I am a crier, and I'm sure it has been genetically bequeathed, just like the green-gold eyes. It's the kind of thing I warn people about so they aren't frightened or repulsed when the pipes burst.

I'm not talking here about the odd crying jag on a long and lonely evening, or the errant, silky drop that slips out during "Dr. Zhivago." I am talking tears for every occasion: Something goes wrong. I am snubbed, or my boyfriend yells at me, or I cannot get the goddamned customer service people to help me out. I suddenly remember that I hate my job, or I am momentarily overwhelmed by love. I am mean to someone -- accidentally or on purpose. I get sad or frustrated or angry or any combination of the above. And it begins.

My nose starts to tingle, just inside the nostrils. My upper lip and forehead bead with sweat. The tingle then creeps north, lands behind my eyes and burns its way out. Ground zero. All at once my eyes well, fill and spill. Sometimes I can stop within a few minutes; other times, a few hours. Once, in college, after my first freshman boyfriend and I called it quits -- after three whole months! -- I believe I cried for 24 hours straight.

Afterward is no bargain either. Eyelids red, nose pink, cheeks puffy, brow sweaty, eyebrows all weird and dented: I am a litmus test of grief. Sometimes I am terrified that my face will get stuck, like my parents warned when I made faces as a kid, only mine will be frozen in midweep.

Mom, as you may expect, also is a large-type book when it comes to grief. Now that we live in separate places, it's her phone voice that tips me off. "Oh I meant to tell you, I saw the (cutest, saddest, most depressing) thing," she begins. "It was on TV. There were (seal pups, conjoined twins, mothers of septuplets, cancer patients, paralyzed marathon runners) and I was watching it and, oh, I can't even say it, I'm going to start to cry ..."

And she does. Her voice gets creaky. She's off. And as if we were twins, genetically hard-wired to each other, my nose starts to burn. I swear. Every single time my mother cries -- no matter how hokey or dire the cause -- my body reacts in kind.

In these moments I scramble for camouflage. Sometimes I growl and get tough, pretending she is silly for crying over such things. Sometimes I laugh. Often I clam up, feign impassivity. This was the drill when I was in Greece for the summer a few years back and I phoned home one night to check in.

"Have you talked to your roommate?" she inquired, gingerly.

On guard immediately, sensing a waver in her tone, I asked, "Why?"

"Oh, honey," she said, far away. "I have some bad news."

"Who died?" I demanded. My heart pounded in my bony chest. People around me were stumbling, laughing, drunk. It was late at night.

"Not who ...," she said, the familiar creakiness seeping across oceans. That was the only clue I needed, but she went on to tell me about my cat, Max, and his sudden illness, and how my other cat was OK, but as she spoke all I could hear were her tears and I was silent. "Honey, I'm so sorry," she said.

"I'm fine," I reassured her, frozen. "Really. Don't cry." But I was not fine. I was angry. A scrawled journal entry from that time says, "Max is gone. I cannot even be alone with my grief because my mother begins to cry as she tells me and I must stop her pain by holding onto my own."

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