The ending of <b>A Prayer For Owen Meany</b> always makes me cry. But now, because I know the book so well, I cry in advance. In fact, the last two times I read it, I couldn’t read the ending at all. Just put the book down about 50 pages before the end.
And a place - the junction of Tottenham Court Road, Charing Cross and Oxford Street in London, mists me up if I stand there and think. All of human life is there, right in the centre of my favourite city in the world.
“Compliments of the Concord Ladies’ Coffee Club,
and the Sisterhood of the Truro Synagogue,
and the Friday evening Baptist sewing circle
And the Holy Christian Sisters of St. Claire!!
All for you…John!
I am, as I ever was, and ever shall be…”
“Abigail, what’s in these kegs?”
“Saltpeter, John!”
Gets me every time. I can’t even sing it without tearing up!
Seeing other people grieve for dead loved ones (whether in real life, in books, or on screen) always makes me cry. “Ordinary People” and “Ponette” turn me into a wreck.
When I think about my lost love.
Bette Midler’s “You Are the Wind Beneath My Wings.” It makes me think of my mother, who was a wonderful, intelligent and caring person, who put everyone else’s needs first and died years before her time.
Related to that, the whole thing about sick or elderly cats having to be euthanized – my sister and I always promise them that Mom will hold them on her lap and pet them.
This is really sappy, but that song “Honey” about how the tree has grown so tall and the guy’s wife died?
Jim Croce’s “Time in a Bottle.” I think it was the last song he wrote, and it was all about how he’d finally found the person he wanted to go through time with forever.
Certain hallmark commercials will make me a bit teary.
A little alcohol consumption and THEN seeing certain hallmark commercials and I am an emotional wreck.
Oh, and I always secrete ocular fluids at weddings…
Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump pulling away from Lt. Dan at the edge of the water as he runs back into the jungle screaming “I gotta get Bubba!” The brotherhood of the soldier in four words.
“From this moment on” by Shania Twain has special meaning to my wife and I. The part where she goes up in her register and the strings and the guitar start to play gets me every time.
The thought of the people on United Flight 93 on September 11, 2001 making the decision that if they were going to die, they would do it fighting for thier lives and the lives of countless others on the ground. If I could choose the manner of my death, I could only hope to equal the nobility and sacrifice those people accomplished in thier final moments.
Right, now I’m crying at this.
I’ve cried at:
Countless movies, especially really touching ones with little children (*cough**Monsters, Inc.*cough)
Re-reading King Lear after a friend committed suicide. Her name was Cordelia. Naturally, I don’t read the play much these days.
The song “Stella Maris” by the Einstürzende Neubauten. Very touching song about two lovers that can only meet in dreams, but keep missing each other in said dreams. By the same band, “Seele Brennt” (Soul is on Fire). About a man who is slowly dying of a drug overdose and has just told his girlfriend.
A bunch of songs, especially those by Depeche Mode, Portishead, Nirvana (especially Nirvana) and Tori Amos.
The novel Gai-Jin by James Clavell. Great book, but the parts about André made me really sad–especially the desperate attempts to get Fujiko not to kill herself when she caught syphilis from him. And especially when he and Fujiko both died in a fire near the end of the book.
Lots more, but I don’t want to crush the hamsters.
I always smile when I hear that song.
The one that gets me is The Saw Doctors tune called , Wake up Sleeping.
sniff
I smile too, but it’s more of a awwww that’s beautiful smile, you know?
Maybe I’m misinterpreting the song, but I thought the image of prisoners singing with the cops on Christmas Day was pretty spellbinding.
At the end of Steel Magnolias, M’Lynn (Sally Field) has broken down and speaking of her daughter’s death she shouts with anguish “I want to know WHY!?!” I’ve seen the movie a dozen times and that one line still makes my throat seize up.
A friend of mine wrote a conceptual piece after September 11which includes these lines:
That just tears me apart.
I’ve owned one cat in my life. I got her when I was four, and she died when I was away at college, a few months after I’d turned 22.
She’d been having problems, and my parents decided it was time to euthanize her. They drove to the vet. My mom waited in the car with my cat wrapped in a towel, held in her arms. They didn’t want to disturb her by bringing her into the waiting room with all the other animals. My cat died there in the car, held by my mom.
She knew it was time, and wanted to go on her own terms. That, plus not being there for it, always gets me when I think about it.
tolyri, that made we well up, dammit!
I cry when watching the news almost weekly, now.
When the news story about the woman who bludgeoned her boys to death broke, I cried. I have an eight year old and I know he suffered and struggled through the whole ordeal.
>excuse me<
I can’t stand the thought of children suffering. That’s all I need to hear about to get me crying.
I cry at the end of Mulan, too. I cry at sad movies. I also get misty at very happy moments in movies, too. I’m having trouble thinking of an example at the moment.
I almost never cry about things that happen to me, though.
Taps
Unchained Melody
When a Man Loves a Woman
On Golden Pond
I am the person who said in a loud voice, over all the sniffing and boo hooing, at the sinking scene in Titanic , " Look people, you knew the boat sank in this movie, right? "
I am pretty hard hearted, even surprising myself on how little gets to me ( little wonder with my life.)
But daaaaamn, you show someone winning a Gold Medal in any sport, Badmiton, fercrying out loud, any country like Taiwan, and I am bawling like a idiot. I am just so happy for that person from Phuketville winning and acheiving a life goal.
**
When we were visiting friends in England, somehow the conversation came up about November 11th at 11am the entire nation come to a standstill to commemorate those that died to fight in WWI in a moment of silence.
This just blew my husband and I away. I was in near tears and I told our friend that something like this would never happen in our country. She was shocked that the US didn’t do anything like this as we were a big part of the war and we were shocked that they did something.
Now, after September 11th, I totally understand.
**
There is a scene in Harry Potter #4 during the Goblet of Fire and Harry holding off Voldemort with his wand, and when the spectre of his mother climbs out and whispers, " Hold on Harry, your father is coming." I just bawl.
In Night by Elie Weisel, after the concentration camp prisoners are forced to do a death march barefoot in Winter with barely any clothes and no food and near zero rest ( sleeping usually meant death from exposure/exhaustion) and when the prisoners at last make it to the next concentration camp they were relieved because they had made it. They were releived because they had survived something worse than hell and stood at the gates of another concentration camp. I just bawled like I have never bawled before.
This is kinda lame, but when the Red Wings won the cup the second time in Washington and brought Vladimir Konstantinov out on the ice, I misted up a bit.
The original short version of Flowers for Algernon gets me just thinking about it.