A Somewhat Comprehensive List of Things that Make Me Cry

Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number hree is you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it - if you laugh, you think, and you cry, that's a full day. That's a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you're gonna have something special.

Jim Valvano

I figured after last night's Mark Schultz post, I'd just go the Full Monty and show everyone what a big baby I am. Below is a list of things that make me cry, without fail, every single time I'm exposed to them. Notable exceptions will be listed below. Larry's list is as follows:

• About half of the Mark Schultz song catalog, as we discussed yesterday.
• The Lifehouse Everything skit. It's like its own little prayer to me. I don't know any better way to explain it.
• The video WGN showed from the end of the Cubs' 2004 season, which thanks to MLB's fascist media policies I can't show to you because it's not posted anywhere. It was played to Finger Eleven's "One Thing," it had Todd Walker doing the Superman slide across home plate, it was just awesome. And then Chip Caray and Steve Stone both quit. I'm crying right now as I type this.
  
• The charge of the Rohirrim from the film version of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King. Everything Peter Jackson screwed up when making those movies - a list I could write an entire blog ranting and raving about, mind you - is forgiven by this scene.
• Jimmy V's ESPY speech from 1993. The man was dying of cancer - so weak that he had to be helped down the stairs - and he still managed to be a better human being than I could ever hope to be.
• The Passion of the Christ. Granted, I've only seen it once, but it absolutely overwhelmed me. I was crying for three people when I saw it in the theater.
• October 14th, 2003
  

The notable exceptions I mentioned at the start of the post: my family. Not because I don't love them, mind you, because they mean the world to me. But because I'm daddy to the kids and husband to Holli, the things that would make me cry - most notably, any pain they might experience - I've got to help them get past. So when Holli is feeling down, one of the girls is going through the stuff little girls go through, or Connor rips his ear open on the posts outside our church, I don't have the luxury of being able to cry with them. I have to stay calm and do my job, because at that time, I'm called upon to be their support. For a crybaby, as I've now been totally revealed to be, that can be difficult.