“Processing emotion” is something I learned as an adult. It was not a named activity in my childhood. My mother hugged me when I cried. My father waited until crying eased and then told me to get to work. Fix whatever needed fixing, clean it up, make it right, repair, replace, make new, above all: do something productive about it. Don’t just sit there. Don’t wallow.

My dad did cry. I’ve seen him. He felt deeply. He could hug and give a peck on the cheek. He didn’t use words overmuch. Instead he expressed emotion in action: chopping wood, repairing sticking doors and stopping leaks. He dug. He carried boxes and grew food.

He planted seeds in carefully hoed rows, then weeded between them with the same hoe. He built dirt walls for irrigation water to feed the plants and not wash them away. He didn’t mulch between rows because getting enough organic matter to mulch with was near impossible without buying it. Everything plant-based got composted; even so there wasn’t much to put into it.

He expressed his love for his family by providing for their needs and some of their wants—not all. He and my mother were sparing in their use of funds, so much so that they had money left to pay for my travel to see them after my husband died. It was a saving principle: save, save, save, use enough but not too much, limit desires to what can be afforded.

My mother could cry and could get angry; I saw her do both. More often she picked up the nearest project and worked on it while thinking furiously. I mean that; she thought a lot, deeply and with intention. She consciously decided to sort things out before showing more reaction. I grew up seeing their practical bent, but I bawled a lot. My mother was more patient than my dad. He expected that you picked up your bootstraps and you went on, crying as needed but continuing. Sad emotions were not for giving in to; they seasoned life as you worked.

My father had parents who scrapped with each other until he was not sure they’d stay married. He and my mother worked hard to overcome their tempers and work together. By the time I knew my parents and grandparents, they had grown in self-discipline and attitude. My grandparents got along with each other, at least during the Sunday afternoons I saw them. My parents worked together—not usually on the same projects—but for the same ends, both doing separately things that meshed. My father grew and shucked the sweet corn; my mother cut it off the cobs and bottled it. They both enjoyed the results with their children.

I never knew how many times their tears fell in the doing. I suppose that every child is oblivious of their parents’ thoughts. It requires knowing yourself at least a little, long enough to observe something outside your own concerns. My own tears fell easily and often. I learned to consciously reduce my tendency to cry by sucking my thumb. That lasted until I was in eighth grade, almost 14 years old.

I made a choice then to look outside myself and try to help others, like my dad did. Like my mother, who brought in meals and gave people rides to church. It helped with my emotions. I still cry often, but I have learned to value doing things.