To Cry For

I'm not the most emotional person you could meet. I keep most of the "big" emotions locked down tight and don't share them or show them often. Oh, you'll see me laughing and smiling often enough, or possibly angry, but you won't see me sad or hurt very often.

Movies and stories in a very specific area do bring out the tears in me, though. If I'm watching a story where the protagonists are making the choice to sacrifice themselves or purposely do something knowing they will fail but choosing to do it anyway, the action stirs something within me.

Last night, my wife caught me with tears streaming down my face. I was watching an ESPN E:60 story about a child who simply loves baseball but was born with progeria. The child was 7, but had a body of a 60-70 year. He only grew to be 27" tall. He had to overcome almost dying in the hospital at birth, and a host of illnesses and trouble since then. But all the child wanted to do was play baseball, so the parents talked with a little league coach, got him the gear, and he "played" a game. By his last game in the league, other teams came to watch him play and cheer him on. While they had to cheat a bit to allow him to play (being so much smaller and weaker than all the other children), no one seemed to be doing it from any where other than a place of love and hope. He isn't expected to live more than a year or two more at the rate his body is aging.

When we went to watch Rocky Balboa in the theaters, I got misty eyed at the end. No, it isn't great cinema, but they played my emotions just right having the aging Rocky taking on the Young Stud boxer in an exhibition match and, while not winning, going the distance when no one thought he could and allowing him to leave the ring on his terms.

One scene that always gets me is in the John Boorman classic Excalibur. When Arthur and his very few remaining knights ride out to take on Mordred's army. The classical operatic music is playing in the background and, as they ride to a hopeless battle, the trees bloom and flower around them.

Another scene that gets me every time is the end of A.I.: Artificial Intelligence. The robot, just wanting to find the family he is programmed to love unconditionally, finds instead the "blue fairy" and sits, frozen in ice for a millenia waiting for his miracle and to become a "real boy". Soon, the aliens come and extract from his memory knowledge all about those who used to live on the planet and give him his hearts desire just before his battery runs out and he "dies."

I'm not sure what it is about these hopeless situations that stirs something in me, but they get me every time it seems. I'm wondering if I was part of a hopeless cause in some past life and those situations now speak to me in this one. Or maybe those situations are just the key to the lock on the black box where I keep my emotions.