Can You Read One of These Without Welling Up?
64Are you sitting comfortably? Then we shall begin.
I am delving back into my past here, and bringing forth some feelings which surfaced last night for some reason. I don’t know why, but I suddenly remembered reading stories to children in my classes when I was a teacher.
I did my best to be a good teacher; well, let’s admit it, I usually managed it. I still number ex-pupils among my very best friends, so I couldn’t have been such a monster. Some of my strengths were telling stories and reading stories. I had, for all of my teaching life, Primary School children, from eight year olds to eleven year olds. Usually the tens and elevens.
Now some of the stories that I told or read, were classics, and some were whimsy, and some were stories that I made up specifically for those particular classes or children.
If it’s a made up story, or a recounting of a familiar story, or whimsy, then it is acceptable to tell the story in one’s own words. But there are Classics, and Classics were written, obviously by authors with style, and could use nuance, and the right word for the right purpose, so it would be arrogant to try to just retell these classics.
Children’s stories fall into several categories, and it would be unwise of me to try and remember each and every one of them; I’d be bound you leave one important group out. I can say here and now, that there are some which I had to (What do I mean by “Had to”?) read. I wanted to… but, I also have to admit that I am a very sentimental person. There were some stories that I found so, so, so difficult to read without there being a catch in my voice, or plain old fashioned tears.
And here is where this seemingly interminable hub is leading.
You will know when I have to tell a very sad story, or report a very sad piece of news; it is what my friend Judi and I call the Gareth Gates Syndrome.
Who? Gareth gates is a British pop star who came to fame through Pop Idol almost ten years ago. He is a lovely singer, but has a severe stammer, and he managed to control that stammer by blowing out air just before he speaks… I employ the same when I have to deliver sad news, or to cover up that I am feeling very tearful. So when I am reading a sad story, if you watch carefully, and you see me look as if I am about to whistle, but just blow out air… there you are… it’s my covering technique.
I have in my mind, five books, or short stories, which I find I cannot read without really giving the game away. My challenge to you is:
Could you read any of these to a child or an adult, or anyone, and not be moved?
I am not giving the story away, but just telling you the part that really wipes me out:
‘The House at Pooh Corner’ by A. A. Milne
The last chapter in
‘The House at Pooh Corner’ by A. A. Milne
In which Christopher Robin gives a Pooh party, and we say Goodbye.
Pooh doesn’t really understand, but he knows that his good friend Christopher Robin must go away, but he also knows that they will live in each other’s hearts forever.
‘The Selfish Giant’ by Oscar Wilde
This lovely and uplifting story can usually be found in the collection: 'The Happy Prince and Other Stories'
‘The Selfish Giant’ by Oscar Wilde
The Selfish Giant sees the marks in the hands and feet of the Child and asks “Who did these things to you?”
‘The Incredible Journey’ by Sheila Burnford
‘The Incredible Journey’ by Sheila Burnford
When those animals come running over the horizon and their family, who had thought them perished months before, run to meet them.
I saw a whole primary school sitting and listening to the Head Teacher read this and you could hear a pin drop… she had tears in her eyes, but not one child was not caught up in the moment.
‘A Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens
‘A Christmas Carol’
by Charles Dickens
And Ebenezer Scrooge looks in the corner, to see a little crutch, and he says. “And what? No Tiny Tim?”
‘The Happy Prince’ by Oscar Wilde
‘The Happy Prince’
by Oscar Wilde
“Bring me the two most precious things in the city,” said God to one of His Angels; and the Angel brought Him the leaden heart and the dead bird.
I challenge anyone to read that aloud and not weep.
We all have a story
We all have a story, whether it is true, or whether it is fiction. Regardless, the truth is in our soul. I have a story I wrote once, that breaks my heart every time I read it. It is too personal to share with anybody but if I want to look deep into my soul, I read it and I shed tears. They are my own private tears, but none the less beautiful for that.
It is the way that we can relate to incidents and feeling that make us just that little more human; more compassionate; empathetic. To be able to share emotions with one other person, or with a group, is a very special and important thing. Shared passions are so much more binding than if one were to live, or attempt to live, in isolation.
So, if you can share an emotional piece of prose, or poetry, or something visual, or perhaps some music, or perhaps a favourite scene from a movie, with others, you are in danger of showing your weaknesses… but if they are weaknesses, I have my doubts. I feel they are strengths.
Laugh, and the world laughs with you?
Laugh, and the world laughs with you;
Weep, and you weep alone.
This is a quotation from a poem by Ella Wheeler. Strangely it is a quotation which almost everybody knows, yet few misquote. Nonetheless, I challenge it to be a very shallow thought. If we, as inhabitants of this planet can buy into that, then we are the poorer for it.
I prefer John Donne’s much more inspiring;
‘For Whom the Bell Tolls’
I would be churlish to select just a few words from this beautiful and uplifting poem, and here give it in its entirety:
For Whom the Bell Tolls
by
John Donne
No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.
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Thank you Donna. I appreciate your comment. As soon as I saw that it was you commenting, I was really pleased, and even more pleased to see what you have written. It's from the heart, as you know.
Ian
This has brought back lovely memories of you sitting there, commanding your audience and us all mesmorised by your words! I remember only too well your fondness for the Winnie the Pooh tales, and it was our favourite too. We were so young and unaware of your sentimentality back in the late 60s, but knowing you now as a friend, but still as a mentor, I am relishing in knowing your soft side. You made such an impact on us all, for which we are eternally grateful. x
Look at the title of my hub, Janice. I've just welled up reading your lovely comment. I think I'm going to have to add your comment to my list.
Love you,
Ian
This brings back memories to me, of you doing your best to teach us this poem. What patience you had? Its just it took me over 30 years to learn it, then I still had to ask you for help, but always brings a tear to my eye. Love You xxx
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?—
No time to stand beneath the boughs,
And stare as long as sheep and cows:
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass:
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance:
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began?
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
Debbie, I can only vaguely remember teaching that... but I'm sure I must have lost the will to live after the first four lines. Maybe Mrs Robertson asked me to teach it. It was Molly Robertson who I described reading 'The Incredible Journey'... did you realise that?
Love you too, Debbie
x
Ian,
What a beautiful thing for you to share this part of yourself with us. I feel honored to have gotten to partake of even a small part of your gift of self through this hub. And I have to say, the quote of weeping alone is incorrect...I have a hard time letting anybody cry alone in my presence. Thank you for sharing friend...it's lovely.
Angie
Oh! Oh! House at Pooh Corner is a personal fave! I cry on the animal story and love, but was terrified of Christmas Carol first few times out. (Whistling)
Ok.. well shoot, you are right.. *sniff*.. now.. back to what I was doing.. hey! I wasn't doing anything! Ha! Easy!
Hi Twilight,
We do share the same passion for books. I have read most of what you listed above. My fave is "The Happy Prince". It's such a must read and a tear-jerker as well.
Keep on writing,you have the gift.God bless.
Angie, I was so pleased to see your name and see that you had made a comment. Somehow we get to know our new friends on HP and I thought you would appreciate it. Thank you so much for reading through and your beautifully sensitive comments.
Ian
I'm looking deep into a Reflecting Pool and I am seeing such depths.
You doing nothing? I don't believe you for one minute. You have a mind that is working all the time, my friend. Thanks for reading my hub, and Yes! Winnie-ther-Pooh (That's right, it is written that way once in the books)... Winnie-ther-Pooh Rules!
Hi Theseus. Yes, I know, by reading your hubs, that you love books. Thanks for stopping by and taking the time to read my hub, and for your charming comments.
Ian,
You know me well already my friend. I must be honest with you, your hubs are the ones I look the most forward to. They are so well written, and filled with either your wonderful wit, or your gentle soul...both characteristics which I value greatly. Please don't ever stop writing.
Thank you, my dear friend. Comments like that keep me going, when I feel that I am not reaching anybody but myself. And that happens quite a lot at times. Bless you!
I'm glad my comments help to keep you inspired to write. I honestly love to read yours. I haven't had as much energy to comment lately, with some of the things going on in my life, but I just wanted you to know that I so look forward to reading your hubs...and I read each new one you put up. And even if I don't comment I'm there clicking that vote up button! :)
Wow. Great morning for positive comments... Thank you. You start to get into gear yourself, Angie and take care of yourself.
Hello Ian, my dearest word scholar... I am never in awe as much as when I read something of you!
Hello Kevin. It is great to hear words like that, but from you, they are so very special... You have such a lot on your plate right now, but you always are so positive about so many things. It's hearts (Eek! My verb doesn't compliment my noun) like yours that make this world a better place.
Hello my friend, I was thinking as I lay in bed last night in my very cold bedroom without heat and temperatures dropping here in the Midwest, that we could do so much more with a kind word and heartfelt dialogue than the snarky, cheap shots and condescending rhetoric being bantered about.
I began to wonder if I couldn't be that voice... the one who speaks to people and not at people, respectfully and without malice.
I'm just not sure where to start!
Dear Kevin, What do you mean by, you don't know where to start. You have started; long before I knew you. You are a kind, compassionate person. I don't know if you have reserved that for a chosen few (i.e. me and some other lucky ones) but you have been a rock and a source of inspiration since I have known you, and that is what I call being well into the journey... not just at the starting blocks.
I am sorry to say I haven't read all of your examples, yet I know just what you mean. I myself am a bit of a sentimental fool and become teary at the strangest things--or so it seems to others, but to me my reasons make perfect sense. I think perhaps I connect things differently, but then everyone has their own memories that they apply to things. It's the animal stories that get to me the most. Thanks for making me think.
Thanks for that, Chris. I am extremely sentimental, and will cry buckets at the final scene when the father turns to his son, and says the right thing, and the manly tears spring to the eyes of both. Credits come up on the screen. Audience starts to move out. I am sitting there unable to move, bathed in less than manly tears... you know the scenario.
But in real life, when my father left my mother and me and embraced me for the first time in my life that I can remember, I had to summon up crocodile tears.
Sorry if this has turned into an essay.
However; Give me a sentimental book, movie or poem, and yes, give me one with an animal in it, sick or well, and I blubber like the next hysterical and lachrymose person.
lachrymose? Ha! You wield your vocabulary like a club, and hate banged me upside my now-aching head.
Of all the quotes/extractions from the classics you mentioned, this is the one that touched me the most - it was yours.
"It is the way that we can relate to incidents and feeling that make us just that little more human; more compassionate; empathetic. To be able to share emotions with one other person, or with a group, is a very special and important thing. Shared passions are so much more binding than if one were to live, or attempt to live, in isolation.
So, if you can share an emotional piece of prose, or poetry, or something visual, or perhaps some music, or perhaps a favourite scene from a movie, with others, you are in danger of showing your weaknesses… but if they are weaknesses, I have my doubts. I feel they are strengths."
Loved your hub.
Jewels, I am so flattered, so charmed, so grateful that you stopped to read, and that you enjoyed it so much. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
Brings back memories of my school years. Some of these I have read and even then when I was still young I enjoyed them and became engrossed with some. Thanks for sharing
Thank you for visiting my hub, Luis. And thank you for the comment. You are welcome, whenever you wish to delve again.
What a wonderful teacher you were Ian.. I read this and suddenly saw "Ian" behind all the poetry..I loved a story called The Box Car Children when I was little..came out in the 60's I believe. Have looked for it but never found it. Not the newer series but one book. Thanks for sharing.
Sunnie
Thank you, Sunnie. I appreciate the parallels. If you ever get a chance, buy the book, 'I'll Take You to Mrs Cole' and read it to your grandson... and any other grandchildren you have. It is one of the most amusing, warm, lovely books. I used to read it and read it and read it to the children in my classes... when I wasn't reading stories I had written for them.
Have a look at "non hubbers" in comments. They are a couple of girls I taught when I first started teaching in London.
Thanki you Ian I will get it..I love to read to my grandchildren...reading to children is the best thing one could do. ;)
Twilight, as you will now be aware I am a Pooh fan, and a softie. I can't speak for the other books you mention as I am not a great reader - so this only concerns the Pooh story.
I have tried to read that without crying, and I can't. It hit me particularly hard when reading the story to my child. There I was, the man yet still a child, reading a book I had had read to me by people now gone. And those dear and precious people had read to a child now gone. And one day, soon, as indeed happened, my child will move on. Life seems very.. I don't know.. big.. sometimes.
Thanks for writing about it.
Wow brilliant. I simply love 'The Happy Prince' - one of my absolute favourites - and yes I still 'well' up!!! Gotta say I love the all; especially 'Winnie the Pooh'!!!
Mark, that is one of the loveliest comments one could ever read:
"There I was, the man yet still a child, reading a book I had had read to me by people now gone. And those dear and precious people had read to a child now gone. And one day, soon, as indeed happened, my child will move on. Life seems very.. I don't know.. big.. sometimes."
It seems almost futile selecting such a large section of your writing to show what I meant, but it is so... I know there must be a word for it, but I can't think what it is, right now.
It's deep (and I didn't realise until recently that you did "deep")
acaetnna, it is so lovely to realise that there are so many people who do remember Pooh and all his chums, and that they are not only here, where he originated, but on the other side of the pond. Is it that we are surrounded by lovely people because HP has attracted them. or are there armies of Pooh lovers?
Regardless, I am so glad you are also (as if you could be anything else) and that you liked 'The Happy Prince'. So glad you came to visit again,
Ian
This is an awesome hub! Love all of the books, the only one I've never read is The Selfish Giant, but I now intend to buy a copy! I'm just reading The BFG to my daughter who is 3, and she loves it, so I think I'll have to read her some of these now too!
'The Selfish Giant' is included in a book entitled 'The Happy Prince and Other Stories' (by Oscar Wilde, obviously).
I hope you enjoy reading it and your daughter enjoys it also. Some of the words are a little difficult, but the poetry of it all carries it along.
Brings back a lot of lovely memories of you reading stories to a group of mesmerised children (me included) huddled at your feet!
Thank you for being a great part of my life.
Love you lots.
xx
Thank you, Tina. That was so lovely to read and to hear. Love you lots, too.
Khuda Hafiz
Me
I can't think of a book that brings me to tears but there is a movie "Pay it Forward". It will have me bawling even when I try not to.
I love that movie too, Becky. The last scene is so touching. I also cry at the end.
Some of my most favourite actors are in that. In fact, I think every actor in it is one of my all time favourites.
What a cast. What direction. What a story.
I agree with all you have said. The young boy, I cannot remember his name, is so talented and has such a grip on his emotions in everything he does. I am very impressed with him and have to watch every movie he is in.
Haley Joel Osment. He was also in 'The Sixth Sense' and 'A.I.@ (Artificial Intelligence) one of the saddest movies I have ever seen. The final scene haunts me sometimes.
Lovely Hub, Twilight. I've read all your suggested reading and agree wholeheartedly, they are some of the best for both children (and adults). I've tossed away so many books over the years but I still have all my A.A. Milne hardcovers displayed proudly on the shelf. I also fondly recall drawing my own personal illustrations for "The Secret Giant", so you have brought back some pleasant memories. As for sharing deep stuff, it wasn't until I joined HP two years ago this month that I began to dip my foot and my pen into that private realm. One must go there with a bit of caution, the internet being what it is I'm afraid.
Green Lotus, we are just two of a kind. I imagine how inspired you must have been by the story to want to draw the Giant.
And my four Milne books are on the shelf too. In fact, one is so battered that hardly a page sits well and the cotton binding at the beck is all fray and hanging out, but to get rid of it would be to get rid of an old family member.
Yes, welling up is something I know too well :)
I can well up when reading books, watching movies or even telling a story... I always found it funny that when we are watching a movie together, my girlfriend never sheds a tear, and I am too often caught with tears in my eyes...
A very deep hub, and I particularly enjoyed reading the comments. I have a lot of teachers I will love all of my life, and I can understand your students reading and commenting here.
Enough for tonight, but I'll probably be back tomorrow to read more of my new friend's hubs :)
Nemanja, I feel grateful and honoured to have read all your wonderful comments, and to hear that you have enjoyed my efforts.
Thank you, you have really made my day.
The pleasure was all mine, Ian - believe me :)
donna bamford 16 months ago
Wondreful hub twilight. I am familiar with most of your examples and share your sentimentss wholeheartedly!
Hope many read it!