When Cristina Yang follows George out of Seattle Grace Hospital into the freezing night, she says, "Now you're in the Dead Dads Club, and the thing about that is you're not in it until you're in it."

Bless those writers for telling the Thursday night cult following of Grey's Anatomy what I've been telling folks in Wyoming for more than seven years now.

Until it happens to you, you can say every heartfelt sympathetic thing you can think of, but you can't be in the club - or know what it's like.

Maybe it was because George's dad succumbed to the same thing as Fritz the Dad - esophageal cancer.

Or perhaps it was that Thursday had been a particularly rough day.

But, as usual, my nearly blind eyes were moist before I even realized it.

The friend does not share my affection for the show - in fact, has never watched it from beginning to end. But because he is the friend, he patiently listens as I refrain from telling him the storyline but rather just say, "It was really good - I cried."

Because he has always thought - for more than 25 years - that I have the world's most overactive tear ducts anyway, he always says, "I'm sorry," to which I always reply, "It's OK."

And it really is OK. It's OK that a television show moves me to tears and it's OK that people think I cry abnormally often.

I don't think I do. And I think that if you're not moved to tears - happy or sad - once in a while, then you're not really living.

Many of my tears are happy. I laugh a lot and I tear up a lot.

And that's the way we were raised - in our really loud, really boisterous household.

We yell when we're mad because we were raised that showing restraint does absolutely no good in any situation.

We laugh - or cry - when we're happy.

And we cry when we're sad.

Two different times during the 28 years since I began my life here, I've written obituaries. And I'm more proud of that work than any other.

Much of my day is spent answering folks' questions about obituaries, because it's one of those things the vast majority of us don't find out about until we need to.

Because we are proud to print obituaries from all over Wyoming, as well as of former residents who die elsewhere, we often have more obituaries than we can squeeze in on a single day. But they all run - eventually - and I tell folks I feel like I'm chronicling Wyoming history when I do that.

Everyone's life is a story and condensing that into 12 inches is often a challenge. But I'm most happy to do it.

And to those recent inductees into the Dead Dads Club, as a seven-year member, I agree completely with Cristina when she says, "You'll never really know how to live without him."

Community News editor Sally Ann Shurmur is a big proponent of telling your Dad you love him. She can be reached at (307) 266-0520 or sallyann.shurmur@casperstartribune.net.