Can You Read One of These Without Welling Up?

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

“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, 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;

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:

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.