I never know when it’ll hit. My tear ducts seem to empty themselves at the most inopportune moments, like at the grocery store check-out or while receiving sympathy from the bank teller. Tears aren’t cause for embarrassment but do make the other person uncomfortable or beyond that, sad, which then makes me feel worse. I find myself apologizing, for lack of something better. “Don’t mind me,” I say, dabbing at my eyes.

I’ve made an effort to be prepared by putting a box of tissue in every room of the house and one in the car. There’s one in the basement and another above the wash machine. Both bathrooms are equipped, and a couple of strategic closets. I even keep one in the kitchen baking drawer, since paper towels are rough on the nose.

But the best defense for unexpected weeping is a Kleenex in my pocket. Having two seems just right, one for the eyes and one for the nose, a kind of two-fisted approach to getting through the moment. As the old commercial goes, “Never leave home without them.”

As most of us do, I have an array of winter coats, some twenty years old but, as mom used to say, “Still serviceable.” Every one of them has two tissues in the pocket. And on Sundays, there are two tissues pressed between the pages of my Bible. After one difficult experience fanning the 2214 pages of my big study Bible in a desperate search for the Kleenex, I had to use my kid glove as a poor substitute. It was either that or my sleeve. Now I let my two tissues peek out of the Bible pages ever so slightly, tipping me off to their hiding place before the next emergency.

Recently I’ve made an effort to study the circumstances around my tears, especially since I’ve never been much of a weeper. So far, every break-down has been different, which is the reason each one is a surprise.

This morning I re-read the words to a song a friend had hand-written in a greeting card. The lyrics were powerful and full of encouragement, but what got me crying was the date on her note, October 10. The minute I realized Nate had still been alive when I’d last read the card (most likely out loud to him), the hurt came rushing back. In a flash my face was buried in my hands, and I was a goner. No one was around, so I felt free to boo-hoo it out, and thankfully, I found two tissues in my pocket.

Last week while hunting for a blog photo in last year’s album, I had another episode. Although Nate’s face betrayed the back pain he was experiencing, when the photo was snapped we still thought the problem was fixable. Neither of us knew the dreadful surprise immediately in front of us. Looking into both of our faces in the photo, knowing Nate has since been transported far away, the whole thing seemed too much to bear, and fresh tears came.

My two tissues are like an insurance policy. If I don’t have to use them, that means all is well. If I do, they’re instrumental in getting me through the moment. When I put my hand into my pocket throughout the day and feel those tissues, they communicate comfort, even before I have to use them.

The other day I was catching up with a friend I hadn’t seen since before Nate’s illness. As she listened to my answers to her questions, her eyes filled with tears of empathy and love. Wiping with her hands but quickly losing ground, she sniffed and apologized until I reached into my pocket. “One for you. One for me.”

“Even when I walk through the darkest valley, I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me. Your rod and your staff [and tissues] protect and comfort me.” (Psalm 23:4)