What is the most intense sadness you have felt which was related to someone you didn't even know? ( Archived) (35)

The tears of a grown man who doesn't feel the slightest bit of love is allowed in this world can really get to you. I will never forget it. Strange, it was a very short moment, many years ago, and it was by pure chance I was offered the opportunity, but it has remained as possibly one of the most valuable moments ni my life.
No, not possibly, it most definitely is one of the most important!

I was down with fever, home from work, this is more than 10 years ago. Not much to do than lie there and either feel sorry for yourself, or use the time to learn something new. I chose the latter, I always have. In Sweden, we're with the gift of daytime telly being hours of the educational kind. It can be language courses, it can be simple documentaries about places far off my own shores, it can be anything. This day served a special kind of story.

It was a piece about life in Peru, somewhere above the city of Trujilo. A smaller town towards the higher of the mountain sides. This native man of the land, stood somewhere below the mighty Andes, dressed in a raggedy poncho, that characteristic hat they wear, worn out trousers hanging high, with end of legs giving us a gap to his sandals, not covering all the way down.
They followed this man as he walked.... oh no, he didn't walk, he bloody climbed that mountainside forever, up to a glacier. He would do this every day. A trek which lasted almost a full shift. He would chop a huge lump of ice off, and carry it on his back, so heavy you wondered under which torture his spinal was, he would take it down towards the valley below, and the town nested inside the valley's bosom. The man was around 30, but he looked 50 or more. The rough life under a rough climate but even more so the exhausting which is poverty had chiseled distinct and sad marks on his by weather and, like I said, other much sadder issues tortured face, a pain at full display once you looked him in the eyes.

As he came down that day of the camera being there, this man who carried an enormous lump of ice to town where he intended to sell it to one of the local stores, for them to break it to pieces and with it have keep their soft drinks cool, as he was walking from the cold towards the warmer below, you could only feel admiration. Here was this man who woke up every morning, climbed the side of a mountain to knock out a piece of ice as big as he could muster carry, because it was the only means he had of trying to provide for his family.

Is this a chore you would look forward to wake to, every morning?

On this day, he came down, and right before he arrived with his heavy load a truck had passed through town. A new truck, which sold ice at a very cheap rate. Not a single store in town wanted this man's services. A full day he had spent getting up there on the mountain, carrying the ice down, and now he was sat in front of a store, his last stop, crying as he realized he would not get it sold, not get a coin for his effort, as the ice was melting next to him under the sun. He was devastated, knowing he would return home to his family that day with no money for food, or money for anything else.

As the man broke down in tears, I did as well I must confess. Tears just appeared under my eyes as I saw his tears.

My mind has often throughout the years ventured towards that man and his family, curious what became of him, of them. It is amazing what us humans are capable of, what we can endure, what we can over-win, overcome and live through. Sometimes, it's only a melting block of ice on a street in a little town within the borders of a Peru I've never visited which makes you realize how fortunate you are with what little you have to endure, what little to overcome, and what an easy life you have.

Bless that man! I often think about him. I wish he could be my friend.

I cried when Ronald Reagan died!!

And he's who?

Best i stay away from this thread, i'll be jumping off the roof if i'm not careful.

Put the razor blades away, take down the roof, put the heating on and take the piss on here.

You'll be fine.

Just some guy that made movies then hung out in Washington, occasionally

Wow - that does sound like something that might jerk a tear or two out of me as well, P.

The most affected I've been by someone dying whom I didn't know was J. Morrison. I remember walking around in a bleary-eyed daze all day when I learned he'd died.

I lost it when the space shuttle blew up and you could see the farther of the lady teacher on board who perished on the flight with the other members,,when it blew up you could see her mother and father, you could see the life drain out of the dad as he watched.

I feel extreme pain and rage when I hear of a child or elderly being abused or killed.I nearlyalways feed someone I see asking for money by the road.I never give them money,but I will go get them something to eat.