Stories That Make You Cry

This evening as we were having a quiet night of reading, my husband reminded me of a book and made me cry.

Let me set the scene.  My step-son was lying on the floor with his feet up next to the fire reading Airborn by Kenneth Oppal.  My 4yo old was tucked in bed after we read Goodnight Moon and sang our special song “Little Drummer Boy”.  My husband was on the loveseat reading a memoir by Dick Gregory and I was on the couch reading The Private Thoughts of Amelia E. Rye. 

As I was finishing reading a very poignant scene, I closed the book and said, “Ah, this is such a great book!”  I began telling my husband about it and he wasn’t finding it as endearing as I was.  I told him he needed to read more fiction.  He proclaimed that we have different tastes in books and that’s okay and then reminded me how we all read A Long Way From Chicago aloud together one summer through road trips and around camp fires. 

As he was recalling this, he was reminded of the scene at the end of the book with Grandma Dowdel.  This stoic no nonsense woman stayed up all hours of the night with every blasted light on in her house and waved like crazy as her grandson’s troop train passed by not in the hopes of seeing him, but that he would see her.   Just as I am now, the two of us opened the flood gates and down came the tears and our reflections about the story. 

Now that is powerful.  We read that book 3 years ago and still it evokes such memories.  And after a long day of worrying about work, worrying about kids, worrying about family, worrying about ‘what if’s, it’s nice to know that there are books that give us an outlet, an escape, a hope, a reminder of our blessings. 

So dear readers, which books make you cry?  I have a long list, so I’ll just leave you with my top two:  as mentioned above A Long Way From Chicago by Richard Peck and Rilla of Ingleside by L.M. Montgomery, the last of the Anne of Green Gables books – I defy anyone to read Walter’s letter to Rilla without crying!

So let’s hear yours!