered down into some serious relatively quiet boy-play, the nature of which I preferred to keep a mystery.

The two girls, on the other hand, were a handful. They started off by exchanging clothes, or attempting to. They got as far as putting on each others' shoes. I gave them Warning #1. I hated the shoes Taylor was suddenly wearing: thick, heavy cork heels. Why do mothers let their little ones wear these things? Why not just go directly to foot binding? I opted for the status quo and let her wear them.


Warning #2 was the result of a color crayon dispute.


Warning #3 followed a breath away, and I handled it calmly and with class. I stood briefly and slipped myself between the two girls. Problem solved.

Then I heard a gasp and glimpsed Taylor's face. She was sucking in air preparatory to an eruption. She was going to cry at me.


We were in the House of the Lord. There was a full congregation. I had to think fast. and move as best I could while she was still in this preparatory state. So I whisked her up in my arms and started down the aisle between the pews trying not to run.

It was too late. A car alarm, a police siren, Mt. Vesuvius, a thunderbolt of mighty Zeus... nothing compares to this tiny, beautiful child. I was only half-way out of the chapel when she went off.


And, to my horror, so did the thick-soled shoes as, in her rage, she flipped her feet up over her head and both shoes twirled a good 15 feet into the air over the unsuspecting heads of the congregation, landing squarely on ...well, I don't know who they landed on because, by the time they returned to land, I was on the other side of the building.


All the time, she was crying at me. This, I thought to myself, is what being beat up is like. The sound echoed down the corridor as I tried one classroom door after the other trying to find a muffling place. Finding one unlocked, we slipped in. It was a small storage room with a window. I set her there firmly and said, "When you stop crying, we can talk." I'm quite sure she couldn't hear me. I left her there and waited on the other side of the door.


A young woman from the congregation had apparently followed me. She said, "Would you like some help?"


What I would have liked was for her to self-destruct. I couldn't believe some stranger would think she could better handle my granddaughter than I could. I told her things were under control.

She pointed out that I had just put my granddaughter in a closet.


I told her that was probably unfair to the closet, but that these were desperate times. She left unconvinced. The noise behind the door vibrated the cinderblock walls.


Then ...it stopped.


I opened the door.


She was sitting exactly where I had put her, not a tear on her face, swinging her legs back and forth.

"Done?" I said.


"Yep," she said, jumping from her perch. She took my hand, and --I'm not making this up-- hummed a primary tune on the way back to the chapel.

Taylor and Uncle Tim, Meriel's father.