Another way to get to know you guys

M

memphis salsero

OK I'm not sure how well this one will go over, but when I'm meeting new people I always ask them a set of questions that were once asked of me that I thought were great. I drilled LWBG with them when we first met. My fear is that they will be too personal for an internet forum but here goes the first one anyway:

The first is about 2 situations when you felt so overhwhelmed with an emotion that you just broke down in tears.

1- When you were so happy and life was so good that you it was more than you could take

2- When nothing was happening to you, but your love for someone else and their situation was so intense that you literally wept for them.

If these are to much I'll ask another question next week that is not quite so heavy, but I'd like to read answers to these
 
AS I think about replying to my own question I'm realizing that I dont think I'm comfortable enough to post this stuff for everyone to read. However maybe it'll help this thread going, then again maybe not. Here goes:

Well start on the downer. So I am a normal person, meaning I had a tough childhood as it seems most of us had. My dad's heavy usage of drugs would be the primary cause of most of my childhood trauma. there was a time though when I was a kid that I can remember what my dad was like pre-drug addiction. However, for my little brother Louis (he is 14 now) there was no such time. He has never had much of a father and I think I am about the closest he has ever had to a male role-model. So Louis is pretty calloused, he has seen his dad violent so many times, he even saw his big brother (me) and his father fist fight in the living room and it didn't affect him much. It takes alot to make him cry just b/c he has grown numb to pains that would break some full-grown men.

Well a couple years ago my mom was out of town and I was at a meeting that would go for a few hours. My dad decided to sieze the oppertunity of my mom being gone and take as many pills as possible. Well he took one handlefull to many and ended up overdosing. The events after were pretty graphic with my other brother trying to revive him and it not working and the ambulance coming and all. My father was clinically dead and it all happened right in fron of Louis. When I got out of the meeting and sped home like a mad man I saw Louis's face. He was young, maybe 12 and he was trying so hard to be tough and not cry, but he couldn't help it. That was to much for me and I lost it and started crying. My tears had othing to do with me or anything, this actually wasnt the first or last time my dad overdosed (by the way he ws revived in the ambulance). Seeing my little brother hurt like that though was ___________, I dont know what word to put there. That was pretty intense compassion over someone elses pain. Little brothers can do that to you like no one else.
 
Ok so to livin up the mood again with a happier post. I used to work for a ministry called SOS (service over self), it is like Habitat for Humanity. It was set up as a summer camp. I was on staff as a team leader and each week I would take a group of teenagers to a house in a poor part of town and we would remodel houses for people who couldn't afford to. THis one house was particularly bad. The bathroom floor was about to cave in and the plumbing in their didn't work. The worst part were all the roaches. Lets just say that when I blocked the kitchen off and set a bug bomb off it sounded like a literal severe thunderstorm in the kitchen, we had to throw away all their food and dishes b/c of them. That summer (it takes awhile with highschoolers) we completely re-modeled their kitchen, bathroom, and laundry room, and fixed all the plumbing, and killed the bugs.

All that isn't what made me so happy though. There were maybe 8 people on any given day living in that house and two of them were girls who were 10 and 12. They absolutel fell in love with the girls that would be on my teams each week. One week we got to take them back to the SOS building and let them eat and shower. They seriously did not know how to take a shower, and they just stood under the hot water forever b/c it felt so good to them. They ate so much and had so much fun. They had also been wearing the same clothes for 2 weeks so we got to wash them as well. Without hesitation I can say those two girls at that time were happier and more grateful that any other human beings I've ever seen. Watching them jump and sing at the program that night was ___________ (again cant think of a good enough word). Seeing that makes you realize what life is all about, why its worth it to go through whatever trials you have.

You would think being surrounded by so much pain and poverty all summer (2 summers actually) it would weigh on me, but it in fact had the opposite effect. I grew so much as a person and it just completely changed my priorities. I definately had a sense of overwhelming joy :D
 
This could be a great thread if some one could think of questions that people would be willing to answer and the others would want to know. As of right now I'm drawing a blank - can anyone come up with something?
 
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