Homo Sum:
humani nil a me alienum puto

Today I picked up a poppy at the grocery store, and probably severely over-donated as part of that interaction.

I can’t help myself–one of the things that completely crack through my stern and manly¹ exterior is the “uniformed old men with dignity” thing. I see that guy, who’s probably a hundred years old, clearly making a conscious effort to maintain his rigid posture² and wearing even the simplest uniform with such unassailable dignity, and I just melt.

When I go to Remembrance Day ceremonies, I try to go to the ones held by currently serving military (in Halifax this means going to the ones at the Memorial rather than the ones at the Cenotaph) just so that I don’t see the surviving veterans making the effort to memorialize their comrades–I have been known to be reduced to tears³ just by seeing this kind of thing on television.

Anyway, this got me thinking about what other things are capable of sneaking through my security and puncturing my emotional Achilles’ Heel.

There are lots of things that can get a smile or an “Awww” out of me⁴, ranging from little kids meeting parents at the airport through to elderly couples holding hands on their walks, but I’m not talking about that stuff. I’m talking about the stuff that can actually reduce me to tears.

Other than the above mentioned thing, there were traditionally only three things that could dependably do this:

1. Self-sacrifice by innocents, typically including children or animals.
2. Children being placed in frightening or tragic situations that they are incapable of understanding
3. Children shouldering responsibility that is “beyond their years”

So, if the family dog falls into the river while saving the kids, that could get me. A child finding a dead parent and thinking they were asleep, and trying to wake them while becoming more and more scared, would definitely get me. The end of Old Yeller definitely gets me.

It’s interesting to me that all of these things relate, in one way or another, to innocence and the loss thereof. Apparently that area is my Achilles Heel. I wonder what that’s about. (I do note that one of the few things that a Manly Man is traditionally allowed to cry over is the death of a pet, particularly a dog. There’s got to be some connection.)

(Since becoming a parent there are other things I can’t deal with, including basically any story where we see a parent’s grief at something happening to a child–ER, and the dead baby of the week is right out–but this is fairly balanced by having much more complex reactions to all kinds of other works. A startling example is Joyce’s Smoking Poppy, which is a completely different read as a parent than it was before.)

Knowing this about myself, I am usually capable of preparing myself for emotional reactions, since it is rarely a surprise that you run into these kinds of things in entertainment. Occasionally, though, I get blind-sided.

For instance, I have been watching a lot of animated movies lately, since I try to fill Sarah’s 15-minutes-a-day of TV time with a cycle of movies and cartoons (this is my plan to avoid the traditional problem of kids wanting to watch the same thing over and over again). Most of these are films I’ve seen before (many when I was a kid), although I have also run into some gems that I somehow overlooked. I just ran into one of those gems, which functioned as essentially the Perfect Storm for my weaknesses, and I was completely unprepared for it.

I don’t know how I managed to avoid seeing, or even knowing anything about The Iron Giant until this recent viewing, but man, there is nothing quite as embarrassing as watching a movie with your three year old daughter and having her turn to you and ask why you are crying like a little baby⁵.

We have the giant, who is functioning effectively as just as much of an innocent as any child or animal. We place him in a situation where he doesn’t understand what’s happening, or why he’s being attacked, we have him overcome his instinctual reactions and then decide to sacrifice himself to save the very people who were attacking him… And you know, I was actually OK though all of that. Right up until the “Superman!” moment.

And then I lost it.

1. Yes, I am totally serious. I am a manly man. If something can even manage to cut my steel-hard skin, I bleed 100% pure testosterone.(back)
2. I’ve never stood that straight. And that’s with steel-hard skin to hold me up!(back)
3. Quiet, manly tears, natch.(back)
4. Remember, despite what you are reading here, I am definitely a Real Man. (I do like the occasional quiche, though.)(back)
5. A stoic, manly, baby, of course.(back)

Tags: cartoons,holidays,Like A Damn Diary,melancholy,parenting

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 27th, 2007 at 11:49 pm and is filed under Storytime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.